Sailing Alone Around The World | Page 5

Then the daisies and the
cherries came soon after. Close by the place where the old Spray had
now dissolved rested the ashes of John Cook, a revered Pilgrim father.
So the new Spray rose from hallowed ground. From the deck of the
new craft I could put out my hand and pick cherries that grew over the
little grave. The planks for the new vessel, which I soon came to put on,
were of Georgia pine an inch and a half thick. The operation of putting
them on was tedious, but, when on, the calking was easy. The outward
edges stood slightly open to receive the calking, but the inner edges
were so close that I could not see daylight between them. All the butts
were fastened by through bolts, with screw-nuts tightening them to the
timbers, so that there would be no complaint from them. Many bolts
with screw-nuts were used in other parts of the construction, in all
about a thousand. It was my purpose to make my vessel stout and
strong.
[Illustration: Cross-section of the Spray.]
Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the Jane repaired all out of the old until
she is entirely new is still the Jane. The Spray changed her being so
gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old died or the new
took birth, and it was no matter. The bulwarks I built up of white-oak
stanchions fourteen inches high, and covered with seven-eighth-inch
white pine. These stanchions, mortised through a two-inch
covering-board, I calked with thin cedar wedges. They have remained
perfectly tight ever since. The deck I made of one-and-a-half-inch by
three-inch white pine spiked to beams, six by six inches, of yellow or
Georgia pine, placed three feet apart. The deck-inclosures were one
over the aperture of the main hatch, six feet by six, for a cooking-galley,
and a trunk farther aft, about ten feet by twelve, for a cabin. Both of

these rose about three feet above the deck, and were sunk sufficiently
into the hold to afford head-room. In the spaces along the sides of the
cabin, under the deck, I arranged a berth to sleep in, and shelves for
small storage, not forgetting a place for the medicine-chest. In the
midship hold, that is, the space between cabin and galley, under the
deck, was room for provision of water, salt beef, etc., ample for many
months.
The hull of my vessel being now put together as strongly as wood and
iron could make her, and the various rooms partitioned off, I set about
"calking ship." Grave fears were entertained by some that at this point I
should fail. I myself gave some thought to the advisability of a
"professional calker." The very first blow I struck on the cotton with
the calking-iron, which I thought was right, many others thought wrong.
"It'll crawl!" cried a man from Marion, passing with a basket of clams
on his back. "It'll crawl!" cried another from West Island, when he saw
me driving cotton into the seams. Bruno simply wagged his tail. Even
Mr. Ben J----, a noted authority on whaling-ships, whose mind,
however, was said to totter, asked rather confidently if I did not think
"it would crawl." "How fast will it crawl?" cried my old captain friend,
who had been towed by many a lively sperm-whale. "Tell us how fast,"
cried he, "that we may get into port in time."
[Illustration: "'It'll crawl'"]
However, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the cotton, as from the
first I had intended to do. And Bruno again wagged his tail. The cotton
never "crawled." When the calking was finished, two coats of copper
paint were slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the topsides and
bulwarks. The rudder was then shipped and painted, and on the
following day the Spray was launched. As she rode at her ancient,
rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water like a swan.
The Spray's dimensions were, when finished, thirty-six feet nine inches
long, over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches
deep in the hold, her tonnage being nine tons net and twelve and
seventy-one hundredths tons gross.

Then the mast, a smart New Hampshire spruce, was fitted, and likewise
all the small appurtenances necessary for a short cruise. Sails were bent,
and away she flew with my friend Captain Pierce and me, across
Buzzard's Bay on a trial-trip--all right. The only thing that now worried
my friends along the beach was, "Will she pay?" The cost of my new
vessel was $553.62 for materials, and thirteen months of my own labor.
I was several months more than that at Fairhaven, for I got work now
and then on an occasional