Spray (sailing vessel)

''Spray'' was a sailboat weighing nine tons that Joshua Slocum, a 19th-century Canadian-American seaman and author, rebuilt and sailed around the world solo. On the morning of April 24, 1895, the ''Spray'', with Slocum at the helm, departed Boston Harbor. On June 27, 1898, Slocum sailed the ''Spray'' into the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, becoming the first man known to have sailed around the world alone.

On November 14, 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts aboard the ''Spray'', bound for South America and the headwaters of the Orinoco River. He was never heard from again, and no trace of the ''Spray'' was ever found.

History

In 1892, Captain Ebenezer Pierce, offered Slocum a ship that "wants some repairs". Slocum went to Fairhaven, Massachusetts to find that the "ship" was a rotting old oyster sloop named ''Spray'', propped up in a field. Despite the major overhaul of the ship, Slocum kept her name ''Spray'', noting, "Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the ''Jane'' repaired all out of the old until she is entirely new is still the ''Jane''."

Its days as a fishing boat, probably as a Chesapeake Bay oysterman, had come to an end by 1885, and it was a derelict, a slowly deteriorating hulk sitting in a makeshift ship's cradle in a seaside meadow on Poverty Point in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, when Captain Pierce of that town offered it to Joshua Slocum as a gift. Slocum came to Fairhaven to look at ''Spray'', and he undertook to repair and refit it over the next thirteen months. The materials used for the repairs cost $553.62, .

After setting off around the world in 1895, the boom was shortened after it broke and in 1896 Slocum reduced the height of the mast by 7 feet and the length of the bowsprit by 5 feet while in Buenos Aires. In Port Angosto, Strait of Magellan, ''Spray'' was re-rigged as a yawl by adding a jigger. In 1901 ''Spray'' was an attraction at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

Seaworthiness

An analysis by Howard I. Chapelle, curator of maritime history at the Smithsonian Institution and a noted expert on small sailing craft, demonstrated that ''Spray'' was stable under most circumstances, but could capsize under some conditions.

One of the many theories for the boat's disappearance suggested that her internal ballast may have shifted in a severe knock-down and thus unbalanced her. Only exact replica ''Spray''s today would retain internal ballast. Frenchman Guy Bernardin is attempting a circumnavigation in a ''Spray'' replica ''Spray of Briac''. With no weighted keel, the boat carries 1.4 tonnes of iron ingots as ballast – jig-sawed into position in the bilge, just like Slocum's ''Spray''. Would they fall out if he rolled? "They might..."

In his book, ''Captain Joshua Slocum'', Victor Slocum, son of the solo seafarer, wrote that "the ballast was concrete cement, stanchioned down securely to ensure it against shifting should the vessel be hove on her beam-ends. There was no outside ballast whatever. ''Spray'' could have been self-righting if hove on her beam-ends, a fact that was proven, since, by an experiment on an exact duplicate of the original boat and ballasted just like her. The test boat was hove down with mast flat to the water and when released righted herself."Victor Slocum (1950). ''Captain Joshua Slocum – The Adventures of America's Best Known Sailor'', Sheridan House

When Commodore John Pflieger pointed out in ''Spray'', the journal of The Slocum Society, that a long keel is harder to tack or go about in and that a boat similar to ''Spray'' foundered on a lee shore on this account, Peter Tangvald, competent ocean sailor who circumnavigated in his 32-foot cutter ''Dorothea I'', promptly replied, "How much more should Slocum have done to demonstrate that the boat was seaworthy? I would not hesitate to claim that if one ''Spray'' was wrecked on a lee shore it was because her crew needed a few more hours of sailing lessons."Charles A. Borden (1967). ''Sea Quest – Global Blue-Water Adventuring in Small Craft'', pp. 111–114.

Bound from Samoa to Australia, Slocum encountered gales and heavy seas that foundered the American clipper ship ''Patrician'' running a course south of ''Spray''. A French mail steamer blown off course reported seeing ''Spray'' at the height of the storm and wondered what sad fate had befallen the little ship. Slocum's log records that, at the time that passengers of the steamer were up to their knees in water in the big ship's saloon, ''Spray'' was lying snug under a goose-winged mainsail.

Joshua Slocum, a classic sailor and a forthright, honest man, not being concerned by the controversy over the seaworthiness capabilities, said simply, "I have given in the plans of the ''Spray'' the dimensions of such a ship as I should call seaworthy in all conditions of weather and on all seas." He also stated: "I may someday see reason to modify the model of the dear old ''Spray'', but out of my limited experience I strongly recommend her wholesome lines over those of pleasure-fliers for safety."Captain Joshua Slocum. ''Sailing Alone Around the World'', The Reprint Society, 1949.

Self-steering ability

''Spray'' was remarkable for its ability to hold its course for hours or days on end. Sailboat designer John G. Hanna said of ''Spray'', "I hold that her peculiar merit as a single-hander was in her remarkable balance of all effective centers of effort and resistance on her midship section line," but cautioned that ''Spray'' was "the worst possible boat for anyone lacking the experience and resourcefulness of Slocum."

Cipriano Andrade, Jr., an engineer and yacht designer, said of ''Spray'': "After a thorough analysis of ''Spray'' lines, I found her to have a theoretically perfect balance. Her balance is marvelous — almost uncanny. Try as I would — one element after another — they all swung into the same identical line."

Slocum himself praised his sloop as "easily balanced and easily kept in trim."

Replicas

Spray has inspired many boat builders since, including The Spray of Saint-Briac, the boat of the French offshore runner Guy Bernardin.

References

Sources

*
* {{cite book, last=Slocum, first=Joshua, title=Sailing alone around the world, publisher=New York, The Century Co., year=1995, orig-date=1900, isbn=978-0-7136-4230-8, url=https://archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00sloc/page/n6, ref=slocum

Individual sailing vessels
Missing ships
Oyster sloops
Martha's Vineyard
Boat types
Bermuda Triangle