Week of February 26, 2007

Chapter Four: In Which We Go To Sea :

General:

Rachel and Hitty are teaching us landlubbers a lot about boats, ships, and sailing. I can imagine that children of the 1930s were very excited to read such fun details in their "children's book". And in spite of women being "bad luck" on a whaling expedition, most of the sailors did indeed seem happy to have a bit of home on board the ship.

I was struck again by just how innocent Hitty is. In this chapter, she talks about being amazed that the tide was willing to serve them. Of course, she admits it is an ignorance on her part of sea terms, but still.

My ancestors were all sailors (or worse) and at one time I read how the hammocks had loops that were hung on walls in the hallways of the ship, then when they were done were taken down and rolled up.

Imagine spending 11 months at sea on a wooden sailing vessel, with cramped quarters and no where to go except up on deck. The same people day after day and no way to get away from them, unless you went back to your cramped, probably airless cabin. I’m sure the crew probably didn’t bathe too often, if at all. No wonder they went up on deck to get fresh air. It must have been a hardship for the women, too, with all their layers of clothing, especially in the warm climates.

Hitty shows her positive side as she talks about the "strange sounds which were to become familiar to me for many months" (rattlings and squeakings, grinding of chains and clumping of boots on the wooden decks, “cries as well that I could not make out.”) She looks upon everything as "very enlivening". She certainly has a spirit of adventure and a genuine curiosity of everything around her.

Crew:

Andy was there as a part of the crew not as a child. Young boys went to sea very early. Sad when you go to grave yards and read head stones and will see graves for captain such and such and his son, aged 10, lost at sea.

It was wonderful how the sailors made so many fun little objects for Phoebe's doll...little stool, little chest, hammock.

Didn't it seem as if most of the crew enjoyed having the children on board? I loved the presents the sailors made for Hitty. Of course, this is the first big hint we have of possible trouble brewing, with the 'bad' sailor.

The crew (or most of them) seemed very happy to have Hitty, Phoebe, and Kate aboard. It must have made them feel somewhat like they were at home. They were pleased to have projects to work on - Phoebe's new bunk and Hitty's hammock. It must have been a nice change to their routine to have the ladies there.

Did get the feeling that most of the sailors enjoyed having Phoebe and Hitty on board or they would not have taken the time to make all those things for Hitty.

I would imagine they enjoyed the home-cooking - it is always great to have young people around, too.

Patch:

Is there a storm brewing amongst the crew? The first mate, Patch, was "terrible mad" at the Captain for cutting the top mast and sail during the storm. He is also against having women on board. He did everything he could to prevent it but the Captain went over his head. (One wonders what he did to try to prevent the women from coming on board. How does one tell the Captain what to do?) Now Patch is causing trouble amongst the crew by telling them they're getting bad luck because of the women.

I wonder why Patch was against women being on board? He came highly recommended, so why did he not work out for Capt. Preble?

Perhaps he just plain resented women and felt they had no place on a ship. Perhaps he resented authority and felt he should be in charge. He obviously didn't have much respect for Capt. Preble.

Hitty says that Patch did nothing but mutter a curt good morning to them since they set sail. She never liked him and felt sure that he meant no good to them. Hitty had good instincts so . . . . .

I wonder if it was a case of job envy. Perhaps Patch was older than Capt. Preble and thought he knew just as much or more, and should be in charge, or have more say in the way things were run. When the Captain brought a woman and 2 children on board, Patch, being superstitious, thought that was bad luck, and when the Captain over-ruled him, it started bad feelings which kept increasing. He probably groused to some of the sailors, and then it just snowballed into near mutiny.

Maybe Patch thought he should be in charge--of course, lacking the $$ to fund a ship held him back, I would guess.

Once he got some of the crew to listen to him, and agree with him, it probably emboldened his feeling of superiority and control over at least some of the crew.

Crews in those days were made up of a lot of rough and tumble men, a lot of whom were criminals and ne-er do wells. It would take a strong Captain to keep them in control and with a troublemaker like Patch, I can see where things could get out of hand very quickly. The Captain certainly seemed like a decent man and ran the ship properly but maybe he just wasn’t sure what to do about Patch. Perhaps the Captain was slow to anger and kept it inside, not wanting to cause trouble, at least for the moment.
Patch may have truly believed the superstition that women on board were unlucky. Or he may have had an indecisive captain before and was used to giving the orders. But I really think he was driven by greed and thought he could take over the ship and get the most whale oil.
Superstition:
I have wondered if, in some small way, having women on the ship WAS indeed bad luck. The passage didn't seem to go very well did it? It is interesting that women bringing bad luck to the ship is mentioned several times. Of course, as with any wheel of fortune, it is really a matter of perspective. Maybe all those bad things would have happened without salvation which means the women were good luck.

I would say the crew was right and that the ship was no place for Phoebe and her Mom and I do wonder why he changed the ship’s name. Every sailor will tell you that is bad luck. Although I admit we did it often enough and I never noticed any bad luck, but heck who knows maybe that is why I am not rich.

