The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-06-10
OLD SKYSAIL BARK
NOW A SCHOONER
Veteran Captain Hines LamentS
the Change in Gear
IN THE WEST COAST TRADE
The Craft Doubled the Horn Twice
Year Generation Ago and Made
Record of Ten
Days.
IN THE WEST COAST TRADE
From the New York world.

spies Sdlu IHo iepoItei.
This was the old bark Adam W. Spies.
This is the new schooner Adam w. Spies"
was the answer. And to think O. me
.havin' to come down to this from a sky
sail yard bark to this-a fore and aft
schooner, even IL she has got another mast
thrown in--is enough to break whales
heart"
Captain Hines looked up at the tall
naked spars above him and said other
things besides.
Down in the Erie Basin these warm days
the row of new shining Oregon sticks just
put into the Spies catches every eye in
that part of the basin. The hull beneath
them Is time stained enough, the top sides
are rough and scaly, the big bow timber
ports cape like the nostrils of some Ju-
Tassc monster. Strewn on the pier along
side are aged spars in divers stages of
decomposition, the thrown out members Of
the grand old craft, discarded for all time.
She is floating very high. this memorial
of vanished age She hasn't even any
ballast aboard. She's just lying still under
the surgical operations of the South
Brooklyn Triggers.
nCCoTo ATounu the morn.
Years ago, nearly generation now, the
Adam Spies was in the west coast trade
and doubled the Horn twice every year
She carried her cargoes in quick time, and
she never even sent down her main sky
sail In midwinter passage. She has a.
record of ten days from so south in the
Atlantic to 50 south in the Pacific. Off
Cape Horn, they call It, and many a
smart windjammer has spent six weeks
NJ hat nroIId 81
Captain Hines Is big and brown The
sea has used him we'll except in the mat
ter of legs. He says he's afraid they're
going to pieces fast.
Me and the old ship are COINS to-
gether," he said, looking across the pier
at twenty knot. double-funnelled craft.
I want rerigging more than she does.
If | don't set down | fall down" and he
clumped over and boosted himself up on
the cabin house.
do you know what I've done with the
old bark? I've taken her out to Reunion
In siXty-eight days from New York, dis
charged 25000 cases of oil there, shifted
over to Nautilus. dumped the rest of
the cargo there, and sailed her up to
Cochin fifteen days from Port Louis
Twenty-six hundred and fifty miles in
fifteen days in the sou'west monsoon,
when you couldn't see the coast line more
than four miles for the muck and rain
squalls I brought her to and anchored
In the Oil Hole at Malapore. few miles
from Cochin. and lay there for seven
weeks waitin' for the monsoon to break
so we could get up to the town, on a
dead lee shore, in a gale o. wind. the
surf beatin around like of those
RACES we get once in a while in a SOU
easter. Funny place. the Oil Hole. The
sea never breaks there. You can ride out
heavy gale and never drag a fathon1.
Now Only a Coaster.
"And then to come down to this, a
schooner Me a schooner cap'n, a coaster,
where I've got to keep the smell o. the
land aboard day and night and pick up
the bottom every watch with the lead SOS
can tell whether it's Nantucket or the
Fryin' Pan. Wait a bit, though.
az went over to Aleppy that voyage,
and took home a load of cocoanut fibre.
and then / bought me an orange farm
down in Florida. Thought I'd had enough
of the sea and knock 1t off, for I'd been
master of ship forty years, big and
little I'd stay ashore and never bother
no more about the monsoon and the dol
drums That's what l thought I'd do I'd
stop ashore and stow everything and run
the mooring chain out fore and aft.
"Did l do 1t? Did you ever seen an old
shipmaster telling his friends how he
a snug bit of a cabin in ten acre field?
Did you ever see him do 1t? Not many of
'em The seas the most curious thing in
the world. 7 never knew a sailor to say
good word for It, They all damn 1t and
leave 1t as soon as they can. But just
as sure as they do there's something that
hauls em starn first again back to deep
water Just you let a man feel the heft
of the Southern Ocean once, and II he's
lit, - n IL
day with him.
.,Well the oranges looked pretty good
FOR n spell till the smell of 'em sort of
stopped up my head, and then / knew
had TO get away.
"Can I have piece of the old ship
back again?' wired up to the owners.
Back to the Brine Again.
Let II go at that came down over
the wires | Joined the Spies again at
Boston and took down a cargo or white
pine to Rosaio. There wasn't much dom
in the way O. return freight, and the
hest I could get was a load of bones
hack to New York. Say, don't you' ever
an I'M on bones Twas bugs and bugs all
Che way up. and when 'twarnt bugs,
twas worms But the bugs was the worst.
..Rv and by we got up across the hne,
and as far north as thirty, when we ran
into dirty weather somewhere between
1atteras and the capeS ol tilc Chcoe' P~aiNN.
twas blowin' living gale stepped
into the pantry when there came neaVe
that lifted me off my feet and l 1etcheo
evay out into the cabin, where L Drought
n against the heater. For three Gays 1
couldn't more than turn in my DUNK,
when 1t cleared up about dark we picked
III. Absecon. Then 1t shut In again. mat
night she touched once, backed on IN
sea and ran UP hard on Rockaway peach.
well, they pulled her off and got her
up TO the city and the owners came down
to look her over
".What do you say to maxim scnoon-
er out of her, capn?' said one OF them.
:" It's not bad joke. if you don't mean
It. | says.
"'Well we do mean it, he says. We're
going into the coasting trade he says.
:" I've just come off the coast I said,
and told 'em l hadn't much liking for
going back again. But schooner she'll
be, you can see. VIII be master OF
her? Me. schooner cap'n? Well say.
The orange form sounds some good, and
I've been forty years master OF a ship.
But you can't tell Queer things be to
happen any Old time /"
What Happens When You Smoke.