Chapter 10

A WEATHER HELM AND A LEE HELM.

"Is the Goldwing in the habit of upsetting? Does she make a regular thing of it?" asked Thad Glovering.

"I have heard of her doing it twice before; though I believe she never drowned any one but her owner," replied Dory candidly and seriously. "But I don't want any fellow to sail in her that don't want to."

"We can stand it as well as you can, Dory," added Corny Minkfield. "I suppose she would drown you as easily as she would any of the rest of us."

"There is nothing to make any of us stand it if we don't want to," continued Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and there isn't any law to make any of you sail in the Goldwing."

"But we want to sail in her; and this is the Goldwing Club now. But we don't want to be drowned," said Thad. "I think my uncle would like to get rid of me, but I don't believe he would want to have me drowned."

"I don't want to be drowned any more than you do, and I know my mother wouldn't want any such thing to happen to me. Of course I wouldn't go out in the Goldwing if I thought she was going to spill me into the lake," added Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and now you can go ashore at Plattsburgh if you want to."

"I am willing to take my chances if you are, Dory," replied Thad with some hesitation. "It is blowing a young hurricane to-day, and you said you should not go till the weather was fit."

"I am not going to drown myself or you either, if I can help it, fellows," Dory proceeded. "I heard about the Goldwing the last time I was up here. I asked all about the drowning of the man that owned her, and a boatman who saw the whole of it told me all about it."

"How long ago was it that the man was drowned?" asked Nat Long.

"It was about three weeks ago. The boat lay on the bottom a week before they raised her," replied Dory.

"Was it blowing hard when he was drowned?" inquired Corny.

"No: it was just a good sailing-breeze. I think I know what the matter was with the boat. I believe I can make her all right, if I have not already done it; for I have been at work on her this morning."

"What was the trouble with her?" asked Thad, who considered the skipper competent to put any thing to rights about a boat.

"She was ballasted so that she carried a lee helm," answered Dory, as solemnly as though he settled the fate of a nation by his words.

"Carried a lee helm!" exclaimed Dick Short. "Is that what the matter was?"

"Carried a lee helm!" repeated Thad. "That was bad!"

"Carried a lee helm! If it was bad for her, she ought to have left her lee helm on shore."

"What did she carry it for?" asked Nat Long.

"She carried it because she couldn't leave it behind," replied Dory. "It is a bad habit, such as some men carry with them through life, for the reason that they can't get rid of it."

"I say, Dory, what is a lee helm?" asked Thad. "You know that we don't know any thing more about sailing a boat than we do about making a watch."

"You used to sail Mr. Jones's boat: but we never went with you then, Dory; and we never had any chance to learn how to sail a boat," added Corny. "I have no more idea what a lee helm is than I have what the man in the moon had for dinner to-day."

"That's what's the matter with all of us," added Thad, laughing.

"I didn't mean to bother you, fellows; but that is just what ailed the Goldwing, and she had it bad. But any boat would have behaved in the same way if she was not properly trimmed. I don't think Mr. Lapham--that's the man that owned the Goldwing, and was drowned; I couldn't think of his name before--understood a boat very well. Look here, fellows!"

Dory Dornwood pointed to a mast-hole in the deck, which had been stopped. The foremast had been moved nearly two feet aft of the place where it had been stepped by the builder.

"The boatman told me that Mr. Lapham had changed the place of the foremast, so that he could make room for a locker in the head. If she had a bigger jib, it would be all right. The ballast was badly stowed, and that is what made her carry a lee helm."

"Now we know all about what did it, but we don't know what a lee helm is," added Thad, laughing. "I wish you would tell us what the thing is before you say any thing else."

"A boat ought to carry a weather helm, though not too much of it," replied Dory, knitting his brow as though he was struggling with a big idea, though he was only thinking how he should make his companions understand him.

The other members of the Goldwing Club could pull an oar or handle a paddle; and that was really all they knew about boating, though they were very ambitious to learn.

"I believe that. A boat ought to carry a weather helm. I think the legislature ought to make a law that a boat should carry a weather helm, and make it a state-prison offence to carry a lee helm, which is very bad," said Corny Minkfield.

"If you are going to do all the talking, I haven't any thing more to say," replied Dory with dignity.

"Don't get mad, Dory. We don't know what a weather helm is any better than we do what a lee helm is," added Corny, as an apology for the interruption.

"I was going to tell you what a weather helm is; for, when you know what one is, you will understand the other: but you keep putting your oars in, fellows, so that I don't get a chance."

