Chapter XXXIII: Section I: Superiority as an Arctic Navigator

My Father's superiority as a fisherman, as exhibited in the foregoing pages, had an essential relation to his talents as a seaman and a navigator. The former, indeed, was in no inconsiderable degree a fruit of the latter; for it was his superiority as a navigator of ice-encumbered seas particularly, which, for a considerable series of years, enabled him generally to obtain a position in advance of his competitors, and thus yielded to him the best opportunities, whilst the ground was undisturbed, for making his fishery.

Not only, indeed, was he thus unrivalled among his associates in Arctic enterprise, but to him was due the introduction of a truly scientific system of arrangements, which, with their masterly application in practice, enabled him at all times, when "beating to windward" among crowded ices, or contending under the greatest obstructions and difficulties for a passage "to the northward," to take the lead.

The penetration of the Greenland ices, whilst in search of whales, being very prevalently pursued by beating to windward, or by sailing "on a wind,"--so prevalently, indeed, that, during a quarter of a century from my Father's commencement in command, nine days out of ten, or more, were spent in this description of navigation,--it became a matter of grand importance to have the ship, as "to trim," "cut of the sails," ballasting, etc., specially prepared for sailing "close-hauled."

For this style of navigation, the arrangements prevalent in the merchant service, at the time, were most ill adapted. When without cargo, the ships usually went in light "ballast-trim," and had their sails cut so as to "bag" into a deep concave on the side acted on by the wind,--conditions most unfavourable for "holding a good wind" or "working close."

The whalers were thus universally circumstanced at my Father's commencement. They went ordinarily ballasted, or, sometimes, "flying-light," not only because of this being accordant with the general practice with merchantmen, but with the view of lessening the concussions against the ice when coming into violent contact with it. My Father, on the contrary, adopted a totally different system. He caused such a large quantity of the lower and second tiers of casks to be filled with water (to which he subsequently added ballast of shingle or iron in the interstices of the casks of the "ground tier"), that the ship became as deep as with the third part of a cargo; his sails he had made to stand as flat, under the force of the wind, as possible; he had his ship denuded of all useless spars aloft, as well as of sails of little adaptation for sailing on a wind; and, finally, the braces of the yards, and other running geer, he had so adapted as to run free, and as light as consistent with safety.

His ship thus presenting the least possible quantity of surface to the leeward-tending action of the wind, being so fully ballasted, and having her sails, so far as he had the adjusting of them, adapted for standing flat and "near the wind," he was enabled to make a progress, in "windward sailing" among ice, which, during a long period of years, defied all competition.

But the adaptation of the ship, it was apparent, was not all. For the ships which he had himself prepared for sailing on this effective system, retained their advantage but very partially when they came under other management. The Henrietta, which for several years had taken the undisputed lead, was, after my Father left her, beaten by the Dundee, and the Dundee, in like manner, by the Resolution; and not by the ship, only, which he now commanded, was his former ship beaten, but by many competitors besides. The loss of character in the ship he had retired from, indeed, became a matter of much observation and remark both at sea and on shore; and the circumstance was justly enough accounted for under the quaint expression,--"she has lost her jockey."

It was, in fact, strictly so. The succeeding commander--clever as he might be in other respects, and successful as one, especially, of my Father's training was--had not the superiority in seamanship with which the ship had formerly been managed. The special adaptations, therefore, which my Father had turned to such good account, were now only partially available. Under considerable difficulties in the navigation, or against hard competitors in the navigators, the once leading ship was liable to fail, and very often did fail. The advantages provided in the adaptation of the ship were, in such cases, lost in the management. But where the navigator, as in my Father's case, was pre-eminently skilful, the adaptations for windward and ice-encumbered sailing became in the highest degree efficient, and resulted, as has been shown, in an unrivalled superiority.

A commander may sometimes become distinguished in war by successes acquired at an unusual sacrifice of life. His resulting superiority may, in certain cases, be dearly purchased. But there was no such counteracting element in the pre-eminence, as an Arctic navigator, gained by my Father. His deeply ballasted ship might have struck heavier against the ice than others, but she rarely was _allowed_ to strike heavily. Concussions not unfrequently fell to the lot of other ships, light enough, and free to rebound as they might be, by which, nevertheless, bows or sides were stove in, and heavy expenses in damages consequently incurred; but no such disasters were encountered by him. His ship was wont to be a-head in adventure, navigating the most difficult positions, braving most alarming threatenings of the ices and the wind. But his ship went gallantly amid, and passed safely through, all these dangers. He knew precisely what his ship, in difficulties or dangers, _might_ do; and that, under his commanding management, was done, and safely done. If, by the hundred chances which might thwart a difficult operation,--in the perpetual movements of the ice, the varying winds, the mistakes or defects of his helmsman, or the unpromptness of the men in management of the yards and sails,--his intended object or manoeuvre should happen to be defeated, he was always ready, in his inexhaustible and well-considered resources, to save his ship from the imminent danger which a failure or blunder, in such cases, frequently involved. His quick apprehension of almost every possible contingency, served at once to develop and to bring into timely operation the resources which his fertile talent supplied; whilst his keen discernment of the quality and measure of the various movements of detached pieces or bodies of ice, as unequally acted upon by wind or currents, enabled him so to anticipate any probable risks, as to be prepared, however he might be baulked in his principal design, for some other furthering project, or, at all events, for a safe retreat.

