Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) (10 page)

Heaven only knows what the villagers thought when he stopped work temporarily to tow an iron gunboat from New York to Brazil. The
Destroyer
, which Slocum referred to as “
the first ship of the strong right arm of future Brazil,” was just one of the warships the Brazilian president had purchased to defend himself against opposing forces within his own country. Of his time as navigator-in-command of the ship under tow, Slocum later wrote, “Frankly it was with a thrill of delight that I joined the service of Brazil to lend a hand to the legal government of a people in whose country I had spent happy days.” There were several other, less humanitarian reasons why the job offer had appealed to the captain. For one thing, he needed the money to continue with his building. But there was an even more compelling reason:
if Slocum had a bee in his bonnet, as the Fairhaven neighbors sensed, it was over the loss of the
Aquidneck
. So when the opportunity presented itself to sail back to the country he blamed for his decline, Slocum jumped at it: “Confidentially: I was burning to get a rake at Mello and his
Aquideban
. He it was who in that ship expelled my bark, the
Aquidneck
from Ilha Grand some years ago … I was burning to let him know and palpably feel that this time I had in dynamite instead of hay.” Bravado aside, Slocum clearly did not want to get embroiled in the ordeals of the war, nor did he wish to dirty his hands as a soldier of fortune. “
Being a man of a peaceful turn of mind, however, no fighting was expected of me, except in the battle with the elements.” His position aboard the gunboat was of “navigator in command.” His job, as it had been when the
Liberdade
was under tow, would be to keep the
Destroyer
on course and stable.

The trip proved futile. Slocum sailed on December 7, 1893, probably with his head full of just how he would deal forcefully with the
Aquidneck
issue. The irony was that a letter written by the State Department two days later would just miss the tenacious — and by this time vengeful — captain. It contained their final word on the
Aquidneck
, direct and conclusive: “This Department therefore, does not feel warranted in taking any further action.” Another bit of irony followed after he arrived in Brazil. The
Destroyer
was accidentally, though some felt quite deliberately, sunk. Not only was Slocum without
compensation for the loss of the
Aquidneck
, but he would have to head home by steamer, unpaid for his job on the
Destroyer
. On his return, he vented his frustration at this misadventure by writing his second book.
Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil
ended up being so poorly produced that Slocum decided against selling the copies he had self-published. He gave them away, and even then he had a hard time getting rid of them. As to the
Destroyer
, Slocum wrote, “
>Alas! for all our hardships and perils! The latest account that I heard said that the
Destroyer
lay undone in the basin. The tide ebbing and flowing through her broken hull — a rendezvous for eels and crawfish — and now those high and dry sailors say they had a ‘narrow escape.’”

There was one more piece of strange news about Slocum to keep the tongues wagging in Fairhaven. Their strange neighbor had been challenged to a duel by a British soldier of fortune. It seems that Lieutenant Carlos A. Rivers felt he had been misrepresented in
Voyage of the Destroyer
. According to the Boston
Sun
of August 3, 1894, Rivers was charging that the captain had “ridiculed and defamed him in his recently published book by declaring he was worsted ignominously in a bout with the colored cook, and that his sword was not the historic Toledo blade which the owner claimed it to be.” Rivers promised Slocum he would meet him “anywhere at any time and place, and with any weapons.” Slocum didn’t appear fazed, and replied that his wife’s feelings had to
be considered and that in general “
duellists should consult their wives.” He backed out of the confrontation, declaring, “My wife would be disturbed to be left a widow … It is better that I catch fish than fight him.”

When Slocum spent any length of time on dry land he quickly became embroiled in legalities, unpleasantness and trouble. Escape to the sea constantly beckoned, and now he put his mind to what he might do with the
Spray
, which he had launched on a trial sail in Buzzards Bay, with just himself and Captain Pierce aboard. Slocum was proud of his accomplishment, boasting that “she sat on the water like a swan.” This captain, who had once commanded a 220-foot vessel, was describing a sloop thirty-six feet nine inches long, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep in her hold, with net tonnage of nine tons and almost thirteen tons gross. The
Spray
was plain and rough in her construction, but seaworthy with her oak keel and frames, pine hull planking, white pine deck and concrete ballast. Slocum had replaced her centerboard with a stout keel, which he had cut from an oak in a local pasture, and had fashioned the mast from “a smart New Hampshire spruce.” Once again he was master of his own vessel.

