End of the Azov: Schooner Days MXLI (1041)

by C. H. J. Snider

"CORRECTION, PLEASE," proffers an old friend, E. Keith, Colborne. "Mr. Mack Macdonald of Goderich has a schooner built off the same frames as the Helen MacLeod II and launched in 1931 or 2 still in use as a commercial fishboat by him. This boat was built in the freight sheds at Goderich harbor by Mr. Bert Macdonald, brother of Mack, and is called the Macs, after the Macdonald family. Both Bert and Mack are sons of Capt. John Macdonald, who was captain and owner of the schooners Azov, Kolfage and a couple of others whose names slip my mind at the moment. I believe you had an article about Capt. Macdonald some years ago."

Yes, 20 years ago last September. And saw the Macs when she was new, though we didn't know she was still fishing, or schooner rigged. Thanks for the hail. Would Mack Macdonald be our old friend Red of that ilk, from whom we have had many interesting letters?

Perhaps a story on Capt. John Macdonald, who sleeps in Maitland cemetery with the names of six ships carved on his tombstone around a chiselled likeness of his last command, the Azov, will be in order.

The Azov was built for Wm. Bunton of Wellington Square in 1866. When Capt. Macdonald got her at the beginning of this century she still had "of Wellington Square" on her stern, but her hailing port had vanished into Burlington. The vessel was recorded as "of Hamilton," which was about eight miles out. Capt. Macdonald rebuilt and refastened the Azov, repainted her white above and green below, with green trim, and gave her a double-raffee, spread by a yard 67 feet long, nearly as long as the vessel herself. She measured 108 feet.

"The Old Man," said Red Macdonald admiringly—he designed the ship-carved tombstone—"was a great one to load deep and carry sail."

HER LAST TRIP

In October, 1911, Capt. Macdonald loaded deadheads in Gore Bay in Manitoulin. Deadheads are logs that have sunk, maybe for years. On the 25th of October the Azov was working down Lake Huron with a full cargo, deadheads in the hold, more deadheads piled higher than the rail, all held down with cross-chains from stanchion to stanchion.

Fifteen miles nor'-nor'-east of Pointe aux Barques, Michigan, it breezed up hard from the sou'-west. Capt. Macdonald hammered her at it, for she was on the dock a while before and was sound as a bell though 45 years old. A butt started somewhere and the pumps could not free her. The heavy waterlogged deadheads sopped up the water like so many sponges, when it got above the ceiling in the hold and the spray flew over the deckload. The Azov was doomed, though all hands — the mate, four men, and the girl cook — jerked the four pump brakes up and down like windshield wipers. She heeled farther and farther under the pressure of the wind until the water came up to the lee side of the cabin aft.

ABANDON SHIP

"Get the boat down!" shouted Capt. Macdonald from the wheel.

The men at the, forward pump drove into the forecastle for their bags. Those aft cast off the riding gripes of the 16-foot yawlboat slung across the stern on davits. It was a good boat, built of white cedar by Capt. Macdonald himself during his 21 years ownership of the John G. Kolfage. When he sold that vessel he had kept out this boat for the Azov, for he knew its value. He had been a fisherman—his first ownership was the fishboat Annie Agnes, fishing out of Goderich—and he knew what small boats could do, properly handled. He had a mast and mainsail rolled up and lashed neatly to the yawlboat's thwarts, always.

His son Bert and his daughter Ettie were with him now. Ettie was the cook. He ordered them into the boat "all standing," just as they were, then the sailors. He reached into the binnacle for the Azov's compass. He hadn't time to get his papers from the cabin. The Azov had settled on one side so much that the stern of the yawl was waterborne.

"Unhook!" he shouted and those in the boat cast off the after davit tackle. He cast off the forward tacklefall, and jumped in, just as the Azov roiled over on her beams ends and the long red whiplash fly at her main truck, 120 feet above the deck normally, flicked the whitecaps of the bursting waves. The yawlboat floated clear of the wreck. The last they saw of the Azov was one arm of her squaresail yard, thrust upward from Lake Huron like a fish buoy. When that disappeared all that was left of the Azov was three Macdonalds and four other sailors in an old White cedar yawlboat. They were twelve miles from the nearest land and sixty miles from home.

ETTIE THE UNDISMAYED

"Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore!" sang Ettie Macdonald cheerily, bending her own ninety odd pounds to the oar.

But the laden boat could not stem the frothing whitecaps that speckled the miles to Michigan. The sun dipped early, the wind came away from the northwest, with squalls of snow, and the spray began to freeze on the sodden sea-bags. They were making no progress.

John Macdonald, shorn of all he possessed and in his sixties was undaunted. "Step the mast and reef that sail, Bert!" he roared. "We're going back to Goderich!"

"An' it's hame, dearie, hame, it's hame that I wad be!" lilted Ettie from the auld Scots sang.

"Dad, that's all the way cross Lake Huron, sixty miles of open lake in a Fall gale of snow in the dark," Bert reminded his father.

"I've got the compass and we're going home," said John Macdonald, swinging the steering oar hard over. "We'll be in Goderich in the morning. A funny thing it will be for the boat that hung behind the Azov all the years to be ahead of her for once going into port."

His voice broke when he said that, for he loved the Azov as he did Ettie.

LONG BLACK NIGHT

Never a light in the lake. The endless night was black as pitch. The snow let up, but the only difference between the sky and the water was the white froth of the wave tops. It was perishing cold. All huddled together on the thwarts, only moving to bail with their schooner caps and sou'westers. They got so numb that the burst of lake water failed to rouse them. John Macdonald beat them with the bight of the main-sheet, with the loom of the steering oar. To keep them awake he prayed, he swore, he sang with Ettie above the gale. He fought off sleep and frost. All he had on was the clothes he stood in when the Azov rolled over. But he was also clad in courage.

It began to get grey. Then light. Then, hard against the eastern sky, lumps showed.

"There's the hills of home, boys," he called. "I told you I'd get you to Goderich!" Fourteen hours after the Azov sank he steered her yawlboat through the breakwater gap. As they got out the oars to row up Goderich harbor one of the boys picked up his dunnage bag, snatched at such risk when the forecastle filled, and carried at such cost all the way across Lake Huron. He pitched it overboard with a curse. For long years after his father's death Red Macdonald kept the white cedar yawlboat enshrined as a sacred memorial of his father's skill and courage.

Drying Sails at Chatham - the Azov Spreads Her Double Raffee Like Butterfly Wings