Cuffers Spun In The Dog Watch

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

Cuffers Spun In The Dog Watch

No. 1 I Started Life On A Scow

of LnV «'n the day# ««*«*«« to gather in the j ' ore or mai " n the tecond dog watch <6 p.m. ..ft"*' \° t-rrhong* experiences all ~ ? r,e *- Thf * e « tori " «•«•« all c<rllcJ -Cuffen,whether true or otherwise, for there xras ahravs iome Doubting Thornas (o challenge veracity.

ft is a pity that so few of -ess stories hare been preserved, for nt the least they were interesUn 1 and in lots of cases aace ' ' and younger seamen a s andard of r..iick and endu to hrr up f0 n , , hr p!e(Jsure Of 'he .enter of "Cufferx .Spun !" '!"■ r ">? Watch" to attend at hundreds of these gatherings.

Tbr<r stories range from ft'? "i n'ntr-i schooners to the lot';, square-rigged s k>,»ail yarders :n fact, life as it , rnx the goMf« dags of sail i»i nearly every type o/ ship afloat.

T HAD run away from home and •" had done various things to g«>t a living, but there, had always been a limit to the permanency of any job that I got. My father did not like the idea of my going to sea, and had twice stopped me from going away, but I waa determined to go somehow for I loved the sea—the beautiful, glorious sea with its varying moods, every one of which were to me even more charming and. lovable than the previous one.. I loved to look at it, to swim in it, to sail upon it and, when no one was about, to talk to it just as a lover would talk to his mistress. So I grew discontented and, debarred from the excitement I craved, I sought for it in other and less creditable channels. Finally, ,'I ran away. This time I determined that I would go to the bush first to put them off the scent and then, when the excitement had died down I would go to sea. So in the bush I did various things end learned lots and, wonder of wonders, I learned a good deal of navigation, for the skipper of a small steamer to whom I confided my aspirations made me a present of an old battered .edition of Xorie's Epitome. To me this was the wonder book, and every free moment my nose was in its pages. It wm all new to me and I studied with a zest that was almost painful. I soon learned how to navigate a ship, and once well started on that job I made great progress. I loved that old b6o]c and even now, after 2-3 years at sea and 18 years of teaching navigation, the old book has not lost its charm. „ . After roaming around the bush for a .-pell, I got a job on a scow loading logs on the banks of the Thames, near Paeroa, for Auckland. She was an old tub of a thing and was owned by Captain Daddy Gibbs, a much respected citizen of Auckland and a keen yachtsman. She was skippered by an old Scandinavian, Peter Peterson, a hard-working, jovial old skipper, who was at times too fond of lis beer. H* waa a Ana man to sail for, so long as yon did your bit, and I got on well with hinL.

Sh® was i lo ? and timber scow, and sometimes the heavy log* would be up to 4 tons in weight, even more. They were brought alongside in rafts and then parbuckled with heavy chains and hove aboard. It was hard work while it lasted, for even when we got them aooard we had to iack them with timber jacks*, e»ther forward or aft to where we wanted them. These timber scows carried all of their on their deck?, and sometimes in the case of li**htsawn timber, the ioad was sometimes 0 or . leet above the decks. This made tiiem mere crank the deei»er thev were loaded, and they were stillest when unloaded. No steam win.-iies of anv sort everything ,va< d-Mie by hand, and it was hard, gruelling work while it lasted. Tiioy carried r.o cargo below. and were always fore and aft rigged and fitted "list huge cent reboard*. They could sail \cry well, especially if ; tie'wind were fee. bm they were not bad on a wind -n smooth «ater with the centreboard* down. We carried three hands—the skipper. first hand and third hand. Xo mates or A.B. s or O.S.