Slocum’s next task was to answer the question that haunted him: “What was there for an old sailor to do?” For Slocum was an “old” sailor; now fifty-one, he had spent over two-thirds of his life on the ocean. As a merchant mariner he had been around the world five times
over every kind of sea. His knowledge of ocean conditions, weather and navigation was vast — far beyond the grasp of an ordinary seaman. He knew the sea intuitively. After a year of trying to make a living by fishing and chartering small party cruises, Slocum felt himself beckoned by a plan to surpass all his previous adventures. He pined to be back on the ocean, where, as he well knew, he functioned best. He was tired of struggling to make a living, tired of defending and justifying himself to others. In the year following the launch, the
Spray
became his home; he had no other, and no ties to keep him on land. Life with Hettie in Boston held no appeal. In a letter to a friend, biographer Walter Teller reflected on Hettie’s part in Slocum’s decision to embark on a solo voyage around the world: “
I’m glad you’re quite frank about Hettie. As she had no children nothing said about her will hurt anyone. Perhaps the world owes her something — that is, if she had been more companionable the Captain might never have sailed alone and a great adventure of the human spirit might have come off quite differently.” According to Slocum, when he invited Hettie to join him on his latest adventure, she answered curtly, “Joshua, I’ve had a v’yage.”

Once he had made up his mind to sail alone around the world, Slocum was filled with purpose and drive. It was a means to display his daring and his impressive navigational skills. The plan also had a practical purpose, which he explained to a reporter from the Boston
Daily Globe:
“The object of the trip? Well, it is mainly to make
money. I see money ahead if I get through safely. I shan’t carry much cargo, but I expect the
Spray
will be pretty well filled with curios of various kinds before she gets back.” For well over a year before the voyage he had been busying himself with plans to finance it, partly by writing a syndicated newspaper column. Roberts Brothers in Boston agreed to be his agent, and Slocum hustled to find newspapers that would run his dispatches. The positive response excited him, and he wrote enthusiastically to Eugene Hardy at Roberts Brothers: “
My Syndicade is filling up … This morning I got the great Mr. Watterson: The
Louisville Courier Journal.”
Slocum’s reading of Watterson’s letter was too optimistic: all the
Courier
editor had conveyed was an interest in paying Slocum for what the paper chose to print. His reply to Slocum had been clear: “I can not contract with you for the whole of your series of letters. Knowing your reputation I can count on the letters being of interest but our using them might depend on other contingencies.”

As he continued to court financial support, the captain looked after the physical preparations. One of his first concerns was to stock his library. Just as in his earlier sailing days, he considered a library on board a necessity. He wrote to Hardy again to ask for books, explaining, “Mr. Wagnalls of the house of Funk and Wagnalls told me the other day that he would also put me up some. I may be able to pay for all this kindness at some future time but not now.” He added that he wasn’t fussy about the condition of
the books, and that “
a ‘shop-worn’ book would be as good for me as any; so far as the outside goes.” When the books arrived, Slocum sent Hardy a note of gratitude signed “A thousand thanks.” He enthused over Hardy’s choices, noting a “Mr. Stephensons” (Robert Louis Stevenson) and praising in particular a new book called
A Strange Career
. This biography of the bold English prospector and frontiersman John Gladwin Jebb obviously struck a deep chord with Slocum. The book’s foreword, by H. Rider Haggard, made this acknowledgment of Jebb: “Rarely if ever in this nineteenth century, has a man lived so strange and varied an existence. ‘Adventures are to the adventurous,’ the saying tells us, and certainly they were to Mr. Jebb. From the time he came to manhood he was a wanderer.” Surely Slocum, with his life of romance and adventure, not only identified with Jebb but was inspired by his success. In anticipation of quieter moments, Slocum created a poets’ corner featuring the works of Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, Lamb and Cervantes. He was a voracious reader, as the Boston
Herald
noted in a feature it ran before he left: “The library of the
Spray
includes such books as Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’ and ‘Expression of the Emotions,’ ‘Boswell’s Life of Johnson,’ ‘Newcomb’s Popular Astronomy,’ ‘The Life of Macaulay,’ Mark Twain’s ‘Life on the Mississippi,’ Todd’s ‘Total Eclipses of the Sun,’ Bates’ ‘The Naturalist of the Amazon,’ Shakespeare …”

In stark contrast to his well-stocked library, Slocum sailed with a bare minimum of navigational tools. He
planned to circle the globe with what odds and ends he had gathered from years on the water: a sextant and a compass, his charts, and the most current of Massey patent taffrail logs, which he would trail behind the
Spray
to calculate her speed and determine distance. He planned to buy a clock along the way. He told a reporter, “
I don’t go out like the dumb and blind. Understanding nautical astronomy, I will, of course, navigate the world around with some degree of precision natural to any first-rate navigator.”

