James B. Connolly

We got away at last and beat out the harbor with the Lucy Foster, the Colleen Bawn, the Withrow, the Nannie O, and four others. For other company going out there was a big steam-yacht with Minnie Arkell and her friends aboard, which did not get out of the harbor. Out by the Point they shipped a sea and put back, with Minnie Arkell waving her handkerchief and singing out––“Don’t take in any sail, Maurice,” as they turned back. There was also the Eastern Point, a high-sided stubby steamer, at that time running regularly to Boston; and there was the New Rochelle, a weak-looking excursioner that might have done for Long Island Sound, where somebody said she’d just come from, but which didn’t seem to fit in here. Her passengers were mostly fishermen––crews of vessels not in the race. There was also a big powerful iron sea-tug, the Tocsin, that promised to make better weather of it than any of the others.

Billie Simms was one of the men who were not 244 going in the race but intended to see some of it. He was in the Henry Clay Parker, a fine-looking vessel that was not so very fast, but had the reputation of being wonderfully stiff. Coming out past Eastern Point lighthouse, where he could begin to get a look at things, Billie hollered out that he was sorry he hadn’t entered. “Looks to me like the vessel that’ll stay right side up the longest ought to win this race, and that’s the Henry C.” He hauled her across our stern while he was yelling and I remember she took one roll down to her sheer poles when passing on, and Maurice sang out, “Look out, Billie, or you’ll capsize her.”

“Capsize this one? Lord, Maurice, I’ve tried it a dozen times and I’m damned if I could,” and he went rolling on like nothing I ever saw, unless it was the rest of us who were then manoeuvring for the start. We passed the Parker again before we got to the line, and old Peter Hines, who was hanging to her main-rigging, had to yell us his good wishes. “Drive her, Maurice-boy, and whatever you do don’t let the man that took your vessel from you beat you home,” meaning Sam Hollis of course. Maurice waved his hand, but said nothing. He was looking serious enough, however.

Tommie Clancy was the boy who wasn’t worrying particularly. He saluted Peter as if he were 245 going out on a holiday excursion. “Ain’t she a dog, Peter? Watch her.”

“That’s what she is––and drive her, Tommie––drive her.”

“Oh, we’ll drive her, Peter,” called back Tommie, and began:

“Oh, I love old Ocean’s smile,

I love old Ocean’s frowning––

I love old Ocean all the while,

My prayer’s for death by drowning.”

“Let you alone, Tommie, and you’ll get your prayer some day,” was Peter’s last hail as we straightened out for the swoop across the line.

Clancy was to the wheel then with the skipper. Both were lashed and we had life-lines around deck. To the wheel of every vessel in the fleet were two men lashed, and they all had life-lines around deck.

In crossing the line there was no attempt at jockeying such as one often sees in yacht racing. There was no disposition on the part of any skipper to do anything that would set anybody else back. Of course, everybody wanted to be in a good berth and to cross between the guns; but the idea was to give the vessels such a try out as they would get out to sea––as if they were making a passage in a breeze. The course––forty-two miles or so––was very short 246 for a fisherman, for one great thing in a fisherman is her power to stand a long drag. Day and night in and day and night out and driving all the time is the way a fisherman wants it. Any sort of racing machine could be built to stand a little hard going for a while. But that wouldn’t be living through a long hard winter’s gale on the Banks––one of those blows where wind and sea––and in shoal water at that––have a chance to do their worst. Fishermen are built for that sort of work and on their sea-worthiness depends not only the fortunes of owners but the lives of men––of real men––and the happiness and comfort of wives and children ashore. And so the idea in everybody’s mind that day was to make this test as nearly fair as could be and see who had the fastest and most weatherly boat in the fleet. There were men to the wheel that day who could handle big fishermen as if they were cat-boats, who would have dared and did, later, dare to sail their vessels as close to a mark in this sea as men sail a twenty-foot knockabout in the smoothest of waters inshore––only with the fishermen a slip-up meant the loss of a vessel, maybe other vessels too, and twenty-five or fifty lives perhaps.

And so the skill of these men was not used to give anybody the worst of it. A fair start and give everybody his chance was the idea. Thus 247 Tommie Ohlsen could have forced the Withrow outside the starting boat and compelled her to come about and maybe lose a few minutes, but he did not. He held up and let her squeeze through. O’Donnell in his turn could have crowded Ohlsen when he let up on the Withrow, but he did not. He, too, held up in turn and let Ohlsen have his swing going across.

Across we went, one after the other. West-sou’west was the course to a stake-boat, which we were told would be found off Egg Rock, fourteen miles away. We had only the compass to go by, for at the start it was rain and drizzle, as well as wind and a big sea, and you couldn’t see a mile ahead. On the way we shot by the New Rochelle, which had started ahead with the intention of waiting for the fleet at the first stake-boat. Now she was headed back, wabbing awfully. From Billie Simms, who went over part of the course in the Henry Clay Parker ahead of the fleet, we got word of the trouble as we went by. The New Rochelle was beginning to leak. “You c’n spit between her deck-planks and into her hold––she’s that loose,” hollered Billie. I don’t think the fishermen aboard of her minded much so long as she stayed afloat, but her captain, a properly licensed man, did, I expect, and so she put back with some of them growling, I heard afterward, “and after 248 paying their little old three dollars to see only the start of the race.” Her captain reported, when he got in, that he didn’t see anything outside but a lot of foolish fishermen trying to drown themselves.

The first leg was before the wind and the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn went it like bullets. I don’t expect ever again to see vessels run faster than they did that morning. On some of those tough passages from the Banks fishing vessels may at times have gone faster than either of these did that morning. It is likely, for where a lot of able vessels are all the time trying to make fast passages––skippers who are not afraid to carry sail and vessels that can stand the dragging––and in all kinds of chances––there must in the course of years of trying be some hours when they do get over an everlasting lot of water. But there are no means of checking up. Half the time the men do not haul the log for half a day or more. Some of the reports of speed of fishermen at odd times have been beyond all records, and so people who do not know said they must be impossible. But here was a measured course and properly anchored stake-boats––and the Lucy and the Colleen did that first leg of almost fourteen sea-miles in fifty minutes, which is better than a 16-1/2 knot clip, and that means over nineteen land miles an hour. I 249 think anybody would call that pretty fast going. And, as some of them said afterward, “Lord in Heaven! suppose we’d had smooth water!” But I don’t think that the sea checked them so very much––not as much as one might think, for they were driving these vessels.