Tall and Short Tales: some were even true

Outside the wind was howling from the southwest as the blacksmith dropped a red hot iron into his cooling tub. “You know,” he said, “it’s weather like this that makes me long for the old days, the days of sail.”

A few boys had gathered at ‘La Forge’ 50 or more years ago, to watch a master ply his trade. Smoke filled the one-room building. “We were aboard the Springwood, a salt fish schooner,” the smithy said and motioned to my brother Remi and me. “Your grandfather was captain then; not much at making money, but boy could he ever sail the ship. We had one rail awash (under water) most of the time.”

Clang, clang went the anvils as ox shoes were taking shape, four pair per animals. For some reason, Robbie, the smithy, didn’t mind kids hanging around his blacksmith shop. Perhaps he knew a captive and gullible audience when he had one. “No diesel engines back then. Anyway, the trip was over for the season and we left the left the Banks‚ for home; a stiff breeze in our favour was just glancing off our main sail. We hoisted up every piece of canvas that the two-master could carry, the creaking of rope, pulleys and wood plus the wind going through the sails with water lapping the deck made a deafening sound and you couldn’t hear the man next to you talking.”

A bit more coal in the fire pot; soon the holes would be punched, not drilled. The ox shoes were almost white hot by then.

Passed everything in sight “We sailed - flew would be a better word - and passed everything in sight,” the story went on. “There was this white sail about two miles ahead of us. We knew he was a Dutchman (from Lunenburg) and built for speed. He also had every (unprintable) bedsheet nailed to the masts (slang for carrying a full set of sails), but mile by mile we were gaining on her, about the same length as the Springwood and sitting no deeper in the water.”

Smoke from the firepot filled the room and the old chimney wouldn’t draw properly, but it didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that counted now was overtaking the Lunenburger. About now, Mary, the smithy’s wife came to the forge door. “The boys have no business hanging around here,” she said. But our hopes of hearing the rest of the story was dashed only for a few moments when her husband replied, “neither do you.” She returned to the house and the story went on. “It was yard by yard, but we had the advantage. The wind was hitting us first and finally we took the wind from her sails. (Literally, they were so close they had acted like a windbreaker). “As the sails went limp on this sleek black schooner we started reading her name: BLUENOSE, and there was the Captain on deck mad as a hornet, shaking his fists and telling us what kind of Frenchmen we were. We did some name-calling too, gave a few blasts on the bullhorn, and called them sauerkraut-eaters and other names as we thundered by on our way home.”

Yes, they had outraced the original Bluenose, Queen of the North Atlantic fleet and undefeated racing champion.

A run for its money

I suspected, even then as a child, that something was wrong with this story, although written accounts described the Springwood as one of the fastest sailing ship of that era, which had once made a freight run from Lockport, Shelburne County to the West Indies in nine days. This is very, very fast. It was only years later when I started researching for my historical features that recorded history had to ruin the blacksmith’s perfectly good story.

My grandfather had skippered the Springwood before World War One, long before Captain Angus Walters first sailed the Bluenose in 1921. It is also doubtful that the Yarmouth-bound vessel would have sailed very long in the same direction as the ‘Dutchman’.

Anything to ruin a good story, but if the Bluenose had actually raced with the Springwood it’s likely that Captain Walters would’ve known he had been in a race.

My grandfather always said the Springwood would have given the Bluenose a run for its money. Talk is cheap, we will never know, but the Springwood, by all accounts, was a very fast sailer.

It’s stories like this one, told by masters, of which legends are made and, of course embellished every time they’re told, including this time.

laudent@hotmail.com