332 : The Atlantic 



shaken. In 1891, we find him making a bet with Josiah W. Lawlor. 

 This involved a race across the Atlantic in two dories. Andrews 

 christened his dory the Mermaid, and Lawlor chose for his the name 

 of Sea Serpent. 



They sailed on June 17 from Boston. They separated on their 

 course. Andrews drifted into light airs which held him for thirty-five 

 days. On August 4 the ship Hafis reported Andrews as having been 

 in 45° 26' N. and 41° 22' W. on July 27. It was reported that Lawlor 

 had had much better weather so was well ahead of him. This was 

 proved true by a report brought to Boston on August 6 by the 

 steamer Queensmore that had spoken to both dories at a time when 

 Lawlor was some 100 miles ahead. Finally Andrews was capsized, 

 picked up by a steamer and landed in Antwerp. By this time Law- 

 lor had already been in England some fifteen days. 



Despite three failures, Andrews was not discouraged. The spring 

 of 1892 found him in Atlantic City preparing to sail for Spain in a 

 wonderful ship christened the Sapolio. Maybe he gave it this name 

 because it was little larger than a cake of soap — to be exact, fourteen 

 feet six inches in length. Sapolio was a folding boat built of thin 

 cedar boards, the boards being covered with canvas. From the de- 

 scriptions of her existing, she seems to have been a relatively flat 

 and shallow craft built either with a chine or hard turn in the bilges. 

 Andrews referred to her as a "sneak-box." He admits she pounded 

 horribly when going to windward, but he succeeded in sailing her 

 to the Azores, which he reached in thirty-one days, and finally took 

 her past Cape St. Vincent and into the ports of Huelva and Palos in 

 Spain, from which Columbus had sailed on his first voyage to 

 America. 



No record of heroic small-boat ventures is complete without a ref- 

 erence to Captain Howard Blackburn. Since his story has been re- 

 peatedly and adequately told, the following lines will serve simply 

 as a reminder of the accomplishments of this extraordinary man. 

 Blackburn, a large and powerfully built man, was in the crew of a 

 Grand Banks fishing vessel sailing out of Gloucester. The schooner 

 was fishing on the Burgeo Bank and Blackburn and a dory mate 

 named Welch were in a dory working with hand lines when a win- 

 ter gale suddenly cut them off from the schooner. For a time they 

 waited, hoping that the weather would moderate or that the 

 schooner would succeed in picking them up. Finally, in desperation, 

 they decided to row for shore. They took turns rowing until Welch 

 finally became exhausted by the heavy weather and froze to death. 



