300 Mr. E. W. Gruilger on the 



started to reach it. " Sailing vessels may ... be seen stuck 

 fast in spite of a breeze brisk enough to keep the sails fully 



strained Sometimes it happened that one vessel 



gets into dead-water and another not, though it is impossible 



to discover any reason for this." " we already bad 



good speed, when all at once the ship took dead-water . . . . 

 she stopped so quickly that it looked as if she had dropped 

 anchor." The vessels being becalmed, " One of them was 

 towed away without any difficulty, while the other, though 

 of similar size, got into dead-water, and an extraordinary 

 amount of work was required to get this vessel from the 

 spot." Another ship in dead-water drifted back four miles 

 with the current " against the direction of the steady fresh 

 breeze, although they had all sails set." Another observer 

 writes that in dead-water it " . . . . feels as if something 

 were fastened to the ship and holding it back." " In such 

 cases, one or more vessels might suddenly lose their steering 

 and remain on the spot, while others pass freely through the 

 midst of them at a distance as short as two or three ships' 

 length. After a while it was the turn of the other vessels 

 to get into dead-water." " We scarcely glided along and 

 were forced to have all sails set, until we were quite near 

 our anchorage. Then the dead-water suddenly let go its 

 hold. Believe me, they were both in a hurry, the ship and 

 the pilot. Braces and falls ran a race together, and we only 

 just got the anchor dropped without any misfortune." " The 



brig got into dead-water The speed was lost, and the 



ship was as if nailed to the spot." When the dead-water 

 let go with the sails drawing, " .... it all at once appeared 

 as if the vessel had cut loose from a mooring aft." Au 

 8-knot steamer in dead-water " . . . . according to the pilot's 

 own phrase, hardly moved from the spot." 



Other descriptions might be quoted, but, save the one 

 now to follow, these are the most typical. The one now to 

 to be given, with a sketch showing the appearance of the 

 water around the vessel, is from the pen of Kommandor- 

 kaptein Joh. Kroepelien of the Norwegian Navy. He 

 writes that the ship with all sails set, heeling over rather 



stiffly before a fresh breeze " all of a sudden, lost her 



headway without any perceptible external cause, and the 

 turning power of the rudder became nil. 



"We then perceived that the ship had taken dead-water. 

 From about amidships and outwards on both sides and to a 

 considerable distance aft she was surrounded by a mass of 

 dead-water, smooth as glass, as if the surface were covered 

 with oil. The line betweeu this smooth surface and the 



