326 : The Atlantic 



While making a fast passage in the trades a combination of heavy 

 seas and heavy winds snapped her main boom. This was repaired at 

 sea in orderly sailor fashion and she came into port at Barbados with 

 flying colors. 



Indeed, the reason for mentioning Merton and Campbell is that 

 they serve as a good example of how intelligent amateurs can sail a 

 small vessel across the ocean with comfort and safety. Photographs 

 of Daydream appear in my book, Atlantic Circle. 



We may think of Daydream as being representative of a whole 

 class of small ships that in the hands of sensible sailors establish 

 pleasant stories of ocean passages. Ralph Stock bought a little ship 

 in one of the Channel ports, fitted her out as a yacht, learning sea- 

 manship and navigation as he went along. Then he and his sister 

 sailed across the Atlantic to Panama and across the Pacific to New 

 Zealand. The whole story is found in his book. The Cruise of the 

 Dream Ship. 



Arthur Hildebrand used to talk with me about ships while sitting 

 in the Yale Club library. One day I missed him. Some years later 

 I learned that he had gone to Scotland and bought a small yacht 

 which he and two companions took on a cruise to the Mediterra- 

 nean which lasted for several years and resulted in his charming 

 book Blue Water which has become a classic of small-boat cruising. 

 I saw Hildebrand again but very briefly, because he was in a hurry 

 to go to Scandinavia where he was to board a small vessel and try 

 to repeat the route of the Vikings' crossing to America. He sailed 

 but the ship was lost on the crossing. 



In 191 1 Thomas Fleming Day left Providence, Rhode Island in a 

 scrap of a yacht, twenty-five feet overall, called the Sea Bird. Thirty- 

 seven days later he sailed into the harbor in Gibraltar. Considering 

 the size of his vessel this could be regarded as a fast and skillful pas- 

 sage, but Day had enjoyed the trip and had not felt at all hurried. 

 In fact, he had passed by way of the Azores and had spent five lei- 

 surely days ashore, so that his total sailing time from the United 

 States to Gibraltar was thirty-two days. 



All of the foregoing could be regarded as rather exceptional ven- 

 tures in the field of yachting. The next long-distance sailor I met 

 could not, by any stretch of imagination, be regarded as a yachts- 

 man. The only classification that I can think of for Pidgeon is that of 

 "inspired individualist." In his youth he had no yacht, few resources, 

 and not too much education; but he wanted to see the world, and he 

 thought he could master the sea. He built the Islander himself, fol- 



