80 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[[Jan. i6, 1904, 
Cruise of Mblem. 
BY GEORGE E. DARLING. 
The Story Which "Won the Second Prize of $50 ia 
^'Forest and Stream" Cruising Competition. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I notice in the announcement made in your paper, it stated 
that you regret that I did not send pilotage notes for entering 
Chatham and Small Point harbors.. I would say regarding 
Chatham, that there is not over 3ft. of water at low tide, and the 
channel wjU sometimes change anywhere from 50ft. to IQOft. one 
way or the other in a night, when a heavy sea is running, and 
the best advice that can possibly be given the average cruising 
yachtsman would be to keep away from it unles he has' some 
one with him who is acquainted with the place and the peculiar 
conditions existing there. The tide out of Pleasant Bay sweeps 
from the northward in such a way that the point of sand to the 
southward of Orleans Life Saving Station has "made" nearly a 
mile to the memory of Chatham residents, and only a man who 
is experienced in handling a boat in the breakers and one who ' 
could pick his way in by the look of the waves, has any' business . 
to enter the place. Thfe seas do not look as bad from the out- 
side as they do from the shore, and this place in particular is not 
safe for a stranger. . ' ■ 
The harbor at Small Point is nothing more than a hole in the 
ledges back of Seal Island, so small that we rowed the Mblem 
out the next morning, and it would not be a safe place to 
run into with a boat drawing over Sft. of water, or with a boat 
that could not be depended on to spin round like a top, if neces- 
sary. It would be impossible to sail any boat out of it with the ■ 
wind anywhere from northeast to southeast. The day I entered 'it . 
the wind was west, and we worked the boat in a good deal as one . 
would wheel a wheelbarrov/ into a shed. 
G. E. Darling. 
Mblem was built during the spring of 1900 by Daniel 
and Charles Crosby at the home of the Cape Cod cat- 
boat, Osterville, Mass. She is 28ft. long on deck, 23ft. 
waterline, loft. loin. beam, draws ift. loin. Self-bailing 
cockpit, 9ft. long, Sft. wide. Cabin trunk, lift, long; 
cushions in cabin 13ft. long. Sleeping room for four. 
4ft. 6in. head room; lockers and shelves in abundance. 
Interior of cabin and cockpit finished oak and cypress, 
varnished. Sides of cabin trunk, curbing and rail, oak 
varnished. Decks and cockpit covered with canvas, 
painted. _ Square stern, with "barn door" rudder, and ' 
steers with a tiller. Her keel is nearly flush with the 
planking, wood cent erboard and balanced rudder. A large 
hatch in cockpit opens to ample space for supplies, extra 
anchors, warps, ice-box, etc. 
Her rig is simplicity itself; the throat and peak hal- 
yards lead to the cockpit on the starboard side. The sail 
hoists between two independent topping lifts, both of 
which lead to the port side. These ropes, with the main 
sheet, complete the running rigging. I have a spinnaker 
for use on long cruises. By tying in a 6 foot reef it makes 
a fine balloon jib, using the pole for a bowsprit. 'Her 
boom is 37ft. long, gafif 24^2^., mast Ziy^it., and spin- 
naker pole 24ft. 
The principal specifications I gave her builders were 
that she should be fast as possible, yet able and seaworthy 
under all conditions. 
I did not tie them down to "so long" and "so wide," 
etc., but left her model and dimensions to their best judg- 
ment. How well they executed their commission may be 
judged from her racing record for the past four seasons. 
During this time three boats have been built for the ex- 
press purpose of beating her, yet out of 51 races she has 
won 33 firsts and 7 seconds. 
One of her 1903 performances was the winning of a 
silver cup in a series of three races by three straight firsts. 
How staunch and seaworthy she is, may be judged 
from the following "yarn." 
Mblem^s Down East Cruise. 
