SAILING CRAFT 55 



its ' record-breaking ' events at sea. Baffin's 

 ' Farthest North,' reached in 1616, was latitude 

 77° 45'« This remained an unbroken record 

 for two hundred and thirty-six years. Cham- 

 plain's own voyage from Honfieur to Tadous- 

 sac in eighteen days broke all previous records, 

 remained itself unbroken for a century, and 

 would be a credit to a sailing ship to-day. 

 His vessel was the Don de Dieu, of which he left 

 no exact description, but which was easily 

 reproduced for the tercentenary of Quebec in 

 1908 from the corresponding French merchant 

 vessels of her day. She was about a hundred 

 tons and could be handled by a crew of twenty. 

 The nearest modern equivalent of her rig is 

 that of a barque, though she carried a little 

 square sail under her bowsprit and had no 

 jibs, while her spanker had a most lateenish 

 look. Her mainsail had a good hoist and 

 spread. She had three masts and six sails alto- 

 gether. The masts were ' pole,' that is, all of 

 one piece. The tallest was seventy-three feet 

 from step to truck, that is, from where the 

 mast is stepped in over the keel to the disc that 

 caps its top. She carried stone ballast ; her 

 rudder was worked by a tiller, with the help 

 of a simple rope tackle to take the strain ; and 

 the poop contained three cabins. 



