UNDER FULL SAIL

Shannon News, 2 November 1928, Page 4

UNDER FULL SAIL

Notwithstanding all that has been said about the beauty of a ship under full sail, there are very few who have ever seen a ship, literally, under all her sail. coming in. or going out of port, with-her ordinary sails, and .perhaps' two or three studding sails, is'-commonly said to be under full sail; but a ship never has all her sails upon her, except when she has a slight steady breeze, very nearly, but not quite, dead aft, and so regular that it* can be trusted and is likely to last for some time. Then ,with all he* sails, light and heavy, and studding sails on each side, alow and aloft, she is the most glorious moving object in the world. Such a sight, very few, even some who have been at sea a good deal, have ever beheld; for from the deck of your own vessel you cannot see her as you would a separate object. One night when we were in the tropics, I went out to the end of the flying-jib-boom upon some duty, and, having finished it, turned round, and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the deck, I could look at the ship as a separate vessel. . . .

and there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black ..hull, a pyramid of canvas spreading out far beyond the hull, and towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to the clouds. The sea was as still as a lake; the light trade wind was,gently arid "steadily breathing from astern; the dark blue sky was studded with tropical stars; there was no sound but \the rippling of water under the stem; and the sails were spread out wide and high—the two lower studdingsails stretching, on each side, far beyond the deck; the top mast studdingsails, like wings to the top-sails; the top-gallant studding-sails spreading fearlessly out above them; still higher, the two royal studding-sails, looked like two kites flying from the* same string, and the highest of all, the little skysail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch tie stars, and to be-out of reach of human hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the- breeze, that if those sails had been sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of/the canvas; not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail—so perfectly Avcre they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me un ; til he said (for he, too, rough old man-of-war 's-man as he was, had been gazing at tthe show), half to himself, still looking at the marble sails, "How quietly they do their work! "—Richard Henry Dana Jr., in "Two Years Before the Mast."