s good weather as
any of them. And our best chance--the beat home--was yet to come. The
Johnnie had the stiffness for that. Had the Johnnie reached Gloucester
from the Cape Shore earlier she, too, would have been lightened up and
made less stiff. To be sure she would have had her bottom scrubbed and
we would have had her up to racing pitch, with every bit of sail just
so and her trim gauged to a hair's depth, but that did not matter so
very much now. The Johnnie was in shape for a hard drag like this, and
for that we had to thank the tricky Sam Hollis. We began to see that
after all it was a bit of good luck our vessel not being home in time
to tune up the same as the rest of the fleet.

It was along about here--half-way on the reach to Minot's--that
Tommie Ohlsen broke his main-gaff. It was the fault of the Eastern
Point, the Boston steamer. She had gone ahead of the fleet, taking
almost a straight course for Minot's Ledge. Reaching across from
Half-Way Rock to Minot's the fleet began to overhaul her. She, making
bad weather of it along here, started to turn around. But, rolling to
her top-rail, it was too much for them, and her captain kept her
straight on for Boston. That was all right, but her action threw
Ohlsen off. She was right in the Nannie O's way, and to save the
steamer and themselves from a collision and certain loss of life,
Ohlsen had to jibe the Nannie O, and so suddenly that the Nannie O's
gaff broke under the strain. And that lost Ohlsen his chance for the
race. It was too bad, for with Ohlsen, Marrs, and O'Donnell, each in
his own vessel in a breeze, you could put the names in a hat and shake
them up. When we went by the Nannie O her crew were getting the
trysail out of the hold, and they finished the race with that, and
made good going of it, as we saw afterward. Indeed, a trysail that day
would have been sail enough for almost any men but these.

Before we reached Minot's there was some sail went into the air. One
after the other went the balloons--on the Foster, the Colleen, the
Withrow and at last on us. I don't know whether they had any trouble
on the others--being too busy with our own to watch--but we came near
to losing men with ours. It got caught under our keel, and we started
to try to haul it in--the skipper having an economical notion of
saving the owner the expense of a new sail, I suppose. But Mr. Duncan,
seeing what he was at, sang out: "Let the sail go to the devil,
Captain--I'll pa