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Joshua Slocum - Sailing Alone Around The World
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."
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 whale-ship fitting farther down the harbor, and that kept me the overtime.
CHAPTER II
Failure as a fisherman - A voyage around the world projected - From Boston to Gloucester - Fitting out
for the ocean voyage - Half of a dory for a ship's boat - The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia - A
shaking up in home waters - Among old friends.
I spent a season in my new craft fishing on the coast, only to find that I had not the cunning properly to
bait a hook. But at last the time arrived to weigh anchor and get to sea in earnest. I had resolved on a
voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24,1895, was fair, at noon I weighed
anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all
winter. The twelve-o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short
board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood seaward, with her boom
well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier at East
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