SCHOONER CHANCE 27 



Station today. Instead we passed extra lashing around the water kegs 

 and set the try-sail. By then it was blowing steady forty miles. She 

 lay nicely enough as it was as yet smooth. About six o'clock the 

 gale was at its worst. She was jumping so badly that after having 

 been closed up with the supper while it was being cooked I had no 

 desire at all to eat it. When the sea began to make up she began to 

 make a lot of leeway. 



After dark it cleared off and the wind let up to about 30 miles an 

 hour. As the barometer was rising fast we were pretty sure that the 

 wind could not last for long. 



Jack had a wretched time in the galley. Nothing would stay 

 where he put'it and as the floor was always wet from our oilers as 

 we came down from on deck, he had trouble keeping his feet. He 

 claims that at one time he had his head wedged in behind the stove. 

 He also wishes he had brought his ice creepers. 



I only wish McKay could have seen her ride out this gale. The 

 ocean is so very large and the seas so very high that one thinks he is 

 in a small boat. It is a strange sensation to feel a yy ft. schooner 

 tossed around like a chip in a mill-race. One is used to slow digni- 

 fied motions, but not this jumping. But as the old fellow said in 

 Shelburne, "These little vessels scare hell out of you before they fi- 

 nally kill you," and it was evident that she could take an awful lot 

 more. 



I Position Sandwich Bay Section 

 Wednesday, July 28th < Weather Clear and cold 



I Wind Light westerly 



THERE was such a swell left over from yesterday's blow that it 

 was hopeless to try a station. After breakfast we hoisted the 

 jumbo and began to work slowly north. I calculated that our drift 

 last night had been about 25 miles ESE so that all we needed to be in 

 position for our outside station was about ten miles of northing. It 



