After a while it was necessary to get the main gaff tops'l in ... and the fight with that gaff tops'l stands out in my memory as one of the worst experiences I ever had in the rigging of a sailing ship. The Hawk was only 70 tons and that tops'l was not the eighth part of any sail in a deep sea ship. But in the big ships there was company; one did not fight alone. There were fellow spirits with whom one had much in common; there was a commodious deck, with a great rigging plentifully supplied with ratlines, and foot ropes all along the yards and shrouds and stays to cling to, and a whole maze of running rigging. The bare masts of the Hawk writhed murderously as the little vessel jumped and rolled. The lean whipping mainmast seemed the wand of a murderer, as the wet malignant bulk of the tops'l thundered at me and wrapped around me. The rain beat upon me and the squall screamed; the canvas tore again and again from my hold. Now I was flung in against the wet, sticky pine by an unpredictable lurch of the ship (for she flung herself about with no ordered rhythm); now flung far over the sea as she leaped to windward and the play of the pine spar was frightening ... Good God! I thought - a sailor's life! Those boys in the Lawhill began in this kind of thing, with the ice of the Baltic thrown in for good measure. No wonder they were superb young sailors who laughed at the difficulties of sailing a comfortable deep water ship.

Meantime sails were carried ashore and spread out on a green, where they would be gone over meticulously. The standard in all these jobs was perfection. A great deal of the charm of the life was based on everybody's cheerful acceptance of this. The 'machinery' of our ships was in sight before us constantly and its care was our first concern. In the old barque we got down to the very anatomy of our profession, and we found great satisfaction in the achievement of difficult jobs well done.