SAILING CRAFT 93 



to any vessel, as well as any crew, that hailed 

 from any port in British North America, be- 

 cause a vessel is commonly called by the name 

 of the people that sail her. ' There 's a Blue- 

 nose,' ' that 's a Yankee,' ' look at that Dago,' 

 or ' hail that Dutchman ' apply to ships afloat 

 as well as to men ashore. And here it might 

 be explained that ' Britisher ' includes anything 

 from the British Isles, ' Yankee ' anything fly- 

 ing the Stars and Stripes, ' Frenchie ' anything 

 hailing from France, ' Dago ' anything from 

 Italy, Spain, or Portugal, and ' Dutchman ' 

 anything manned by Hollanders, Germans, 

 Norsemen, or Finns, though Norwegians often 

 get their own name too. A ' chequer-board ' 

 crew is one that is half white, half black, and 

 works in colour watches. 



Hard things have often been said of Blue- 

 nose crews. Like other general sayings, some 

 of them are true and some of them false. But, 

 mostly, each of them is partly true and partly 

 false : and — ' circumstances alter cases.' The 

 fact is, that life aboard a Bluenose was just 

 what we might expect from crews that lived a 

 comparatively free-and-easy life ashore in a 

 sparsely settled colony, and a very strenuous 

 life afloat in ships which depended, like all 

 ships, on disciplined effort for both success 



