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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



HOMEWARD BOUND: A BANKER IN WINTER RIG 



on market Bankers and only a steady 

 gale will keep the fishermen aboard the 

 schooner. 



If the weather is intermittently squally, 

 the dories go overside and make "one-tub 

 sets," coining aboard the schooner when 

 it is snowing and blowing too hard and 

 setting out again when the flurry eases off . 



It is in weather like this that one is 

 compelled to give the Bank fishermen 

 their due. To see them swing their 

 dories overside on a black winter's morn- 

 ing and pull out over a tumbling sea and 

 set their lines with a torch aflare on the 

 dory gunwale is a most impressive sight. 

 One can see them on a windy day toiling 

 and tossing in their frail craft on a crest- 

 ing waste of gray waters and blotted 

 from sight every now and again by 

 squalls of snow. 



To set and haul their gear, to pull a 

 heavy dory with a load of cod and had- 

 dock in a broil of wind-whipped combers, 

 demands a skill and hardihood which 

 makes the American Bank fisherman the 

 finest boatman in the world. 



The low temperatures which often pre- 

 vail in our western waters in winter add 

 to the fisherman's trials. Dories often 

 become so heavily encased in ice that they 



are in danger of foundering with the 

 weight of it. Schooners also run the 

 same danger, and it is not an uncommon 

 occurrence for a vessel to be so heavily 

 iced-up that she dare not venture any 

 longer toward the coast, but is compelled 

 to run offshore, to the warmer tempera- 

 tures in the Gulf Stream. 



BRAVING THE GAI.lt WITH EASHED WHEEL 

 AND BARE MASTS 



When on the Banks, fishing vessels do 

 not run for harbor every time the barom- 

 eter foretells a gale. The usual thing is 

 to take it hove-to under foresail and 

 jumbo, and this sail can be reduced down 

 to a reefed foresail if necessary. In one 

 tremendous winter gale, we had to haul 

 everything off the schooner, and she lay 

 for four hours under bare poles, with 

 wheel lashed and all hands below. 



The modern Bank fishing-schooner will 

 make "good weather" of a hard gale and 

 a mountainous sea and seldom take 

 aboard any water to hurt ; but life on a 

 fishing-schooner hove-to in such weather 

 is by no means pleasant. Its fearful 

 leaps and plunges make it almost impos- 

 sible to walk one step without hanging on 

 to something, and the muscles of the body 



