August, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
343 
Marsh Point on the Raritan. I got 
thirsty, and so set sails for the opposite 
shore, a mile away, where I knew there 
was a spring of iron water, highly prized 
by us boys because we believed that 
drinking it would make us strong! As 
the tide was running out strongly, it 
took several tacks to make up for the 
drift in getting across, and in one of 
them my rudder jammed. Its regular 
with, with all my sandwiches in it! A 
frantic grab for the gun was futile as 
he was already out of range! I owe 
that fish hawk a grudge to this day. 
However, there were two hard boiled 
eggs and a couple of boiled crabs in the 
canoe, and so, taking off all my clothes 
and spreading them abroad in the marsh, 
I sat down on the paddles to a lunch of 
egg and crab while the clothes dried out. 
The sail spars can be used for shears when setting up the tent 
pin had been lost, and so it had been 
hung with a couple of makeshift copper 
lashings to the screw eyes. At every 
other gust the canoe was knocked down 
to her cockpit coaming, but that was 
nothing unusual, one simply jammed 
one’s toes under the lee rail and hiked out 
over the pickle! But the rudder jam- 
ming was another matter; I couldn’t 
steer, now, except with a paddle blade, 
which is almost useless in a decked canoe, 
as it will not let you hang out to wind- 
ward when the gusts come. Several 
times I was nearly unbalanced by the 
knockdown puffs, and finally one got me 
and I was pitched bodily overboard, to 
leeward, taking the canoe with me. I 
remember leaping headlong into my own 
mainsail and then a smother of salt 
water. When I came up, the first thing 
I noticed was my precious moccasins 
wavering down through the water. They 
had come off my feet while doing the 
dive into the mainsail. I dove for them, 
with both eyes open, and got them both 
by great good luck. Next, I felt inside 
the canoe for my gun; it was lashed se- 
curely, thank goodness ! Then I loos- 
ened both main and mizzen halliards and 
unstepped the masts, which released the 
canoe so I could right her. The next 
stunt was to swim around and roll up 
the two sails and stow them inboard and 
then go swimming after the paddles. I 
was a great little retriever, and soon had 
all the canoe belongings back in the cock- 
pit, which was awash. I was half a mile 
from shore, and so I swam astern and 
turned myself into a human propellor, 
so that, helped by the strong wind and 
sea, I was soon where I could touch bot- 
tom and begin to wade with her. A fish 
hawk had been following me interestedly, 
and now he swooped down and flew off 
with a white package left behind in my 
wake. I suddenly realized that that was 
my package of lunch he was making off 
About four o’clock the snipe came up the 
marsh in great flocks of fifty or a hun- 
dred apiece, and I had some royal shoot- 
ing. It was dark and the shotgun shells 
all gone before I was ready to go home. 
Outside the draw-bridge to the open sea 
the waves were high, as I could tell by 
the big, smooth combers in the river, but 
she shot through the draw in great shape 
under double-blade paddle alone, and 
me tell you how to build one for yourself, 
at a cost of $7.50 complete. In paddle- 
ing against a head wind with such a 
craft, you had best leave the dandy up, 
as it not only keeps her head staunch to 
the wind but every side puff fills the 
dandy and you can just feel her shoving 
you along. 
In the open canoe with sail I have had 
two upsets in thirty years, one of which 
was in a howling southeast gale when we 
ran aground on a point and she turned 
a summersault over her own leeboards, 
and the other was in a squally northwest 
wind when I was navigating a narrow, 
crooked lake under sail. While the canoe 
was in stays, that is, luffing and coming 
about on another tack, a sudden gust 
blew out of the wall of forest, broadside 
on, and knocked her over as if you had 
struck her with a giant hand. No amount 
of seamanship could have avoided this, 
as the sail was perfectly loose and free, 
but a broadside gust from an entirely 
different point of the compass from that 
in which the wind is steadily blowing is 
likely to hit you unexpectedly in narrow 
waters surrounded by high banks of for- 
est, and so it is always much safer to 
paddle only in such places. As to the 
other upset, the leeboards were straight 
down, and you should always avoid a 
point likely to have a shoal on it when 
tacking in a high wind, for if she strikes 
bottom with the leeboards you will have 
the ignominy of upsetting in a foot and 
a half of water! 
A S to rigs for canoes, I have tried 
them all: — leg o’ mutton, bat wing, 
latteen and Canadian Club (or 
sliding Gunter), and have settled on the 
latter for all my later canoes. Leg-o’- 
mutton is a slow sail, because of its bad 
The “Water Rat”, a home-made sailing canoe 
made the two-mile trip in the open sea leach, and its spars are so long as to be 
in the dark without incident, hurdling unstowable in the canoe with six-foot 
the big whitecaps like a huntsman. A cock-pit. Bat wing is too complicated to 
great little boat — I use the mate to her make, and easily gets out of gear. Lat- 
now — and some day the Editor may let (continued on page 364) 
