Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
Another method of employing the crew is ``setting-up'' rigging.
Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is
continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken
off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is bowsed well taut,
the seizings and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece
of work. There is also such a connection between different parts
of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring
a change in another. You cannot stay a mast aft by the back stays,
without slacking up the head stays, &c., &c. If we add to this all
the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and
scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and
also remember this is all to be done in addition to watching at
night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting
sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one
will hardly ask, ``What can a sailor find to do at sea?''
If, after all this labor,-- after exposing their lives and limbs
in storms, wet and cold,--
``Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their furs dry,''--
the merchants and captains think that the sailors have not earned
their twelve dollars a month (out of which they clothe
themselves), and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them
picking oakum-- ad infinitum. This is the usual resource upon a
rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when
it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand
about in sheltered places, and talk, and keep themselves
comfortable, they are separated to different parts of the ship and
kept at work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about
in different parts of the ship, so that the sailors might not be
idle in the snatches between the frequent squalls upon crossing
the equator. Some officers have been so driven to find work for
the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to
pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables.
The ``Philadelphia Catechism'' is
``Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh,-- holystone the decks and scrape the cable.''
This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape
of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have
seen the decks washed down and scrubbed when the water would have
frozen if it had been fresh, and all hands kept at work upon the
rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that
we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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