The Boys' Book of Whalers Author:A. Hyatt Verrill Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III "7OU can understand," said the curator, Jl when the boys visited his office the following day, " that vessels which were intended to withstand the... more » gales and seas of every ocean for years at a time had to be the strongest, staunchest, most seaworthy and able ships which man could build. For month after month they cruised beneath the scorching equatorial sun, while the pitch bubbled from their deck seams and the woodwork dried and warped; then, for mouths, or even years, they were buffeted by Arctic gales, nipped in ice-floes, frozen fast for the long, dreary months of Polar winters, and a few months later would be scudding under bare poles before an East Indian typhoon. Often, at the end of a three or four years' voyage, they would be stripped and laid up on the mud flats, neglected and forgotten, until weeds and grass sprouted from their opening seams, and then,years later, they would be patched up, refitted and once again would sail, to cruise far and near upon the stormiest parts of all the oceans. To the whalemen, seaworthiness was everything, and speed, comfort and appearance were of no importance, and while no stronger, better ships were ever built, yet most of them were heavy, bluff- bowed and tubby. Of course there were some which were models of beauty,—as graceful and swift as the famous old clippers, and many of the captains kept their ships as spick and span, as well painted, as clean, and with rigging as taut and well tarred as any yacht. But the bulk of the ships, even if they sailed forth trim and neat, returned dingy, weather-beaten, scarred with innumerable battles of the sea and ice and so thoroughly soaked with grease and oil that their planks could have been boiled out in a try works. And often, when a ship returned from a long cruise, she looke...« less