The Cruise of the Snark

The Cruise of the Snark

By

5
(1 Review)
The Cruise of the Snark by Jack London

Published:

1914

Pages:

189

Downloads:

4,284

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The Cruise of the Snark

By

5
(1 Review)
A memoir of Jack and Charmian London's 1907-1909 voyage across the Pacific in a 45-foot yacht.

Book Excerpt

veering and yawing anywhere between south-east and south-west, and threatening, when the huge seas lifted under her quarter, to broach to. Had she broached to, she would ultimately have been reported lost with all hands and no tidings.

I took the wheel. The sailing-master watched me for a space. He was afraid of my youth, feared that I lacked the strength and the nerve. But when he saw me successfully wrestle the schooner through several bouts, he went below to breakfast. Fore and aft, all hands were below at breakfast. Had she broached to, not one of them would ever have reached the deck. For forty minutes I stood there alone at the wheel, in my grasp the wildly careering schooner and the lives of twenty-two men. Once we were pooped. I saw it coming, and, half-drowned, with tons of water crushing me, I checked the schooner's rush to broach to. At the end of the hour, sweating and played out, I was relieved. But I had done it! With my own hands I had done my trick at the wheel and guided a hund

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