Tarring – Two Years Before the Mast
We put on short duck frocks, and taking a small bucket of tar and a bunch of oakum in our hands, went aloft, one at the main royal-masthead and the other at the fore, and began tarring down. This is an important operation, and is usually done about once in six months in vessels upon a long voyage. It was done in our vessel several times afterwards, but by the whole crew at once, and finished off in a day; but at this time, as most of it came upon two of us, and we were new at the business, it took us several days. In this operation they always begin at the mast-head and work down, tarring the shrouds, back-stays, standing parts of the lifts, the ties, runners, etc., and go out to the yard-arms, and come in, tarring, as they come, the lifts and footropes. Tarring the stays is more difficult, and is done by an operation which the sailors call "riding down." A long piece of rope- topgallant-studding-sail halyards, or something of the kind- is taken up to the masthead from which the stay leads, and rove through a block for a girt-line, or, as the sailors usually call it, a gant-line; with the end of this a bowline is taken round the stay, into which the man gets with his bucket of tar and a bunch of oakum, and the other end being fast on deck, with some one to tend it, he is lowered down gradually, and tars the stay carefully as he goes. There he "swings aloft 'twixt heaven and earth," and if the rope slips, breaks, or is let go, or if the bowline slips, he falls overboard or breaks his neck. This, however, is a thing which never enters into a sailor's calculation. He only thinks of leaving no holydays, (places not tarred,) for in case he should, he would have to go over the whole again; or of dropping no tar upon the deck, for then there would be a soft word in his ear from the mate. In this manner I tarred down all the headstays, but found the rigging about the jib-booms, martingale, and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest. Here you have to hang on with your eyelids and tar with your hands. This dirty work could not last forever, and on Saturday night we finished it, scraped all the spots from the deck and rails, and, what was of more importance to us, cleaned ourselves thoroughly, rolled up our tarry frocks and trowsers and laid them away for the next occasion, and put on our clean duck clothes, and had a good comfortable sailor's Saturday night