FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 8, 1910. 
5 S 4 
The Puddlebridge Smack Race. 
* 
The Puddlebridge Regatta Committee had 
spared no expense to make this well-known 
fixture a success, but unfortunately they had 
chosen a date which clashed with the Cowes 
week, and the yachts were conspicuous by their 
absence. Something must be done to save the 
reputation of Puddlebridge, and after much dis¬ 
cussion and innumerable drinks the committee 
decided to revive the annual smack race. 
This race, once the feature of Puddlebridge 
regatta, had died a violent death, owing to the 
unwillingness of successive sailing committees 
to settle protests with their fists. 
But this year things should be different. Dr. 
Ambrose had just set up in Puddlebridge; be¬ 
sides being a bit of a pugilist, he was a yacht¬ 
ing man from the Clyde, and had kindly con¬ 
sented to act as secretary to the regatta, which 
he insisted should be run on Y. R. A. lines. 
This impressed the committee, who had no idea 
what it meant, but were determined Puddle- 
bridge should not be behind the Clyde in things 
nautical, and seconded everything the doctor 
suggested with feverish haste. 
The Puddlebridge fishing fleet is not a large 
one. There are ten boats, all told, which can 
float, and Mr. Brown’s little Gipsy, which has 
failed to do so for several years. Of these ten 
boats, four are looked upon as smart little ves¬ 
sels, five are in an advanced stage of decom¬ 
position, and the other, the Pomone, or Pom- 
one, as she is locally called, is of a type our 
forefathers built several centuries ago. She 
may be described as full-bodied, and out 9f 
water suggests a compromise between the lines 
of a Dutch sclmyt and a Yorkshire billyboy, 
with a suggestion of the modern lightship about 
her stern. As her owner, Mr. Adams, once said 
of her, “She is as slow as the wrath of God”— 
and Mr. Adams ought to know, for he has 
reached his seventy-eighth year in comparative 
comfort, much to the surprise and disappoint¬ 
ment of the godfearing Puddlebridgeites. 
Everybody who knows Puddlebridge knows 
the Matilda is the fastest fishing boat “round 
these 'ere parts,” or if they don’t, it is obvious 
they have never met Captain Joseph Posh. 
That worthy would be sure to have mentioned 
it in the course of conversation; he might also 
have let it be known that he was once "master 
of a vessel,” a fine ship by all accounts, but— 
and this is only hearsay—she was lost by an 
error of judgment on the part of Captain Posh, 
who, in a fit of dru—absent-mindedness, mixed 
up the courses in the English Channel with 
those on the East Coast, and ran her up high 
and dry on Portland Breakwater, under the im¬ 
pression that he was entering the Humber. 
Now. Puddlebridge Regatta Committee had 
offered the generous sum of £10 for the winner 
of the smack race, but, with the exception of 
the Matilda, no entries had come in, and the 
indefatigable secretary went forth to the “Butt 
and Winkle” to find out the why and wherefore 
of this curious state of things. 
"It's no good, sir,” Posh explained, proudly. 
“They're afraid of the Matilda; they know as 
they can’t beat her.” 
“If Captain Posh will go shares, we’ll race,” 
explained several men; “but he won’t; he wants 
it all.” 
“Well, he'll only get half,” said the doctor, 
“under Y. R. A. rules, if a boat sails over the 
course she is only entitled to half the first 
prize.” 
"Wot rules?” asked the indignant Posh. “Y. 
R. A.’s! Never ’eard of ’im. I calls them rotten 
rules. York-Antwerp or Board of Trade is 
good enough for me.” 
“Well, that’s the rule; so you had better try 
to get the others to come in,” the doctor re¬ 
marked as lie left Captain Posh. 
"There,” the captain said, “if that ain’t a rum 
go. I never heard of such a rule. To take the 
money out of a working man’s mouth like that! 
I’ve a good mind not to race at all.” 