"We won't say another word until we know what a weather helm is, and what a lee helm is," said Thad. "Dry up, fellows! not another word."

"A boat ought to carry a weather helm," Dory began again; and then he paused to give his companions a chance to interrupt him.

Corny was just going to remind him that he had said this before, when Thad put his finger on his lips, and the remark was suppressed. Dory looked at them all, and found that they intended to "give him the floor;" and then he proceeded with his explanation.

"The wind don't always blow just the same," Dory proceeded; and Corny could hardly help making a comment on this sage remark. "I don't mean on different days, but within the same hour. In other words, the wind don't come steady. To-day it comes down in heavy flaws. You can see the effect of the puffs on the top of the water. A vessel keeps tipping a little in almost any breeze."

The members of the Goldwing Club nodded all around to indicate that they understood the matter so far.

"When a flaw or puff comes," Dory continued, "it changes the course of the boat. The helm has to be shifted to meet this change. Almost always the tiller has to be carried to the weather side of the boat. Do you know which the weather side of the boat is, fellows?" asked the expounder of nautical matters.

"It is the side the weather is on, of course," replied Corny.

"It is the side from which the wind comes," added Thad, who thought it was not quite fair to make fun of the remarks of the skipper when he was doing his best to have them understand the difficulty with the Goldwing.

"And what do you call the other side?" asked Dory.

"The lee side, I think," answered Thad.

"Right, Thad; and Corny was not so far out of the way as he meant to be, for to a sailor the wind is about all there is of the weather. When a flaw comes, and you have to carry the tiller to the weather side of the boat to keep her on her course, that is a weather helm," Dory proceeded.

"I see it!" exclaimed Nat Long, as though he had made a great discovery.

"I don't believe you do, Nat," interposed the skipper. "Suppose you don't carry the tiller to the weather side, what will happen then?"

"I don't know that any thing will happen," answered Nat, rather abashed at his own ignorance.

"That's the point of all that has been said," added Dory.

"Well, what will happen? Will she tip over?" asked Nat.

"That is the very thing she won't do; and that's the reason why a boat ought to carry a weather helm, so that she won't tip over if the helmsman don't happen to have his eyes wide open tight. If you don't put the helm to the weather side, the head of the boat will come up to the wind. As she comes up into the wind, it spills the sail."

"Spills the sail!" exclaimed Corny, who could hold in no longer. "I have heard of spilling the milk, but not of spilling a sail."

"It means to spill the wind out of the sail," added Dory. "In other words, it takes the wind out of the sail, and it don't press against the sail any longer. And, if the wind don't press against the sail, of course it won't tip the boat over."

"That's plain enough. I understand that first-rate," said Thad. "If a puff brings the boat up into the wind, then the wind don't bear hard on the sail, and it won't upset the boat."

"Now let us see how it works when a boat carries a lee helm. Instead of coming up into the wind when a flaw strikes the sail, some boats go the other way. The flaw crowds them off from the wind. The more she falls off, the harder the wind presses against the sail. If the puff throws the head of the boat far enough from the wind, it will blow square against it; and, if there is enough of it, it will upset any boat. Then, if you have to put the helm away from the wind in order to keep the course, that's a lee helm; and it's a dangerous thing in any boat, though it can generally be easily corrected if the skipper understands the matter."

"I see it," said Thad. "I suppose the owner of this boat did not understand it."

"They say he was obstinate about it, and would not take the advice of those who did understand the matter," added Dory. "I have shifted the ballast; and I think the Goldwing will work all right now, though I wish the foremast was in the old hole."

The members of the club declared that they understood the matter perfectly. They were willing to return to Burlington in the Goldwing if it could be shown that she carried a weather helm. When the skipper had finished his explanation, he went forward, and took another look at the hole which had been stopped. He found a shingling hatchet in the cuddy, and with this he attempted to drive out the filling of the mast-hole. After a deal of pounding, he succeeded in the attempt.

He lost no time in demolishing the locker in the head which Mr. Lapham had fitted there. For an hour he worked very diligently, assisted by all the other members of the club; and the foremast was transferred to the hole the builder had intended it should occupy. The stays were adjusted again with the greatest care on the part of the skipper, and made strong enough for the heavy weather that prevailed on the lake.

"Isn't there any thing to eat on board, Dory?" asked Thad. "We are almost starved."

There was not a morsel of food on board, but Dory said he would go over to the town if he could.