CHAPTER VII 



SAILING CRAFT: 'FIT TO GO FOREIGN 1 



WE will suppose that the ship is complete in 

 hull, successfully launched, and properly rigged 

 and masted. The two questions still remain- 

 ing are : what is her crew like, and how does 

 she sail ? 



The typical British North American crew 

 of the nineteenth-century sailing ship is the 

 Bluenose crew. Newfoundlanders were too 

 busy fishing in home waters, though some of 

 them did ship to go foreign and others sailed 

 their catch to market. Quebeckers built ships, 

 but rarely sailed them ; while the Pacific coast 

 had no shipping to speak of. Thus the Blue- 

 noses had the field pretty well to themselves. 

 Bluenoses were so called because the fog along 

 the Nova Scotian and New Brunswick coast was 

 supposed to make men's noses bluer than it did 

 elsewhere. The name was generally extended 

 by outsiders to all sorts of British North 

 Americans ; and, of course, was also applied 



H 



