Section I.—Superiority as an Arctic Navigator.
My Father’s superiority as a fisherman, as exhibited in the foregoing pages, had an essential relation to his talents as a seaman and a navigator. The former, indeed, was in no inconsiderable degree a fruit of the latter; for it was his superiority as a navigator of ice-encumbered seas particularly, which, for a considerable series of years, enabled him generally to obtain a position in advance of his competitors, and thus yielded to him the best opportunities, whilst the ground was undisturbed, for making his fishery.
Not only, indeed, was he thus unrivalled among his associates in Arctic enterprise, but to him was due the introduction of a truly scientific system of arrangements, which, with their masterly application in practice, enabled him at all times, when “beating to windward” among crowded ices, or contending under the greatest obstructions and difficulties for a passage “to the northward,” to take the lead.
The penetration of the Greenland ices, whilst in search of whales, being very prevalently pursued by beating to windward, or by sailing “on a wind,”—so prevalently, indeed, that, during a quarter of a century from my Father’s commencement in command, nine days out of ten, or more, were spent in this description of navigation,—it became a matter of grand importance to have the ship, as “to trim,” “cut of the sails,” ballasting, etc., specially prepared for sailing “close-hauled.”
For this style of navigation, the arrangements prevalent in the merchant service, at the time, were most ill adapted. When without cargo, the ships usually went in light “ballast-trim,” and had their sails cut so as to “bag” into a deep concave on the side acted on by the wind,—conditions most unfavourable for “holding a good wind” or “working close.”
The whalers were thus universally circumstanced at my Father’s commencement. They went ordinarily ballasted, or, sometimes, “flying-light,” not only because of this being accordant with the general practice with merchantmen, but with the view of lessening the concussions against the ice when coming into violent contact with it. My Father, on the contrary, adopted a totally different system. He caused such a large quantity of the lower and second tiers of casks to be filled with water (to which he subsequently added ballast of shingle or iron in the interstices of the casks of the “ground tier”), that the ship became as deep as with the third part of a cargo; his sails he had made to stand as flat, under the force of the wind, as possible; he had his ship denuded of all useless spars aloft, as well as of sails of little adaptation for sailing on a wind; and, finally, the braces of the yards, and other running geer, he had so adapted as to run free, and as light as consistent with safety.
His ship thus presenting the least possible quantity of surface to the leeward-tending action of the wind, being so fully ballasted, and having her sails, so far as he had the adjusting of them, adapted for standing flat and “near the wind,” he was enabled to make a progress, in “windward sailing” among ice, which, during a long period of years, defied all competition.
But the adaptation of the ship, it was apparent, was not all. For the ships which he had himself prepared for sailing on this effective system, retained their advantage but very partially when they came under other management. The Henrietta, which for several years had taken the undisputed lead, was, after my Father left her, beaten by the Dundee, and the Dundee, in like manner, by the Resolution; and not by the ship, only, which he now commanded, was his former ship beaten, but by many competitors besides. The loss of character in the ship he had retired from, indeed, became a matter of much observation and remark both at sea and on shore; and the circumstance was justly enough accounted for under the quaint expression,—“she has lost her jockey.”
It was, in fact, strictly so. The succeeding commander—clever as he might be in other respects, and successful as one, especially, of my Father’s training was—had not the superiority in seamanship with which the ship had formerly been managed. The special adaptations, therefore, which my Father had turned to such good account, were now only partially available. Under considerable difficulties in the navigation, or against hard competitors in the navigators, the once leading ship was liable to fail, and very often did fail. The advantages provided in the adaptation of the ship were, in such cases, lost in the management. But where the navigator, as in my Father’s case, was pre-eminently skilful, the adaptations for windward and ice-encumbered sailing became in the highest degree efficient, and resulted, as has been shown, in an unrivalled superiority.