All through . the twelve years that I have owned a 
seaworthy boat I have been looking forward to the time 
when I could take a cruise from Narragansett Bay to 
Maine. The idea of rounding my own boat up into the 
wind and anchoring ofif the rocky shore of the old farm 
overlooking Penobscot Bay, where my earliest attempts at 
boat sailing in a flat bottom skiff were made, and where 
I had the best times of my boyhood days, vwas a delightful 
one. 
Early last spring I began "sounding" such of my 
friends as I considered "salt" enough for such a trip, 
and while several practically agreed to go, only one came 
to the starting line when the time was up. He — and sup- 
pose I introduce him as Sam — had spent one summer on 
a fisherman for the fun of the thing. Then when the 
Spaniards got saucy he shipped on the St. Paul as an 
able seaman under Capt. Sigsbee, and the "yachting", ex- 
perience he gained was the real thing, and such as few 
' amateurs have with them. You should .have seen him 
vvith his sleeves rolled up showing artistic designs of 
skulls _ahd bones, coats of arms, bed bags, flags, etc., in 
India ink, and a generous cud of chewing tobacco behind 
his cheek. The tales of the sea that be could reel off 
would cauSe the average enthusiastic amateur to turn 
green with envy. 
"All aboard" was called at 6 P. M. on Saturday, Jun.e 
27, and with a west wind and a fair tide we left our . 
mooring at Pawtuxet with a feeling that we were now 
off for a royal experience. We made good progress down 
the bay and passed Conimiciit lighthouse before the sun 
went down; Sam at the tiller, I storing away ^ gienerous 
supply of. provisioiis. . At 8:15 we rounded Popasquash 
Ppintj .ran throufh Prlsto} Jiarbof and narrows ap.4"up 
Mount Hope Bay to Common Fence Point, then turned 
into the Sakonnet River. At 9 130 we passed through the 
railroad and stone bridges. The railroad bridge is easv 
to pass, having a wide draw, but the stone bridge opening 
,/ - MBLEM. 
is only 30 feet wide, and the tide runs like a mill race. 
This is a bad place for a stranger after dark. We went 
through flying, and continued on for Sakonnet, steering 
by compass down the channel, which is lined on both 
sides by fish traps with leaders extending well out into 
the channel. By dropping the centerboard half way 
S'ore^t and Stream 
Chart of Course taken by Mblem, 
down we were able to run over these safely, though the 
remarks we made as one after another showed up across 
our bows must have started the ^arj of mor? than pne 
"Gee" fishennan itching. 
Sakonnet lighthouse soon opened up, and at 12 :30 we 
ran into the harbor, keeping well to the north shore to 
avoid a dangerous ledge. A short breakwater protects 
the steamboat wharf, and to one familiar with the place 
a fine berth can be found in a south wind by. luffing 
sharply around this breakwater and running within 50 
feet of it up to the wharf in perfectly smooth water. 
June 28. — -We were up as we had planned "with the 
chickens," and at 5 o'clock were under way. We met 
two fishermen and bought a small blue for breakfast. 
The southwest wind did not have strength enough to 
hold the four parts of the sheet out of the water, so we 
unhooked the inner block off the boom, doing away with 
two strands. We made slow progress steering east by 
south, and at 11:30 were slowly drifting past Cutt3'hunk 
Island, when we came up with a Greek fisherman pulling 
lobster pots. Passed the general observations of weather 
and tide with him, and were delighted to hear him ask, 
"Want some lobster?" "Well, I rather guess yes." Sam 
was in the small boat with a couple of cold bottles in 
about fifteen seconds, and came back with all of a half 
bushel. Of course we had no foot rule. We didn't care 
to measure them anyway. Good lot like "looking a gift 
horse in the mouth," but it is sufficient to say we had a 
kettle going, boiling lobsters well into the afternoon. 
