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The Brig Pilgrim is the setting for Richard Henry Dana's tale of California sea adventure in "Two Years Before the Mast."

Two Years Before the Mast

sat unread in the rail in the forepeak of Wiley for a dozen years. I don’t know where that book went. It may have turned to dust over the last decade of sailing, but I got interested in the book again a couple of weeks ago when I found it in the FREE listing in my Kindle.

And so I dived in again. My first attempt at the book got me not much further than page 50, but I’m just about done this time around and have found it fascinating.

It’s certainly an important book to anyone interested in California history and it’s a great place to come up with trivia to amaze and confuse even the MASTER RATER, THE RANGER and the other denizens of Channel Islands Harbor.

I can’t quite get my memory around this one, but I’m trying to memorize these lines. Don’t know when I’ll launch them, but there will be an appropriate time, possibly involving beer, to do that. Here it is – I think you have to yell this in a commanding tone, so I’ll be practicing that – the commanding tone – on the dogs:

Set up the lee rigging, fish the spritsail yard, lash the galley, and bring  tackles upon the martingale. Bowse it;  bowse it to windward, lads.

Other than lads and set up, I haven’t a clue what any of that means. But I do know what it means to face the Southeast storm that he talks about. Repeatedly.

After “doubling” The Horn, you’d think that weather wouldn’t be much of a bother to these seamen, but when they were in the Santa Barbara Channel in the fall they prepared for it every time they anchored. In fact, when anchoring in Santa Barbara, they’d set the hook three miles offshore at this time of year.

What’s more, they’d rig the anchor so that it could be jettisoned when the wind kicked up and backed to the Southeast.

My Santa Ana strategy is not quite so conservative. I am ready, however, to leave a stern anchor behind on a buoy if needs be. Nor do I snug in to a far western wall when in Pelican, Alberts or Willows as I would in summer. Plus we make more frequent weather checks than we do at other times of year, going on deck to check for eastern breeze, east or south swell or dry decks.

In an emergency, we’re ready to jettison both anchors, but unlike Pilgrim, we have a power windlass. But the biggest difference is that Pilgrim was a square rigger, capable of getting not much closer than about 70 degrees of apparent wind. They’d have to backwind headsails to fill the mains and topsails, so they needed plenty of room to the lee to make that maneuver. We, happily, have a mighty Yanmar, which we fire up at the first sign of easterly wind.

We were surprised (twice) by unforecast Santa Anas last year. Until then, we had great confidence in NOAA. If they don’t mention Santa Anas, you’re not necessarily safe. If they do forecast a Santa Ana …. they’re not often wrong. In either case, have a plan, brief your crew and check the weather throughout the night.

Click to learn about the replica Brig Pilgrim

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http://www.sailchannelislands.com

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