Free Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) by Ann Spencer Page A

at the wrong time when the devastating storm struck. He pursued his campaign to right this perceived injustice from October of 1887 to its futile conclusion on December 9, 1893. In January 1888, when the U.S. consulate in Rio offered to do its duty and bring the ship-wrecked family back to the United States, a proud and disgruntled Slocum decided they would find their own passage home.
    Stranded in Brazil, Slocum set his mind to a plan to build a boat to sail his family home. It didn’t have to be a beauty — seaworthiness was all he wanted. He knew it would be primitive at best, made up of salvaged parts of the wrecked
Aquidneck
plus whatever he could afford or alter or make do with. He worked out a design and tackled it with optimism, deciding that“she should sail well, at least before free winds. We counted on favorable winds.” His boat was certainly an original — a strange blend of Cape Ann dory, Japanese sampan, Chinese junk and native canoe designs. Slocum himself referred to the vessel as a canoe.
    From the
Aquidneck
Slocum salvaged “a megre kit” of basic tools, his compass and charts, and his chronometer.He was able to use some of
Aquidneck
’s hardware, and he was ingenious at adapting the rest. For example, he pounded charcoal into a fine powder that, mixed with water, served for chalk. He made boat clamps from guava trees, and melted down ship’s metal for fastenings and cast some of it into nails. He punched holes through the local copper coins, cut them into diamond shapes, and used them as burrs for the nails. This improvisation, together with a rough-and-ready approach to hewing local trees for boat timber, took place during an epidemic of jungle fever, which made its rounds among the Slocums and the workers. They were undaunted, and Slocum reflected on the spirit of the day: “But all that, and all other obstacles vanished at last, or became less, before a new energy which grew apace with the boat, and the building of the craft went rapidly forward.” Victor served as carpenter and ropemaker. Even Hettie got into the spirit of the adventure and sewed the sails. She had been a dressmaker, and Slocum was pleased with the finished product: “Madam had made the sails — and very good sails they were, too!” When finished, the canoe was thirty-five feet in length. Rigged with full-battened sails, which Slocum considered “the most convenient boat rig in the world,” she took on the appearance of a Chinese junk. She was christened
Liberdade
, as she was launched on the day that Brazilian slaves were given their freedom. All that remained now was the voyage home.
    At the outset of the voyage back to the United States,the captain, who had suffered such grueling misfortunes, felt invigorated:“The old boating trick came back fresh to me … the love of the thing itself gaining on me as the little ship stood out: and my crew with one voice said: ‘Go on.’” They hit a storm immediately, and Hettie’s new sails were completely shredded. They were towed into Rio by a steamer, which Hettie had boarded by this time. Garfield remembered how his father and Victor stayed on the disabled
Liberdade
and managed to work with the steamer. “Father had a lot of nerve, strength, and will power. He steered all day and all night. Victor sat in the fore-peak under a tarpaulin, an ax in his lap to cut the hawser in case the
Liberdade
turned over. Father had a lanyard tied to Victor’s wrist. Father would pull on it and Victor responded with a pull.” After they set out again with new sails, there were several further mishaps. On a late July day, just out of Rio, a whale got a little too friendly with the craft and interrupted everyone’s supper with its churning up of the waters beneath and around the
Liberdade
. There were several close calls coming up the coast of South America, but they continued north with a growing appreciation for and confidence in “the thin cedar planks between the crew and