The reality of my Father's superiority, as a navigator, now being described, admits, as to me it seems, of conclusive evidence in these two remarkable facts,--that, for the long series of voyages in which he held his first three or four commands, his ship, _in all difficulties where talent could be availing_, always took the lead; and that, for the whole time of his command, wherein he was wont to take the lead, equally in danger as in advanced position, he was always enabled, under the constantly recognised and sought-for blessing of Providence, to pursue his adventurous object safely, or without damage of any essential consideration, to his ship!

Within my own experience, whilst I accompanied him during nine voyages, from a mere child to adult age, I had perpetual opportunities of discerning his superiority over all the competitors we met with; and, during the same experience, I had repeated occasions for noticing with proud admiration, his wonderful skill in beating to windward amongst intricate ices, so as to leave every ship that we found near us in succession behind. In the morning, perhaps, at the commencement of a progress amid encumbering ices, I have seen around the Resolution, in various positions, to windward as well as to leeward, a considerable fleet of companion-whalers; and in the evening of the same day, after twelve or fourteen hours efforts in getting to windward, I have been able to see _no_ ship whatever within the limits of vision from the level of the deck. On ascending then to the top-mast head, where the extent of vision became vastly increased; I have generally found the pursuing fleet, bent on the same course, to be far away from us; some ships being left so much behind, perhaps, as to have disappeared, not from fog, or darkness, but from mere distance to leeward!

This striking feat of skill--differing in degree of course, according to the nature and extent of the navigable interstices of the ice, and the force and direction of the wind, with the sailing qualities of the competing ships likewise, as well as the seamanship of their commanders--was, as I have intimated, repeatedly performed under my own observation. But the like triumph of superiority was also gained, and that on different occasions within my personal observation, when the competing progress was being made through a compact body of ice into the northern fishing stations, and where the penetration, in anticipation of the general fleet, gained its due reward in an early and superior success.

The voyage of 1806, described in Chapter IV. Section VII., exhibited a striking example of the successful application of this talent; and in that of 1809, the same result was interestingly realized.

We had taken the ice, in the latter case, with the view of penetrating the barrier betwixt the free northern ocean and the fishing stations in the seventy-ninth and eightieth degree of latitude, along with a large fleet of other whalers. For some days, whilst no material progress could be made, we remained in varying relative positions presenting but little decided advantage. At length, when circumstances gave room for the due exercise of talent and perseverance, we made a progress so much beyond that of our associates, that we gradually left them, farther and farther, behind us, until the whole of the fleet were out of sight. We thus gained the "northern water" considerably before the others, and, falling in with whales in abundance, soon commenced a most encouraging fishery. By and by, others of the fleet began to make their appearance; and I well remember the astonishment of the captains and men of three ships which came close up to us on the 5th of June, just as we had taken in our _fourteenth_ whale, whilst they had only obtained six amongst them. One of these ships had been near us, or in company with us, on the 27th of May, the day on which we succeeded in surmounting the icy-barrier. She, however, had only made the same passage the day before this, and had made but trifling progress in the fishery.

As there is no portion of the navigable ocean throughout the globe, at all comparable, as a field for the exercise of superior talent in seamanship, with the ice-encumbered regions around the poles; so my Father's capabilities in this beautiful practical science, had, at once, the requisite scope for their abundant exercises, and their admirable triumphs. No matter what the species of manoeuvre or operation might be, he was equally superior in all. In "making fast" to the ice in gales of wind--an operation of singular difficulty and ofttimes of no small risk,--the manner in which he brought up his ship to the nearest possible proximity with the place of the ice-anchor, afforded time and opportunity for getting out and attaching the mooring hawser, and then, with progressively reduced sails, eased the ship's action on the rope till fairly brought up, head to wind,--was in the highest degree masterly and beautiful. Repetitions of trial, and failure on failure, with much useless toil and re-setting of sails, and, not unfrequently, with very hard blows against the ice, were matters of such perpetual experience among the inferior navigators engaged in the service, as to render the operations we have just attempted to illustrate, the more conspicuously admirable.