My job as third hand was to cook meals and take the 4 a.m. to S a.m. watch, and from f> p.m. to S p.m. I had to work all day helping with the work an»„t the decks, tacking. reefing. settinand taking in sail. It was a good be«ii° ninp. and I learned lots. My galley was a large nail can and it was open to the blue. I had two saucepans and a kettle, and I contrived to cook enough tucker for the three of us. and sometime* for an extra hand when we were loadinsj. It was hard, solid work, but we kept cheerful and we had few rows or arguments.

First trip we went to Port Fitzrov and the skipper devoted half an hour to teaching me to steer with a wheel. I already knew the compass and I soon learned to steer. It was fine weather and a fair wind, and with the booms well out we made good time. I never tired of looking over the side down into the beautiful dark blue depths of mv mistress, the Sea. I was like a lover looking into the depths of his loved ones eyes. I was strangely happy, and felt if all the time something new, something strange and something beautilul was going to happen. I loved the I loved it, and nothing it could do to me could break that love of mine. stayed up all the way down to our port, and the captain said to me: "Bob. you'll soon get tired of that," but even though I had to secure sufficient time to go below to rest, Tet alwavs, alwavs even bow, I ran get a thrill of love when I look into the clean, bine depths of what has often proved to me my fickle mistress. *

We arrived off the heads of Port Fitz•roy and we sailed through the small passage of what is really one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, •tudded with small islands and points of land clad with green verdure and that most beautiful of all Xew Zealand trees, the pohutukawa. Emerging into • wider harbour we entered a secluded bay and dropped anchor sixty yards off the shore in five fathoms of water. Stowing the sails, we soon got the fear tip and the ship ready to receive her cargo of heavy kauri logs.

"Better put a fishllne OTer the side, Boh," said the skipper. "We will have Hah for dinner," and I put baits on two hooks and lowered it down to the bottom. I made the end fast and then we got the boat over and away we went. The skipper interviewed a man on the beach, and he showed us our raft of loga, and there were some fair-sized ones amongst them, one or two over sft in diameter and about 20ft long. "Well want help here," said the skipper, and ha went along the beach and engaged a man. It waa about 9.30 a.m., so they pot ma aboard, and the first thing I noticed was that the line was stretched .out taut. I soon discovered that I had

By Capt. R. McKenzie Cliffe

Ihe landsman will never understand the sailor, for sea hie makes the sailor a race apart. "Old Wire Whiskers' served his Tst mat A T*- K T fln ' abl t SCaman < bo ' su "> :<x°nd male, nILTIT T, m schc f ncrs ' hrl * s - barques, barquenlines. fullfnr JR V U t, 7mj mol ° r , ve " e?s - Retiring from the sea. A < J , coached many hundreds of men for ail grades of certificates m the mercantile marine. He n-as, until recen'lv still on deck as a compass adjuster, but has heen compelled to retire through ill health. He is now resident in Auckland.

. , Mo * of lhese ,V or !« aTe n ' ril <™ in the first person and are just as they ipere laid either on a ships fore hatch or in a sailors' boarding nouse ashore.

Meet The Author!

something on end, and it proved to be a couple of fine snapper. I hauled them aboard, and baiting the line 1 threw it over again. Then I scraped and cleaned the snapper and hung them upSoon I had another snapper, and I did the same with him. By this time the others had brought the raft of logs alongside, and we proceeded to get them aboard. A log was brought to the open gangway and two parbuckles were passed around it. The ends of these two parbuckles were hooked on to a tackle, slung from the head of a. heavy derrick, which had its heel in a heavy wooden shoe bolted on to the deck. The head of the derrick was slung with a heavy span; it also had two heavy guys on it to enable us to place the logs where we wished. Half the logs were placed on one side and half on the other, for the centreboard casing rose nearly five feet above the deck in the centre, fore and aft line of the ship. A log was hove up on either side, and then we proceeded, with the aid of timber jades, skids and wedges to place them in the positions required. It took fineness of judgment to know exactly how to place this ground tier of logs, and this is where our skipper shone. He was an expert at this game, and therefore saved us a lot of unnecessary work. It was my job to drag the log alongside and drag the parbuckles around it, and then the first hand hooked it on and held it till a strain was put on it by the men at the windlass. We had no steam gear of any lrind, all "Armstrong's patent," and we used-the windlass for heaving up. I

