B A C K T H E N
Deep Loading for Primage
A classic photo of the Bath-built schooner Edward B. Winslow, likely bound for Portland, no doubt from a Hampton Roads port, filled to the hatch coamings with about 5,800 tons of coal. The Winslow once sailed, loaded, from the Delaware Capes to Portland in fifty-four hours. She was a near sister to the Edward J. Lawrence. The Winslow and the Lawrence were two of the five six-masters—all built by Bath’s Percy & Small—that flew the flag of managing owner J. S. Winslow & Co., of Portland.
Captains of big coal schooners, in effect, commanded two very different vessels. The poop of an empty schooner bound south seemingly stood as high as a four-story house. “Flying light,” schooners were apt to be notably flexible in a seaway, tender in a blow, and inclined to make leeway. Being long and narrow, however, with a brisk quartering breeze they were deceptively fast, commonly making thirteen knots. The danger of collision with vessels that recklessly attempted to pass ahead was always of large concern.
At the coal wharves running rigging was unroven, sail covers put snugly in place, and the cabin tightly closed up. The schooner was then enveloped in choking dust as carload after carload of coal thun-dered down into her. (After the hatches were closed, the colliers were thoroughly scrubbed down.) In the holds, Negro trimmers, often bent over under deckbeams, had the hellish job of shoveling the coal to the sides. (Many blacks served in the big schooners as sailors, as well.) As the schooner settled ever deeper, her joints tightened, and she regained the sheerline of her youth.
The only loading restrictions were imposed by the captain’s judgment, possibly swayed by the income he received as his 5 percent “primage” paid from the gross receipts of a voyage. Deep-loading was a risky business in winter—in February 1902, the five-master John B. Prescott, full of coal in a northeast gale, was lost after being swept by a large sea that started her upperworks. Ralph D. Paine wrote a fictionalized account (evidently based on some first-hand ex-perience) of an ill-fated winter passage in a deeply laden six-master:
Homeward-bound, the Elizabeth Wetherell carried a fair wind and smooth water .... The deck was dry and the portly cook made his long excursions to the cabin without peril or discomfort. It resembled a yachting cruise, but all the while the waves washed within a few feet of the bulwarks and the fact might have been significant that the vessel was unresponsive to the lift of the swell. She had the inert stability of a building on land. There was lacking that buoyant sensitiveness of a body immersed in a fluid ele-ment which is never quiescent. It was a dead feeling, and in the cabin the woodwork had ceased to creak. The stillness was almost startling.
Aboard the Winslow, we may be certain, there is some creaking woodwork! When approaching Portland the fictional craft (although “Wetherill” doubtless stood for Winslow) was caught by a fast-rising northeast gale. Her dividend-minded captain, after holding on too long trying to make port, was forced to turn to the open sea, an act of last resort for an big overloaded collier. Whereas other large vessels caught on the coast traditionally sought sea room, big, heavily laden coal schooners ran instead for the shore, where they relied on the great holding power of their oversized anchors; wallowing offshore, their fate rested with their steam pumps. Also, reefing the iron-like 00-weight duck sails, particularly with the minimal crews that were carried—the Winslow might have but a dozen or fourteen men aboard, all told—was rarely attempted. Taking in a lower sail in a blow was often impossible. Only the big spanker, or aftermost sail, was sure to be taken in in good season; while its large size aided tacking in a light breeze, on some limber big schooners it torqued the stern so badly in a strong breeze that the rudderpost became cramped, making steering all but impossible.
Most sail handling was performed from the deck, much of it by steam power; the work performed aloft — chiefly shifting topsails when tacking — was more difficult and dangerous than most tasks performed aloft on a square-rigger.
Adding to all the usual considerable perils of sailing on the northeast coast was the matter of the deep drafts of loaded schooners, which could approach thirty-feet. Nevertheless, shoal Nantucket Sound was the common route taken by northbound schooners rounding Cape Cod. (Only the dredging of Boston Harbor made the big schooners viable.)
The command of a big schooner was among the most demanding and sought-after positions in the American marine. The Winslow was built for the command of Captain Henry W. Butler, of Phippsburg, who would never have a wreck in thirty-five years. On a voyage in the Winslow to South America during World War I he netted her owners $118,400. Cargoes that big schooners carried other than coal, included phosphate rock, railroad ties, manganese ore (from Brazil), and sulfur.
Text by William H. Bunting from A Days Work, Part 1, A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860–1920, Part II. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, 12 Starr St., Thomaston, Maine. 800-582-1899.