Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) (13 page)

Slocum’s carpentry and shipwrighting skills came into play more than once on his three-year voyage. The water did its share of wear and tear on his beloved sloop. Besides repairing strategic parts of the rigging and caulking, he had to scrupulously maintain the hull below the water line. That vigilance was especially important in tropical waters, where he had to deal with barnacles, which threatened to coat the underside inches deep. In Tasmania he hauled out the
Spray
to check her “carefully top and bottom” for teredo, a destructive wood-devouring worm that can grow up to eight inches long. Another coat of copper paint was slapped on to further ensure that the wood would not be eaten away from under him.

Slocum made a number of adaptations on the voyage. At Buenos Aires he “unshipped the sloop’s mast … and shortened it by seven feet. I reduced the length of the bowsprit by about five feet, and even then I found it reaching far enough from home; and more than once
when on the end of its reefing the jib, I regretted that I had not shortened it another foot.” Later, in Keeling (Cocos) Islands waters, he changed the boat’s ballast, replacing the three tons of cement ballast with mammoth tridacna shells.

The captain wasn’t always racing around deck. The
Spray
’s self-steering abilities afforded him the leisure to read in his cabin. “
In the days of serene weather,” he later wrote, “there was not much to do but to read and take rest on the
Spray
, to make up as much as possible for the rough time off Cape Horn, which was not yet forgotten, and to forestall the Cape of Good Hope by a store of ease.”

Three previously unpublished photographs given to the author by Joshua Slocum’s great-granddaughters (Benjamin Aymar Slocum’s granddaughters), Carol Slocum Jimerson and Gale Slocum Hermanet
.

Virginia Albertina (Walker) Slocum, taken in Manila, some time between 1875 and 1880

Victor Slocum, taken in China (circa 1875)

Benjamin Aymar Slocum, probably age six (circa 1880)

All other photographs courtesy Old Dartmouth Historical Society — New Bedford Whaling Museum

Captain Slocum and the Gilbert Islanders he rescued in the Pacific Ocean. Unknown Japanese photographer (1882)

The homemade “canoe”
Liberdade
in which Slocum sailed home from South America with his second wife, Hettie, and their two sons, Garfield and Victor. Unknown photographer (1889)

A watercolor by Charles Henry Gifford of the
Spray
as a derelict at Poverty Point, Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Informally titled “She wants some repairs” (1889)

A portrait of Slocum taken about the time he had just self-published
Voyage of the Liberdade
. Unknown photographer (circa 1890)

A rare photograph of the interior of the
Spray
’s cabin. Note the rudimentary navigational instruments that Slocum used on his voyages. Unknown photographer (circa 1900)

Spray
moored at Gibraltar in August 1895. Slocum was on the first leg of his journey, before he decided to sail westward around the world. Ernest Lacy (1895)

Slocum aboard the
Spray
in South America, after sailing from Gibraltar through the doldrums and arriving in Pernambuco, Brazil. Unknown photographer (circa 1896)