A sailor is one who knows how to work in a sailing
ship. Nowadays there are not many sailing ships left, for their place has been
taken by steam-ships. And an old sailor would say that the crews who work on
steamships are not sailors at all, and know nothing about seamanship, or the
management of ships.
Before steamers were invented, all ocean ships were
sailing ships; that is, they were moved by the wind blowing their sails. There
were different kinds of ships. The biggest were ships and banquets, three—misted
vessels and tow-misted ships called schooners and brigs. In the navy, the
largest were called men-of-war smaller but faster vessels were cruisers and
there were many more.
These ships differed not only in size and the
number of their masts, but also in the number and shape of their sails, and
their ropes that is, their rigging. And it took long experience for a sailor to
know all these points, the names and uses of the hundreds of different ropes,
and the dozens of different sails and how to furl and fun furl them, and when.
The sailor too had to know the signs of the weather so that he might know
when-storms were coming and he had study the charts, and to know where it was
safe to go through this.
Nowadays the chief workers on a steamer are - the engines,
the sailors in the old sense, though there are still sailing ships in use. Sailor’s
life is a hard and rough one and it is dangerous. We landsmen have little idea that
it must be to climb the tall masts in a storm to furl the sails, when the ship
is rolling and pitching like a mad thing, the wind is icy cold, the rain is
pouring down, and it is pitch dark. Sailors are always in danger of shipwreck
or sinking in a storm, or fire or of dying of thirst in calm. Yet the sailor is
a brave and jolly fellow he often grumbles but he loves the sea-life so much
that he will not leave it.