Word: helmsman
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...battered nose out into the grey wilderness of wintry Atlantic. Green water pounded the corvette's narrow decks, doused her open bridge where the hooded skipper stood squinting into the mist. Now and then he gave a quiet command for relay to engine room, signalmen and the helmsman below. The Angry was heading back to sea, guarding another convoy of rusty freighters, laden with men and supplies for distant battlefronts...
When holds were full, the great 125-ft. schooners would race back to market in Provincetown-first in, highest prices. "They left their fishing grounds with a 'keep 'er full and drive 'er.' They kept on canvas until the water came around the helmsman's neck. They tied their halyards aloft so they couldn't shorten sail. A coastwise steamer came to anchor in Provincetown Harbor, reporting, 'Had a fishing boat pass me sailing under water...
...settling. It was a matter of minutes before she started to move forward." The explosion broke the bridge's control of the engine room and steering apparatus, "but pretty soon we were able to steer from the second conning station. . . . We had no compass working and the helmsman steered by the flag-that is, he watched the flag to see which way the wind was blowing." Ensign Lyman and enlisted men tried to fire rockets, but two missed fire and they finally resorted to a Very pistol. Star shells burst to the south and flames from three burning tankers...
...spars sheathed in ice, the schooner Mary E. O'Hara, of Boston, turned tail to the fishing banks last week and headed for home. On a dark night, in near-zero weather, she thrashed into Boston Channel. A numbed lookout in the bow suddenly shouted. Frantically the helmsman tried to put her over, but she was sluggish with ice, heavy with 50,000 lb. of fish in her hold. Next moment the Mary E. O'Hara crashed into a barge anchored off Finn's Ledge...
After the Queen Mary briefly stuck crosswise in the river on which she was built, Britain's funnypaper, Punch, pictured a barge in similar predicament whose crestfallen helmsman called to the captain, "Don't forget, Cap'n, the same thing happened to the Queen Mary." With Cunard White Star officials still asserting that the Queen Mary was not deliberately racing on her recent record crossing (TIME, Aug. 22), Punch last week showed two tugboats running furiously neck & neck. "Racin'? Certainly not," says one of the tugboat captains, hoisting his nose high...