I think this was an old sailor’s remorse to keep women from being on a ship. They didn't want women around. The true Chauvinists. Otherwise they couldn't scratch and do all the obnoxious things men are famous for.

I just have two cents to offer on the issue of why the men didn't want women at sea. A few years ago I sailed a little boat singlehanded across the Pacific Ocean. It was a grand adventure and sometimes quite scary - although, mercifully, I didn't have a fire aboard. Since returning to land I've given birth to a couple of children. Now I am reluctant to take them into those perils I enjoyed so much when the decisions were only going to affect myself. I imagine that's why the men wanted to keep women off the ship - it allows them to think first of the ship, secondly of their own safety. It's always the other way around when loved ones are aboard - and sometimes it's that narrow margin that makes the difference.

There was probably a lot of superstition involved, perhaps rooted in some disaster at sea when women were along. But doesn't it make you wonder why so often the bowsprit figurehead was a woman?

Well...That woman (figurehead) can't talk!!! And she's not exactly 'on board'. She's hanging out on the front where she needs to face all the dangers first!

Perhaps captains who were superstitious (or maybe in deference to a crew) had a figurehead of a woman put onto their ship. I also read that many shipowners had a figure of a loved one put on as the figurehead.

Another funny thing. Ships are traditionally "female" and when you speak of one you refer to it as "she". When I was out sailing I thought of my boat as masculine and so did the other female singlehanders I met. I guess it's just a matter of wanting a partner out there on the sea.

Aren't there some analogies to a ship being a sailor's mistress? Perhaps women were taboo because they came between the men and the ship. But I have to agree that, even for men, it would be hard to be objective when you were trying to protect one over the many others on a ship, plus you would want all aboard to be able to pitch in and help and back then, they wouldn't have expected a woman to be able help out. She'd be dead weight...well, not Kate who was the cook.

I have heard that about the ship being a sailor's mistress. That may be why they always call a ship a "she". Also, having women aboard may have caused jealousy amongst the crew, especially if there were single women.

Maybe the crew felt was a "man's world" and there was no place for a woman on board their ship. They did have their ports of call where they could eat, drink, be merry, and all the rest (hint, hint), so they didn’t need women on board.

Storm:

Two days and nights of pounding, tossing, buffetings, rocking and the roaring of the wind and sea, with the ship reeling and plunging violently, then water pouring in. These people must have had a very adventurous streak and were very brave to get on board a ship and go through something like this. Poor Hitty is strapped in her hammock and is thinking that "the next downward plunge would surely send us to the bottom."

Kate must have been a good sailor because during the beginning of the storm she was off to the galley with Andy to keep the fire going and hot soup ready. It must have been really difficult to try to cook, let alone just trying to stand up.

Even though Phoebe could see the fear in her mother’s face, she told her mother that she didn’t believe the ship would sink with Hitty aboard because she's made of mountain ash wood and "you know that's sure to bring us good luck." Phoebe certainly had a lot of faith in the wood of that doll.

I think Phoebe is a naturally optimistic young girl. That's easy when you are 7, are with your loving parents, PLUS you have a lucky doll with you!

Keeping Things as Normal as Possible:

Kate sorely missed Sunday services at Meeting-House Hill, and made sure that Andy and Phoebe went over the Commandments and the 23rd Psalm on Sundays. I wonder if any of the crew participated in this “study”.

Sailing Phrases/Words of Interest:

“We’ll make the tide serve us out.” (Captain Preble): Meaning the tide will take the ship out to sea.

Combers: The term "comber" was originally related to the long breaking waves the Pacific is famous for, known as “combers”.

Scud now: Take off, scram.

Ratlines: Nautical term, referring to small lengths of horizontal cord that run between the shrouds, several strong ropes that affix the top of a mast to the vessel's sides. The ratlines serve as crude ladder rungs, allowing the crew to scale the mast when necessary. In bygone days, scampering up the ratlines was a last, desperate recourse for sailors on sinking ships, at least if they were unfortunate enough to have missed out on the lifeboats. As a result, "ratline" became a synonym for "last-ditch escape route."

Tending the kettle halyards: In sailing, a halyard is a line (rope) that is used to hoist (pull up) a sail, a flag, or a yard. In this chapter, perhaps they were lines to keep the kettles/pans up and out of the way???

Yard: A yard is a spar on a mast from which sails are set.

Yardarms: The outermost tips of the yard outboard from the attachments for the lifts.

Laying under bare poles: Means no sails up.

Bowsprit: A spar, extending forward from the stem of a ship, to which the stays of the foremast are fastened.

