The attainment of this position during storm and snow, or when the rigging, as not unfrequently happens, is covered with glassy ice, is the chief matter of discomfort, difficulty, and risk. The frigid northerly blast feels as if blowing quite through and through you. The ascent, by the ordinary rigging and ratlings, conducts you to about three-fourths of the elevation of the top-mast; you then step into midships, upon a series of battens extending betwixt the top-mast backstays; and, finally, when approaching the cross-trees, you proceed up a vertically stretched ladder of ropes and battens,—ropes on the sides, and battens as steps,—until you make lodgment within the crow’s nest by the trap-hatch, which, being then put down, forms a part of the close and secure platform.
Section V.—Extraordinary Celerity in preparing an empty Boat for active Service in the Fishery.
In the celerity with which he accomplished complex or tedious operations pertaining to seamanship or the whale-fishery, my Father stood quite unrivalled. We have elucidated this characteristic in a former section, in respect to the flensing of a young whale with extraordinary rapidity, and we now adduce another example of a more incidental nature.
During the outward passage towards the fishing-stations, the boats, designed for the fishery, are carried out in an entirely dismantled state,—some being stowed away upon deck, and some, perhaps, below. On reaching the ice it is usual to suspend a couple of boats, or more, by their davits, at the quarters of the ship, to be ready for sealing, or any occasional purpose. But the whale-lines and other fishing apparatus are not wont to be put into them until the ship reaches, or approaches near to, some of the accustomed fishing-stations.
The boats of the Resolution were in this second condition on the 11th of April, 1808, when the ship, in her progress northward, had reached the 71st degree of latitude,—a parallel in which whales were not expected to be met with. It happened, however, on the occasion alluded to, (as I find it noted in my log-book, kept at the time,) that a whale made its appearance very near to the ship. It was in the morning, early, whilst my Father was yet in bed; but he was not called, because, in the unprepared condition of the boats, the officer of the watch, and indeed all the people on deck, considered the pursuit of it to be utterly impracticable.
My Father, however, as little trammelled in judgment by ordinary usages as he was in the habit of being guided by popular ideas of the limits of practicability, was much annoyed by the officer’s assumption, which had prevented his being called. “It was no use disturbing you,” the officer pleaded, “as there was not a boat in readiness for the fishery.” “But a boat might have been got ready,” was the confidently asserted rebuke. That this could have been done, however, within the short period of time in which a solitary whale might be expected to remain within sight, seemed to the officers as utterly impossible; for whilst a whale, under such circumstances, would seldom be found to remain within sight for half an hour, the preparing of the boats with lines, harpoons, and other requisites for the fishery, would, as they conceived, occupy several hours.
My Father maintained, however, the practicability of a boat being fitted out, in a manner sufficient for efficiency, in the course of a quarter of an hour; and, when the idea was unhesitatingly objected to as an impossibility, he undertook to prove his assertion. A boat then hanging at the larboard quarter, empty, except as to oars, he selected for an experiment, and undertook, with the help only of the watch upon deck,—about sixteen hands,—to have that boat ready for active service within the space of fifteen minutes.
To the due apprehending of this unprecedented undertaking, it will be proper to describe what is ordinarily deemed needful for fitting out a boat for the harpooning and capturing of the whale. The loose furniture of oars, harpoons, lances, etc., present no particular difficulty; but the supplying of an adequate quantity of lines, and placing them in a condition for being safely run out, is, as ordinarily practised, a long and tedious operation. The lines, it may be mentioned, are taken on board from their winter storehouse, in coils made up by the ropemaker, in the shape of a short drum, each coil weighing a little more than a hundred-weight, and measuring 120 fathoms in length. They are so coiled, in regular layers, commencing with that of the slender square or cylindrical centre on which they are wound, that they may be either unwound, by reversing the original motion of the coil from the exterior, or by taking up the inner end left loose in the open centre, the line may be drawn out thence whilst the coil remains at rest. For the lodgment of the lines, when deliberately preparing for the fishery, they are unrolled from the cylindrical mass, and coiled in compartments in the boats as they come off; but as this could not be done under a period of some hours, the running of the lines out of the centre of the coils was the plan alone available for my Father’s object.
Whilst every article of the requisite apparatus was yet in the place of its ordinary lodgment,—harpoons and lances being in the places appropriated for them in the ’tween decks, and whale-lines in the gunroom,—the time for commencing was noted, and my Father proceeded, as I very well recollect witnessing, to the proof of this new feat of activity and management.
To the several hands of the “watch,” now gathered round him, was distinctly apportioned his part of the undertaking; first of all in bringing promptly on deck the requisite quantity of whale-lines and fishing apparatus, and then in placing them fit for service. Several lines (I think about four in number) were stowed away in different compartments of the boat, with the interior cavity of each upward. The inner end of the line of one of the coils, in the most favourable position for running, was rapidly “spliced” to the “foreganger” of the harpoon by my Father, whilst the officers about him were set to the splicing properly together of the alternate outside end of one coil with the inner end of another, so as to constitute an appropriate running series. Everything being accomplished, and the boat got ready for lowering, the time was again noted, when, to the astonishment of all on board, the interval expended was found only to have been twelve minutes!