Nothing daunted, the skipper of the _Corsair_ hauled his own ship around to leeward and deftly placed her where the line floated so close to the _Dagfin_ that it was caught and hauled up by a boat-hook as she drifted upon it. To this light line the _Corsair_ secured one hundred and fifty fathoms of ten-inch manila hawser, and the _Dagfin_ heaved it aboard with a turn about the winch. To the end of the hawser the Norwegians bent fifty fathoms of chain, for the longer the tow-line the easier the strain in heavy weather. The _Corsair_ secured her end of the hawser by means of a wire span leading to the two after gun mounts, and then she was ready to go ahead and pull her heart out. It is needless to remark that the yacht had not been designed or built to yank disabled freighters through the Bay of Biscay in the tail-end of a nasty gale of wind. They went ahead, _Corsair_ and _Dagfin_, and worked up to a speed of five knots, reducing it a trifle when the strain seemed too great. They slogged along in this manner until 8.30 P.M. when the chain parted and the _Dagfin_ went adrift. Commander Porter describes the rest of it in his report: We observed that the _Dagfin_ had broken adrift, and when attempting to haul in our tow-line I found that it was weighted with the _Dagfin’s_ chain which had parted in the hawse-pipe. A six-inch line was bent and used as a messenger to the forward capstan, but as this would hold only four turns, which rendered, the starboard capstan was used to assist. No lead blocks of sufficient size were available to keep the line clear of the deck-house, and both houses were damaged. It was difficult to stopper and secure the messenger to the wet hawser. This was chafed its entire length, although the ship went ahead slowly to angle the hawser slightly and reduce the bend over the lip of the chock. After three hours’ work the hawser was all in and the chain let go. Had conditions been favorable, of course the chain could have been hove in through the hawse-pipe, but I desired to intercept the French tug _Penguin_, sent out from Brest, which was then close by. The strain had unlaid the hawser, and releasing the chain allowed the turns to take up again. Removing numerous kinks from a wet, ten-inch rope is a long, tedious job. As the tug had passed us in the night and was not in sight at daylight, I closed in to pick up our tow. Attempting to throw a line on board, we could not get near enough to reach, as there was still a moderate swell and we were both rolling and surging. A boat was lowered and our hawser bent to the _Dagfin’s_ cable, and at 7.45 A.M. we went ahead at six knots. The average speed for twenty-six and a half hours was actually six and a quarter knots.