"If you like to give it up,” Joe Dowset 
hinted, "I don’t say but what some of us might 
have a try at it. Just for the fun of the thing,” 
he added as an after thought. 
“If I’d been spoke to like the doctor spoke to 
you,” another put in, “I wouldn’t race. Right- 
down rude he was, and you been master of a 
vessel—until you lost her.” 
“I never noticed that he was rude,” Posh 
said; "leastways, not to me. I shall race if I 
have to race alone,” and he left the bar and 
strolled slowly up the street. 
Here a bright idea struck him, and, entering 
the Mariners’ Inn, he inquired if Mo Adams 
was there. 
“Mo. I want to speak to you a minute on 
business,” he began, as Mo emerged from the 
crowded bar. “I want you to do me a favor.” 
Mo finished his tankard and put his hat on. 
"That’s all right,” the captain hastily added. 
“I ain't going to borrow anything. It’s about 
this race. I can’t get any of the other boats to 
enter. They’re all afraid of me, and I reckoned 
you’d enter the Pom-one, just to oblige me, you 
know.” 
"Enter the Pom-one!” Mo said, staring at 
the captain in amazement. “Why, she’s all to 
pieces, she ain’t fit to race. The others will 
enter fast enough if you’ll go shares; and if they 
won’t race, why, you’ll just get the £10 any¬ 
way.” 
"That’s just where you’re wrong,” the captain 
interrupted. “There’s a fool of a rule the doc¬ 
tor’s made, and if I race alone I only get £5.” 
“Oh! 1 see,” Mo answered. “Well, it would 
cost me quite a bit to get the old boat ready, 
you see; what with blacklead for her bottom and 
some new ropes- 
The captain coughed nervously. “Mo,” he 
said, “if a pound would be any use to you, I 
don't say but what I might find one in my 
pocket. A pound will go a long way in rope 
and stuff,” he added, by way of encouragement. 
“It won’t go far on the Pom-one,” Mo said, 
sadly. “Three pounds might fit her up, and 
then it wouldn’t pay me, what with having to 
work Sunday and all'.” 
“There’s no need to clean her up at all,” 
Captain Posh remarked, “so long as you just 
sail round, that’s all I want.” 
"I couldn’t for shame sail her round like she 
is,” Mo answered. "No, if you like to give 
me £3 down I'll do it. I can’t do it under that 
figure, not to do myself credit.” 
Captain Posh removed his hat and thought¬ 
fully scratched his head, in the hopes of waking 
up another idea; but this operation proving 
abortive, and all appeals to Mo’s friendship be¬ 
ing unavailing, while the suggestion that he was 
no sportsman nearly caused a row, the captain 
was ,forced to part with £3 on the understand¬ 
ing that Mo raced the Pomone in Monday’s 
race. 
The Sunday Mo spent on the hard with a tar¬ 
brush and a blacklead-pot, polishing the uneven 
planks of the Pom-one until she shone like a 
“pint-pot.” He also carried aboard several 
suspicious white bags which might or might 
not contain sails. 
Captain Posh watched these perparations with 
a scornful eye, and laughed heartily when a 
neighbor told him to look out for the Pom-one 
on Monday. 
That evening the barometer at the “Butt and 
Winkle” dropped nearly an inch, and as each 
customer tapped it on going out at closing time, 
it jerked itself down a little further, until Posh 
asked them to “leave the infernal thing alone, 
or they’d spoil the regatta altogether.” 
Monday morning was wild-looking, and to¬ 
ward noon it cleared up and blew a healthy 
gale. So much so that most of the rowing 
matches had to be abandoned, owing to the 
difficulty of distinguishing between the com¬ 
petitors in these and the swimming races. Bill 
Toucher, who had started in a punt race, went 
so far as to get the gun in the men's swimming 
race, and nearly smashed up the committee tent 
when he found he w'as not to get the prize. 
At 1:30 the first gun was fired for the smack 
race, and both boats started at once, but after 
frantic yelling through a megaphone they were 
recalled, and made to understand that there 
were two more guns yet before the actual start. 