Then all hands went forward and hove the log aboard. In the intervals I attended to the nail can and cooked the dinner. We had boiled snapper and white sauce, with boiled potatoes and boiled onions, both boiled' together in the same pot. This with lots'of bread and butter and jam. and huge mugs of tea made a satisfying repast. After a smoke the three others turned to and I washed the pots and dishes, and put a. big lump of salt beef on to ooil, for while working we ate ravenously and didn t knock off till we were finished. The beef boiled for nearly five hours, and about one hour before it was finished I filled the big saucepan with well wastied cabbage and carrots and boiled it, the beef and all together, for the remaining time. Again we all made savage attacks on this corned beef, cabbage, carrots and the potatoes, which I had boiled in another pot. All this cooking I had done in the intervals with the work on deck, hea.ing on the wind- ! ass \ s ' ;i "-i n g and parbuckling logs, and jacking: logs along the decks. A second tier of logs was placed on the deck tier, and this second tier were called riders, and were most difficult to stow. At about S p.m. we got the last log aboard, and lashing it securely with chain parbuckles and lashings, we hove the anchor up and off we went. I had the kettle on, and we all of us wolfed huge slices of bread arid butter and jam and drank copious draughts of coffee. The spare hand had asked for passage to Auckland. He got it. and proved a handy man. Most of the bushmen in those days were old runaway sailors, and this fellow was one of them. It took us about an hour to clear the heads, and then we found the wind was fair, a nor-east wind, which gave promise of developing into a strong gale. But it «•« fair, and awav we went.

"Old Pita" Sings Hit Sea Chanty About midnight I was called to help to stow the mainsail and put a reef in the forwail. When I got on deck it was pitch dark and blowing pretty hard. We lowered the mainsail dowii and stowed it, and then we turned our attention to the foresail. Lowering it down sufficiently, we soon put a reef in it. We had left the captain at the wheel, and when he had reefed and set the sail we made our way aft. "Old Pit*" had his oilskin on, and a sou'wester, and he was cheerily singing an old chanty in his funny broken English: "Blow ja rindi In fler morning. Blow ja rinds STar." He turned to me and raid: "Do you like this, BobV and I said: "Yes, Ido like it." "That's the fella," he answered. "Get me a cup of tea." I found that *

there was a fire coing. so I made a big pot of tea, and we all had it. I asked Peter to let me steer, but he would not, for the wind was increasing, and a good heavy sea was running. I was not sick, and I looked over the side, and the blue depths were sprinkled with globtiles of rire. and the ship's track was like the fiery .'nWon wake of a full moon over a sea. It was all glorious to me. and 1 revelled in it. and still slaved on deck despite the injunction of the skipper who advised me to •~et S'->me sleep as we would be workine hard the next day. Wiir.t was work to me. ar.d what was sleep to me when I cst-ild watch my ir.i-tress in one of her tar.tru!!.*. arid I *as en;--;. :nj it. The little ship was making pre'.tv good weather of it: considering her deeply laden condi? Y>n and the heavy following sea that was runnim;. Ainnit 3 a.m. the rir>t hard came up and spoke to the skipper, and told him that there was water splashing aiwtit in the hold. .So we manned both puni| s , and started to pump. There was al-iut !•"' inches in her. and she was now j act ins pretty dead. We were now running under single-reefed foresail and : three head sails, and uoin-_r about «">'• j knots. l)urins» a spell from the pumps j at 4 a.m.. I lit the tire and bailed the j kettle and made a pot of hot tea. and took a bis one up ;o the man at the i wheel. The captain stsli would not let ' n.e steer, but he shewed me how it was ; '°ne. At al>out t> a.m." we parsed Tiri. < and the was now decreasing, and I i ™ot breakfast ready for 7.30. We had ! breakfast, and now we were in smooth water, and at P. 30 a.m. we let go the anchor in Freeman's Bay. 100 yards from the timber booms. The trip* was over. This was an exceptionally smart trip, and in it I learned lots of things. By 3 p.m. all the logs were in the booms, and the captain went home. As for me. I stopped aboard the old packet, elated j with my first trip on the coast. j

