Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1890 the triumph of steam was established but Slocum stuck defi-
antly to the life that he knew. He was by this time sailing his own ves-
sel, the
Aquidneck
, 'a little bark which of all man's handiwork seemed
to me the nearest to perfection of beauty, and which in speed, when
joy was wrecked on the coast of Brazil. Immediately, he set to, with
such local materials as lay to hand, to build himself a replacement.
The result was a unique twenty-five-foot, sampan-rigged craft which
he referred to as a 'canoe' and christened the
Liberdade.
(The appro-
priate name was compounded from two words 'liber' meaning free
and an archaic verb 'dade' which the dictionary defines as 'to move
slowly, totteringly'.)
Sailing the
Liberdade
back to Boston (Slocum had become a nat-
uralised American) with his family was a remarkable achievement
and one which attracted considerable publicity. The middle-aged
mariner was not slow to cash in on this. He wrote an account of the
building and the voyage of his little vessel. The topic was well re-
ceived and Slocum's earnings from it went some way towards com-
pensating him for the loss of the
Aquidneck.
Now followed two years of frustration and hardship. Sailing-
ship masters looking for a command were ten a penny on the New
England coast and even a celebrated mariner like Slocum could not
get a ship and earn his keep. It was not just his own plight that de-
pressed him; he pined for the passing of an age. 'Nearly all our tall
vessels had been cut down for coal-barges, and were being igno-
from old ocean', felt as helpless as the fine ships humiliatingly down-
graded or rotting away in their muddy berths.
It was when he was offered one of these old craft that life took
on a new meaning and purpose. A certain Captain Eben Pierce gave
him a decrepit old sloop called the
Spray
which he had acquired
seven years before and which had, ever since, lain on her side in a