During the intervening fifteen minutes the 
boats tore up and down the home reach; the 
Matilda, with a single reef in her mainsail, oc¬ 
casionally lying over at an alarming angle, and 
the old Pomone with a wave like a feather-bed 
under her bluff bows, creaking and groaning 
under the whole mainsail. 
At the third gun away they went, the Pom¬ 
one crossing the line just ahead of the Matilda. 
The course w r as a dead beat down the river 
against the tide and a run home. The Matilda 
soon took the lead, and Captain Posh smiled 
proudly on his little beauty as he worked her 
to windward up the first reaches. As they 
opened the lower river the sea was considerable, 
and the Matilda at times found a single-reefed 
mainsail more than she cared about, and showed 
her disapproval by lying on her side and refus¬ 
ing to get along at all. The extra weight and 
power of the other boat told in her favor, and, 
as her skipper remarked, if she only held to¬ 
gether until they got round the buoy, he “rec- 
kined he’d give old. Posh a scare.” 
Tack after , tack they made, and slowly the 
Pomone drew up to the Matilda until the lat¬ 
ter’s skipper could hear his opponent’s bows 
hammering the seas like a Dutch hotter, and 
see out of the corner of his eye the spurt of 
foam she threw aloft with each plunge. His 
smile had vanished, and in its place was a look 
of grim determination. “If he catches us on 
the turn-out, we’ll run him off his legs going 
home,” he muttered. 
Captain Posh rounded the mark fifteen sec¬ 
onds ahead of the Pomone, and as he squared 
away for the run home his smile returned, and 
he was in the act of lighting a pipe when his 
attention was arrested by a struggling mass of 
men on his opponent’s deck. From her star¬ 
board side a large pole stuck out, and round 
its butt-end a herculean struggle was taking 
place between three men and a lashing mass of 
white canvas. Out of this melee suddenly burst 
a spinnaker of dazzling whiteness, which slowly 
and with little jerks worked itself to the top¬ 
mast head. As it mounted, the crew had diffi¬ 
culties with the scaffold-pole, which showed a 
tendency to fly aloft, and took the united efforts 
of four men to hold down, while the topmast 
whipped and bent like a reed until the topsail 
halliard was brought aft and used as a “pre¬ 
venter.” 
If the Pomone had sailed before, she fairly 
flew now, and before the spinnaker was fairly 
set. she was on even terms with the Matilda, 
and slowly drawing ahead. Posh then realized 
that, short Of an accident, the race was lost, 
but his remarks to Mo as the boats passed each 
other were drowned in the shrieking of the wind 
and straining of the gear on the Pomone. 
To reach the finishing-line it was necessary to 
gybe. But Mo was drunk with excitement, and 
paid no attention to the warnings of his crew. 
His hat was gone, and his gray hair was blown 
about his wrinkled eyes, the pupils of which 
had narrowed to pin-points. 
As he came to the turn into the home reach, 
he shouted to his crew to get the spinnaker in; 
but it was too late, the boom hesitated a 
moment and then came over with a crash, 
smashing the topsail halliard and bringing the 
topmast with its spinnaker and gear down. 
The crew clawed the wreckage on to the deck, 
and the Pomone headed for the line, with the 
Matilda fifty yards astern. From the shore 
there w>as a dull roar of excitement as the 
hinder boat drew up, and deafening yells of de¬ 
light as the Pomone got the gun three seconds 
ahead of the Matilda. 
It was the last race the old Pomone ever 
sailed. She had literally pulled herself to pieces. 
That night she filled and sank, and now she has 
joined the little Gipsy in the graveyard on the 
mud. But if Mo is proud of her last race he 
is still prouder of having got to windw'ard of 
Captain Posh, for, as a Puddlebridge worthy 
once remarked, “Any one who is going to get 
to windward of Captain Posh is going to get 
wet!”—A. Briscoe in Fore’s Sporting Sketches. 
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