Good Time Was Had By All

Next trip we went down to a place called Kennedy's Bay. We had a lovely fair wind down, and we kept close to the land after we passed Cape Colville. Then the wind lightened and finally died away.

Over went the lines and in half an hour we had about three dozen fish, snapper and hapuka. A large crayfish got tangled up in one of the lines and we pulled him aboard. These cravfish are called Kew Zealand lobsters* or colonial fleas.

In connection with this latter name a good story is told. These crayfish will live for a considerable time" out of water, and have long, hard, bony claws, sometimes over a foot long, in fact some of the fish are 16 to 18 inches long, plus legs, and are rough to touch, the whole fish, of course, like all of the crab family, being covered with a hard, shell.

An American, who had come down from San Francisco on a visit, must have come to the conclusion New Zealanders were a silly simple crowd of goats, for he began to tell "diners at the hotel where he,was staying some awful

, "differs."' Everything in the States was j the biggest ever known, and nothing out j ] 'if the States was worthy of even j | small notice. This got on the nerves • if some of the lodgers, and they , I thought they would have a joke at the: ! Yank's expense. ; So round they went to old Frank j .Williams' fish shop, and they procured j : the largest- and most belligerent live; ; crayfish they could get, and took it ! • back to the "pub." The Yank had a ; few beers aboard, and. after closing j time, decided to go to bed. Off went the Yank to bed. He stripped off to the buff and got in- Suddenly his foot was gripped by a huge brute in the foot of the bed. it hung on. The Yank yelled and hollered and tried to get his foot away. Meanwhile he was lifting the roof with his yells. This soon brought the crowd around. Opening the door, thinking someone was being murdered. they rushed up to the bed and pulled the Y'ank out. The brute was pulled out on to the floor. A great iaugh went up. **What the hell is that ?" yelled the Y'ank. The answer came with a. soft sneer in it. '"Why, that's a colonial flea! Can you beat that in the States!" The Y'ank accepted a lot of rough chaff with great meekness, and it was noticed after this that he was not sol fond of boastin?. When leaving the! country he was interviewed by a news-! paper reporter, and told him: "I like the | country. The people are not so slow i as I first thought they were, but to hell! with those brutes they call colonial i fleas! They're the dizzy limit!" Well, we got down to Kennedy's Bav.! and we found another scow loading in ' the creek, the Waitemata. I think they' called her. She was skippered by a young fellow named Burke. This skipper was later on, at the time of the war, a victim of tod Luckner, who stuck up both Burke and hia ship, the scow Moa, at the point of the pistol, and made them sail the vessel to the Kermadecs. Yon Luckner was polite to the scow master and his crew, and at his command they dumped most of the deckload overboard, and awav thev went. The cable ship Iris was armed and sent away to the Kermadecs on chance, and here they found the Moa with von Luckner in charge. He evidently had thought he could hare raided the cache of stores for castaway 1 seamen, but he had to surrender to j superior force, and he and the Moa were brought back to Auckland. Burke loaded his ship with heavy logs j and there were only two left after he ! was loaded to complete that shipment.! so he lashed one to each side of the! gangway. That evening there was a * dance, and. of course, we all went. _A • dance or sing-song can always attract ; seamen, and after Burke had finished his work he came with his crowd. It I was a. mixed crowd—bushmen, settlers, t sailors and Maoris, and it was a verv j animated turnout. " j