Figurehead: A carved wooden decoration, often female or bestiary, found at the prow of ships of the 16th to the 19th century. The practice was introduced with the galleons of the 16th century, although earlier ships had often had some form of bow ornamentation. The figurehead as such could not come to be until ships had a head structure on which to place it. As with the stern ornamentation, the purpose of the figurehead was often to indicate the name of the ship in a non-literate society (albeit in a sometimes very convoluted manner); and always, in the case of naval ships, to demonstrate the wealth and might of the owner. At the height of the Baroque period, some ships of the line boasted gigantic figureheads, weighing several tons and sometimes twinned on both sides of the bowsprit. A large figurehead, being carved from massive wood and perched on the very foremost tip of the hull, adversely affected the sailing qualities of the ship. This, and cost considerations, led to figureheads being made dramatically smaller during the 1700s, and in some cases they were abolished altogether around 1800. After the Napoleonic wars they made something of a comeback, but were then often in the form of a small waist-up bust rather than the oversized full figures previously used. The clipper ships of the 1850s and '60s customarily had full figureheads, but these were relatively small and light. Figureheads as such died out with the sailing ship.

In Germany, Belgium, and Holland, it was once believed that spirits/faeries called Klaboutermannikins (water mannikins) dwelt in the figureheads. The spirit guarded the ship from sickness, rocks, storms, and dangerous winds. If the ship sank, the Klaboutermannikin guided the sailors' souls to the Land of the Dead. To sink without a Klaboutermannikin condemned the sailor's soul to haunt the sea forever, so Dutch sailors believed.

Catholic countries such as Spain, used religious figures such as Christ and the Virgin Mary to adorn their ships, e.g., The Spanish Armada, these ships carried some wonderful religious figureheads. The Armada moved against the English Fleet with the hope of subjugating Protestant England, victory would ensure the restitution of the Catholic faith in that country, but it was not to be, the Spaniards being routed by Queen Elizabeth's ships.

It was probably the years between 1790 to about 1825, that figureheads on both warships and merchant ships built in North America and England, reached their zenith, peaking with the building of the Clipper ships.

Late in the 19th.century, the ship figurehead was on the wane. They had pointed the way in the race to conquer the Seven Seas, and many an ancient mariner believed they had ensured their ship had safely reached harbour at the end of each voyage.

Chip basket: A chip basket is "a basket made of strips of thin wood roughly interwoven or joined, used chiefly for packing fruit for the market."

Yes, "chip" doesn't seem to mean "strips" to me, but that's apparently what they intended.

Weren't the cow and buffalo excrement called chips? And they used them firewood. Or to make fires. I would think they would have to have a basket to hold them.

I would like to think Phoebe, Kate and Hitty had fruit in the chip basket as opposed to buffalo and cow excrement chips.

My father had a wood plane that was his grandfather's. When he used it to smooth large pieces of wood, it shaved off a long thin piece of wood which had a tendency to curl. I think this is what was used to make 'chip' baskets. It was a wood chip, just in a different format than people today are used to seeing.

I was curious about this too--and am guessing that it means a strip of wood (or chip of wood?) and was common usage back in the time the book was written, but has little or no meaning to us now, as we have plastic. Sort of like a cabbage mallet I have, that was my great-grandmother's. It's used for pounding cabbage down into the crocks to make sauerkraut. But who would know today what it was used for if they weren't told?

I have been watching the chip basket discussion. Interesting. I taught some basket weaving classes, years ago. Now the raw materials, ready to weave cost more than the finished basket, because of cheap foreign imports where the labor is lower paid. The discussion of English usage of chips is right on target, as a lot of sailors were English. What Hitty's type of basket is called in more American terms is a splint basket. Young oaks or ash trees are the best. Whatever is put into it is not tainted by any remaining resins or acids in the wood, like they would if a pine tree is used. Hence the usage for fruit or vegetables.

Even today wooden pallets for shipping are made from oak. Remember wooden tomato and strawberry basket from 10 years ago? A tree, the tallest and straightest and about 6-8-12 inches around, is cut down and left to sit in a stream for a few days. It is then taken out and quartered, and then 1/8 or 1/16th. The growth rings are chipped off or split off making the right size of strip or splint to use in weaving. Fresh wood is the easiest to use. Cheap if you grow it yourself. But time and labor intensive!

Wooden ships carried extra wood, tools for some shipboard repairs, and the men used any scraps to make items when not on duty for those at home, or to trade once back in port. Whalers made things out of whalebone, and other sailors made wooden items like a wooden Swift, (folding reel-wool winder) carved spoons, boxes, etc. A small basket would not take much time, but would take a certain amount of skill.

As Hitty carvers know the size of smaller things take as much time as regular sized ones, and if you go smaller they even take more time. Lots of Fiddley time. Because vessels did not have a lot of "extra space" large items being made on the off-duty hours would not have been allowed.

Head: The "head" aboard a Navy ship is the bathroom. The term comes from the days of sailing ships when the place for the crew to relieve themselves was all the way forward on either side of the bowsprit, the integral part of the hull to which the figurehead was fastened. (This wasn’t in the book, but I just put this in for the interest. If I had thought about it, I guess I would have assumed the men hung over the side to do their business or had a bucket somewhere. Leave it to them to relieve themselves up by the figurehead.)