The tide from Buzzard's Bay carried us south of Sow 
and Pigs ledge, and we ran into Vineyard Sound just in 
time to meet the first of the western tide. The wind blew 
up a little stronger and our course up the sound was 
straight before it. Set the spinnaker, pulled the center- 
board way up, and she slid over the water very nicely, but 
was making slow headway over the bottom, as the tide 
runs three to four miles an hour. With both her sails 
drawing Mblem was a picture. I sat in a steamer chair 
with plenty of pillows, steering, and took life like $1,000 
a week, while Sam ate lobsters. It was a glorious sail. 
A large steam yacht with quite a stag party on board 
passed within one hundred feet of us. All lined up along 
the rail as we flew by, and just as evidence that we had no 
jealous eyes on them, I called out through the mega- 
phone, "We're having a sail that discounts yours." From 
their expressions they thought so, as all had a hand in 
the air, or salute of some kind for us. 
At 5 o'clock we made West Chop wharf, tied up to wait 
for the tide to turn, and had a very pleasant call from the 
lighthouse keeper. He looked over our line of cups and 
prizes that were tied up around the cabin in wonder. 
About 6 o'clock the tide turned and wind freshened, so 
we made sail again. We had figured on making a harbor 
for the night at Cottage City (or Lake Anthony), which 
is just to the south of East Chop light. This is a very 
handy and safe harbor for boats of not over five feet 
draft. It was such a beautiful night, clear as a bell, that 
we decided to keep going and get full benefit of the 
easterly tide. I held the tiller until 11:30, when we. were 
just past Handerchief light vessel, then turned in, with 
Sam on watch. He kept her on her course till past one, 
when the tide turned against us, then he called me and 
we anchored off Monomoy, one of the most dangerous 
spots on the coast, but the water that night was as smooth 
as a pond. 
June 29. — Monday morning we were on deck bright and 
early, the tide had just turned to the eastward and a fine 
Vv'hole sail breeze from the east-northeast was blowing. 
We were under way at 5 :30, and with the sheet started 
just enough to make the Mblem foot fast, we could lay 
our course up the beach. Passed Chatham Bar at 6 :45, 
and at 10 were off Cape Cod light. The wind held true 
and was freshening, the sea smooth, with a long easy , roll 
and occasionally a white cap. We laid a course N. N. W. 
for Thatchers Island light and with sheet well off, board 
half up, and the wind abeam, we reeled off the knots at a 
rattling pace. At 3 o'clock raised the land under our lee 
bow, and at 5 :45 we passed inside The Salvages. It was 
a lowery evening, and Thatcher Island twin lights cer- 
tainly looked like grim sentinels of the sea. ^he wind 
had freshened very much, so we pulled down and tied 
in two reefs_ and kept going up the coast, figuring that 
in the prevailing conditions we could make Portsmouth 
by 9 o'clock. By 7 o'clock it began to look stormy and 
rained so we ran into Newburyport and dropped our mud 
hook at the mouth of the Merrimac River for the night, 
well satisfied that we had covered a good bit of our long 
road to Maine> and were safely past the dreary, dangerous 
stretch of sand beach known as Cape Cod. 
June 30. — The sea was like glass, a faint northwest 
wind barely raised the . telltale, and we did the wisest 
thing possible — laid at our anchor, cooked a fine breakfast, 
and waited for a breeze. About 9 :30 it came west and 
we started up the coast. As the forenoon wore on the 
wind freshened and hauled around to southwest. At 4:30 
we were off Wood Island with Cape Elizabeth a long way 
ahead in the breeze that was blowing, so we ran in by 
Stratton Island and saw the wreck of the new five-master, 
Washington B. Thomas. Her bow was standing high out 
of water, with all the fore rigging in place and perfect, 
the main mast out of line with the fore, and every part 
of -the hull from 20 feet aft the main mast gone. . It was 
a sorry sight. ' ■ 
Running in behind Pi-out's Neck, we anchored at low- 
tide in five feet of waterj and went ashore to mail word 
home and get the daily papers. If ere some local yachts- 
men said we would get into all sorts of trouble if we r§-. 