He carried few medicines, and some disinfectants; according to Victor, on the
Liberdade
the family medicine chest had consisted of Brazil nuts, pepper, cinnamon and table salt. Slocum had always enjoyed a strong constitution, with unusual stamina and strength. The Boston
Herald
stated that the Captain never had sick days and observed that “Capt. Josh is a kinky salt, 51 years old, as spry as a kitten and as nimble as a monkey.” As for the condition of the boat that would transport him, Slocum boasted of the
Spray
’s seaworthiness, and especially of her ability to steer herself. He claimed his little sloop was “very easily managed, even in a breeze.”

Over the years the seaworthiness of the
Spray
has been the subject of many a spirited debate among sailors and marine historians. In the May 1940 issue of
The Rudder
, John Hanna wrote a cautionary note to those sailors who wished to build a copy of the
Spray
, referring to them as “the suicide squad.” He spelled out a few facts: “A big lurching cross sea, that would scarcely disturb a properly
designed hull, can — especially if it coincides, as it often does, with an extra-savage puff of a squall — flip over a
Spray
hull just as you would a poker chip … Perhaps I can save a life or two by explaining, as simply as possible, the basic reason (skipping many other good reasons) why
Spray
is the worst possible boat for anyone, and especially anyone lacking the experience and resourcefulness of Slocum, to take off soundings.” He then points out that boats fashioned after the famous sloop are stiff, and should they ever heel beyond a critical point, “
they flop right over as inevitably as a soup plate, which they resemble.”

Howard Chapelle, a curator in the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Transportation, was every bit as harsh: “The
Spray
was a poor job, badly framed and fastened. Slocum was not a boat carpenter, of course. The
Spray
had been a typical Long Island Sound centreboard oyster sloop originally, and [Slocum] added a little to the outside depth of her keel, doing all rebuilding himself, without adequate funds … It is sheer ignorance to tout this damned bucket as a ‘splendid ship’ for she was not even a good oyster sloop with her board out.”

Whatever the
Spray
’s virtues and shortcomings, no one has ever questioned Slocum’s exceptional seamanship.

Slocum considered the
Spray
his home, so he valued her function, safety and comfort and wanted things snug aboard. The
Spray
had two cabins. The fore cabin, which measured six feet square, was the galley; aft was the larger cabin, roughly ten feet by twelve, which was the
main living quarters. Here he had his meals, did his mending and passed his time reading. Both cabins rose more than three feet above deck, so the captain had adequate headroom. A hatch between the two let Slocum crawl between them. Under the deck, along the side of the cabin, the captain fitted his berth and storage shelves. Around the base of a stanchion in the middle of the cabin was a circular table, within reaching distance of the bunk. Between this main cabin and the galley was the midship hold, which provided ample storage room for several months’ supplies. The wheel was handy to the companionway, which had a pine rail leading down into the cabin.

For provisions, Slocum laid in a large supply of staples. In a later article about his cooking aboard the
Spray
, Slocum noted what he started out with: “
I laid in two barrels of ship’s bread, or pilot bread, as some call it. In appearance this bread is like a large thick cracker of rather coarse quality. There’s no nonsense about it, though. It was made for keeps. It isn’t fine and white like the crackers most people like to buy. You could eat a bushel full of those and get no substance. But this old-fashioned hard bread is a kind of whole wheat. There’s good stuff in it and you couldn’t do better than to take some of it if you were going into the woods camping. My two barrels full lasted me the voyage through. I put them up in tin cans while they were dry and crisp, and I sealed the cans with solder so the bread was as good three years old as it was new.” Slocum also laid in a good quantity of
flour, codfish, potatoes, butter, tea and coffee. Aware that he would need to guard his possessions and his personal safety in waters still traveled by cannibals and pirates, Slocum armed himself with a Martini-Henry rifle and a revolver.