The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Volume 2Ames, Azel
History
The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Volume 2
Ames, Azel
Massachusetts -- History -- New Plymouth, 1620-1691; Mayflower (Ship); Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)
As the "gig" would carry only five or six persons,--while the
shallop was stowed between decks and could be of no service in case of
need upon the voyage,--the inference is warranted that other boats were
carried, which fail of specific mention, or that she was wofully lacking.
The want of boats for unlading, mentioned by Bradford, suggests the
possibility that some of the ship's quota may have been lost or destroyed
on her boisterous voyage, though no such event appears of record, or is
suggested by any one. In the event of wreck, the Pilgrims must have
trusted, like the Apostle Paul and his associates when cast away on the
island of Melita, to get to shore, "some on boards and some on broken
pieces of the ship." Her steering-gear, rigging, and the mechanism for
"getting her anchors," "slinging," "squaring," and "cockbilling" her
yards; for "making" and "shortening" sail; "heaving out" her boats and
"handling" her cargo, were of course all of the crude and simple patterns
and construction of the time, usually so well illustrating the ancient
axiom in physics, that "what is lost [spent] in power is gained in time."
The compass-box and hanging-compass, invented by the English cleric,
William Barlow, but twelve years before the Pilgrim voyage, was almost
the only nautical appliance possessed by Captain Jones, of the MAY-
FLOWER, in which no radical improvement has since been made. Few charts
of much value--especially of western waters--had yet been drafted, but
the rough maps and diagrams of Cabot, Smith, Gosnold, Pring, Champlain
and Dermer, Jones was too good a navigator not to have had. In speaking
of the landing at Cape Cod, the expression is used by Bradford in
"Mourt's Relation," "We went round all points of the compass," proving
that already the mariner's compass had become familiar to the speech even
of those not using it professionally.
That the ship was "well-found" in anchors (with solid stocks), hemp
cables, "spare" spars, "boat-tackling" and the heavy "hoisting-gear" of
those days, we have the evidence of recorded use. "The MAY-FLOWER,"
writes Captain Collins, would have had a hemp cable about 9 inches in
circumference. Her anchors would probably weigh as follows: sheet anchor
(or best bower) 500 to 600 lbs.; stream anchor 350 to 400 lbs.; the spare
anchors same as the stream anchor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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