| There were not many girls so it was i mainly a stag dance, but one big Irish- | man. one of Burke's crew, wanted to | dance with one of the girls and so be ; went along, but the four or five pakeha j girls were engaged, so he politely asked I one of the Maori girls. She giggled ! and said she would like to, but she was waiting for Iter boy, who had gone ! outside for a moment. Well, Irish grabbed hold of her and, she being willing, away they went. Being good dancers, they attracted much attention. The Irishman was a big red-headed, rawboned fellow, with freckles on his face as big as half-crowns, but he was kindly by nature and he got on well with "Te Jvotiro Maori." She liked him and told him so. When the Maori Boy Objected The Maori boy stayed outside quite a while—he was having a spot or two— so Irish and the dtisky lass were on their second dance when someone told the Maori that his girl was dancing with a pakeha sailor. Mad as a wet hen, he burst into the room and, rushing through the dancers, he confronted Redhead and the Maori girl. Grabbing the girl by the arm, he yelled at her: "Come away; Who told you to dance? \ou my girl. I teach you to dance with other fellow." Irish looked surprised and expostulated, but the Maori was having none of him. He ignored him and the girl not being too willing to spoil her dance he caught her by the hair and started to drag her out of the hall. The few he had been having outside, with what he had had before he came, had worked him up like a sore boil. He threw the giri on the floor and dragged her along. This was too much for Irish, and he smashed Che big Maori chap in the face. "A fight—a fight!" The cry was raised and everybody rushed to see the fun. "Give them room—give them room!" was veiled, and hands were joined to form a ring. The dance was all right, but the fight was fifty times better, and to top it off it was between representatives of two of the best fighting nations in the world—an Irishman and a Maori. Now the battle was joined arid excitement was intense, male and female. Maori and pakeha being keenly interested. it b* and dqwn!" -shouted Bill Burke, and it was np and down. Now they were up on their feet, jabbing, punching and wrestling. They were well matched and soon thev were* on the floor, for it was Rafferty's rules—hit, bite or kick, up or down, and these two big men made a scene interesting both for themselves and the onlookers. Now Irish had the Maori down and was dealing out sound punishment, when with a wriggle he was thrown on and the Maori was on top and he was doing the same. Xow they were

I on their feet and thud, thud c-ame the | blows on to the heads and bodie; of j both opponents. '•It's an iligant fight:" yelled Bill. "Let 'em go!" And go they did, and skin, hair and blood were soon firing. It was a lightning fight and at such "a pac-e it could not last long. Both wore strong, hard men and they gripped ea. ii other like big grizzlies and kicked like mules. Flesh and blood could not stand this wild fighting long, and the tempers of the onlookers were worked up to the highest pitch. "Hit him, Irish." "Kick him, Poto!" were among the yells heard, and at anv little piece of brilliant fighting, female a» well as male yelled their paean of praise. It was a" wild and woolly scene, and it was only to be expected (hat the excitement should boil over. Pakeha and Maori were about equally matched, and in a moment the clash came. A Maori resented something that was said. There was the qnick retort and the blow, and the fat was in the fire. Smash, bang, crash, and the battle was on. Female as well as male took a hand in it, and it was a mad orgv of straggle and fight. Everybody "was overheated, and the crash of the" blows and the scraping of the boots of the mad crowd on the floor of the room was deafening. Nobody paid anv attention to the two combatants; thev were forgotten, for everybody was now fighting. "Hit a head where you see it I" and it was good advice. When the sceae was at its height somebody turned the lights out. Suddenly there was dead silence, then a laugh, and then a yell of laughter from all hand«. The fight was over, and good humour was restored. Every bod y trooped outside under the lovely "stars, pipes were lit, and the scene was one of good humour and friendliness restored. The lamps were re-lit, and the Maori and Irish sang a song, accompanied bv a Yank on an accordion. Everything was lovely and the dance was resumed till past midnight. Then everybody got everybody else's hands and "Auld Lang Syne" was sung, and the crowd went home well pleased with a most successful dance. Everybody had enjoyed themselves, and ea'id so.