The Hawaiian gazette., 1908-12-25
ROUNDING THE HORN
IN FACT AND STORY

first pasasge of it, and the largest YES
sci was ever in was the ship Match
less, 119S tons. have read such re-
marks as this: "No vessel of less
than thousand tons could have lived
through such a gale.p What an abb
surd remark TO makel How did the
early navigators get around with YES
sells of from thirty TO three hundred
tonsf
IT makes me think Of what was writ
ten and published in the papers about
one of the captains Of Bob Evans
feet, who was sick in Brooklyn hos
, pital. 'The terrible strain on his
mind in taking that battleship feet
through the Magellan Strait had
broken him up.' If that were really
; the cause of it, and he fair sample
, of the captains in the other fifteen
, battleships, may the Lord have mercy
upon them should they ever have to
fight the Japanese. l fancy / could
: find sixteen boys on Cape Cod, just
twenty-one years old, who would navi.
gate the sixteen battleships to San
Francisco two or three times before
breaking their constitutions; who, in
fact, would look upon it as a picnic,
F.. as no doubt the whole feet did, except,
Z perhaps, Bob Evans, on whose shout
ders was all the responsibility. Had
he only one ship, 1 fancy he would
have called it picnic. Abe Lincoln
Q said, "You can not fool all the people
all the time," but you can not write
. anything too foolish about the sea (if
it is bad enough) but there is someone
to publish il, and they expect readers,
r providing it, is only made terrible
enough, no matter how absurd from q
sailor point of view, or how far from
= facts.
Z There was one man, and he not a
J, sailor, that could write perfect arti-
cles about the SECRETARIES Dickens
, You can't find word that he has
. written that sailor would take any
3 exception to; at least, / can't recall
d any.
o And what has made me write this
. articlef l have just come across the
story in the Atlantic Monthly, May,
I 1908, Ground the Horn,' by +. ii.
Q Shaw. The first few lines begin,
v CLEARING the faky foam crests high
= in air and dipping them thousands of
= feet beneath the surface" What in
the world does the author meant Does
l, he mean that the waves were thou
t. sands of feet high, when we all know
a that forty feet is the limit Tho
:, whole article from beginning to end
u is in the same strain. Now, Cape
d Horn is quite bad enough without
IS trying to make it appear worse than
a it is. Again, he says, "It always
blows gale off Cape Horn" If it
. did we could not get around, so that
s. is a misstatement. / fail to under.
eAa ,l,aA 10 h.
10 "The steady Pacific Antarctic drift
battling current-runs here, and
= woe betide the man who once let's his
IN ing stream.' We all know there is 0
in current setting round the Horn, to
:, wards the east, at the rate Of from
one to three knots, and now, to make
g. long story short, and tell all the
e. troubles of Cape Horn, that current il
+. all; but for that, rounding Cape Horn
"a would be nothing. There is no worse
- weather there than in the Atlantic
20 Ocean, and never a hurricane, and al
a. man wants is a good ship, properly
loaded, and there is nothing to worry
"a about OF course, the larger the shiI
~ the better, but if she don t behave any
Do better than the one Mr.. Shaw was OF
ct board Il presume he was there), why
st give me smaller one.
He speaks of "wearing shipr a.
=, though it were case of life ant
Ill death. Why, we think nothing o.
" wearing half dozen times day.
CO have been from all sail to goose
N winged maintopsail, twice in twenty
four hours, but what of that7 But
w. then, we did not have "British sail
as ors,' mostly Dutch, so-called, but il
ke reality Scandinavian, and much pre-
~ ferred. Don Y, you take my word TO
it. Go ask the British shipmaste
which he prefers. And speaking o
goose-winged topsails to quote iron
- Mr. Shaw: "Bang, the lee clew o
. the maintopsail has carried away, an
the sail is lashing about like flai
> of death. But the canvas of that sal
p is strong and doubly strong; though
L., whips about with noise of artillery
- the sail does not split; only lengt
VI of chain is leaping in the air an
ne threatening to brain any man who will
-, venture within it's sweep" And the
t 40 the captain, after thinking minute
~ though time is precious about tina
M time, says: Conserving it, VIII
ever heard of furling the lee clew o
topsailf All the sailors in the worl
he conld not furl the lee clew of toI
,ss sail when there is wind enough to par
ar the sheet, for it could not have, bee
Ily the clew that carried away-if it hat
mt there would not have been any chat
ne sheet attached.
sm Usually, in bad weather, we hav
preventer sheets, and ease the sheet I
take the strain off. Again, how niue
-, difference would it make to the cours
Oh of that big ship, just that lee clew, o.
~ rather, weather clew, for they hav
'a;a furled the lee onei AS I remarke
20 before, all the sailors that could &c
on on that lee yardarm could not furl thu
ny clew before it blew away. II it wei
'e blowing a terrific gale, in one minut
. itii would be gone to pieces. The
could furl the rope and rags, and, b
in good luck. save the weather cley
tly which probably they did in this cas-
for and what the captain wants to kee
gs, all the sail he can on the ship for