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Orders is Orders

Just before Christmas, in 1915, an old salt who was skippering his own schooner, the George Smith, sailed into New Bedford harbor en route to New York with a load of lumber. He had had an experience which he proceeded to relate to some waterfront friends:

I can’t depend on anyone to handle my vessel just as I want to have her run. Once I had a sailor aboard the Angler (another schooner) to help run her. It was a clear night and we were going over Nantucket Shoals. When we were about two miles from the Cross Rip Lightship (since sunk in a storm and retired), I gave the wheel to the man and told him to keep her headed for the lightship. Well, he did just as I told him, and before I knew it, we ran plumb into the lightship and nearly sank ourselves.

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