Three Antelopes and Her Sisters: Schooner Days CMXV (915)

by C. H. J. Snider

Three Antelopes

DEAR old Antelope! I knew her well, Horatio, for she has carried me on her deck a score of times; and her sister, Albacore, one year older, was the first vessel, I sailed in. Both were units in the great "A" fleet the Muirs began at Port Dalhousie, Ont., with the Ayr, in 1855. When they ceased building "A's" they had twelve of them, and having had to fall back upon the Ark for inspiration, they concluded with A. Muir for the last schooner, which was certainly stretching a point.

None of the Muir vessels corresponded to the flower-eyed gazelle suggested by the word the Greeks had for an antelope, nor did the Antelope herself. All had high bluff bows, slab sides, almost straight, and bottoms almost flat for two-thirds of their length and little curved for the rest of it. Their bilges were hard, their quarters flat, their sterns flat and only slightly overhanging, and their stems plumb up and down, so that they made a very close fit for the canal locks. That was what they were intended to do.

They were grand carriers for their inches, and sailed surprisingly well for their full model. They were good vessels "by-the-wind" when loaded, and steered pretty hard in a following sea. The Albacore was the better runner, but the Antelope could beat her by-the-wind, though they were he same model exactly, and the same sail plan, eight pieces of working canvas, with fly-by-nights such as maintopmast staysails or spare jibs between the masts when they could get them. Originally they had squaresails and raffees forward; not in my time.

LONG HORNED AND HEAVY

Their spar plan was pleasing, a very long bowsprit and jibboom, well cocked up, foremast almost plumb, mainmast loftier and well raked aft, topmasts tall and tapered. Their fore-booms were over 40 feet in length, their mainbooms 65, not projecting far over the taffrail. Their rig was so heavy that when the crew was cut down to four men forward we had to get all the dockwallopers and longshoremen whose thirst, could be assuaged by one can of beer, to hoist the foresail and mainsail, before starting on a voyage, or get the tug to take the ends of the halliards aboard and pull up the "heft" of the big sails as she towed the vessel out.

Only those who have done it know how heavy those sails were to hoist. The gaffs carrying them were 40-foot logs worked down to 9 inches diameter. The sails were stout canvas as thick as carpet. Each weighed half a ton dry and several tons wet. These sails were attached to booms over 60 feet in length, and the sails had to be hoisted until they took the weight of those booms.

The mechanism of hoisting was two ropes an inch thick or more, rove through many blocks, of one, two, or three sheaves or pulleys; sometimes four. These were the throat and peak halliards. The falls or hauling parts came down to thumb-cleats on either side of the mast. As many men as could grasp each rope hauled in unison, "hand over hand, boys, hand over hand," in swaying rhythm, throwing their whole weight into every pull.

Three men who knew how could pull together, hand over hand, the tallest taking the top grip. They would all be on deck. Two more would work above them on the boom-saddle. One man had to "hold slack," taking up what came under the thumb-cleat and over the belaying pin.

Three or four men unable to get a grip on the rope below would run up the ratlines and ride the halliards down with their own weight. Each halliard was double-ended, with four or six-fold purchase on the end opposite the fall.

If those sails had to be lowered and set again in the lake it would take a whole watch four hours, for the operation, all hands, Captain mate and sailors having to heave on the capstan bars and windlass brakes. That "iron sailor," this steam donkey-engine, had to be installed for this reason.

CREWS CUT IN TWO

These schooners originally carried eight men and two horses forward and two mates, the captain and cook aft. They were built for the square timber trade, for the Muirs, had their own drydock and shipyard at Port Dalhousie, and a farm for the horses used in the timber trade and towing through the canal, and their own timber limits in Sombra on the St. Clair river. The vessels were so straight and boxy that their cargoes would use all the space and waste little on dunnaging, and they had hinged timber ports both in the taffrail and in the quarters.

When the grain rush was on in the fall the vessels would be taken off the timber and put into the long-haul grain trade. They could carry 26,000 bushels, which was about 4,000 more than other Old Canallers of the same dimensions.

As the timber trade slackened, or their own requirements fell off, the Muirs disposed of their schooners, for they were all built to sell, and only used by the firm while purchasers were being found for them. The Antelope lay idle for a year or so, and had been towing with her topmasts out, before Capt. Alex. Ure bought her for the Conger Coal Co. and himself, and refitted her, in 1897. He sailed her for two years and then refitted the 3-master Augusta for the same firm. The best "marine" produced by an Ontario artist, to my mind, was a calendar top in '98 or '99 by J. D. Kelly, titled "Coal for Toronto," showing the lee quarter of the Antelope and her straining sails as she sloshed by, with the lake all with clear cold green seas, tossing grey foam caps and stinging spray, under a slatey sky purpling with a November squall. Nothing more sympathetic with the schooner ramping through with 750 tons of hard coal for the winter fire has been accomplished. It cannot be attempted now except from memory, when the schooner and the coal-stove are half-a-century apart.

QUADRUPLETS

Our Antelope measured 389 tons, the largest tonnage of four "sister" schooners, all built from the same block model by the same builders. The block model may have served for the progenetrix of the Muir fleet, the Ayr. The "identical quadruplets" compared thus:

Albatross, built 1871, length 136.9 ft., beam 23.9 ft., depth 11.4 ft; 360 tons.

Albacore, built 1872, length 134.6 ft., beam 23.9 ft., depth 12 ft; 361 tons.

Antelope, built 1873, length 136.6 ft., beam 24 ft., depth 11.4 ft.; 389 tons.

A. Muir, built 1874, length 138.4 ft., beam 23.8 ft., depth 11.4 ft., 360 tons.

The variations in dimensions are small, but they work out to larger variations in tonnage. The explanation is that the Muirs were not working with rigid and inelastic material like steel, but in wood, which could swell with dampness and "give" under internal stresses, and they had sufficient skill to adapt the inequalities of timbers, inherent in the parent tree, to their main purpose, while having to vary details. Their vessels looked so much alike, that after the hulls had received their standard Muir coat of paint—all black, with white trim, including a white arch across the transom under the taffrail—the names had to be painted on quickly to tell them apart. With their spars in there was a little more to go on. They eventually separated them by painting the bottom of the Albacore red, the Antelope's light lead color, the A. Muir's green, and leaving the Albatross all black. Eventually the Antelope became white, but it looked better in black.

Prong-Horned Antelope Roundup at Calgary.