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mast he slacked off the main halliard and let the trysail down and quietened it; with the warp that Jo had brought up to him from below they furled the trysail on the main boom, wrapping it round with the rope.
    Without any sail at all the yacht now lay rolling wildly in the trough of the waves, safe enough for the time being, but blowing to the north. John Dermott sent his wife below to get some rest, and stayed in the cockpit himself to watch his vessel and assess the situation. The wind was now only about a point to the east of south and this was good so far as it went, for it indicated that the centre of the storm might pass southwards of them. The sea, however, was rising very high; in the grey of the dawn it seemed to be breaking everywhere around him. He judged that his ship was drifting to the north at the rate of three to four knots.
    The line of the Tuamotus to the north of him ran about north-west to south-east. The more he could get towards the west, the more searoom he would have to the north. He took the helm and set himself to sail his vessel under bare poles as much towards the west as he could manage. He found that he could steer about north-west upon his compass paralleling the line of islands, and at that he seemed to make about five knots with the wind on his quarter. But now, running in that way, the seas behind were menacing and occasionally the top of one came on board, lukewarm, flooding the cockpit and drenching the helmsman. From below, Jo put the fashionboards in the companion.
    'How are we doing?' she asked.
    'All right,' he said. ' If we can keep going like this I think we'll be all right. It's doing what they tell you in the book, anyway.' Deep in his heart he knew that they could not maintain that course much longer.
    At seven o'clock in the increasing wind and sea he could no longer run towards the west, taking the seas upon his quarter, without fear of broaching to and being overwhelmed by the rising sea. Each time a big sea came, and they now came very often, he had to run off before it taking it dead stern-on, so that now he was making about five knots towards the Tuamotus in the north.
    This could not go on. He had a sea anchor in the forecastle, a conical canvas drogue stiffened by a hoop of iron, and he called Jo up from below to come and take the helm while he rigged this thing. Shearwater was a cutter with a shape below the waterline that.was cut away at the bow and deep at the rudder, making her easy to tack and manoeuvre in the narrow seas and waterways of the Solent, for which she had been primarily designed. Running before the wind she was very stable by reason of the windage of the mast, but held up to the wind by a sea anchor from the bow she would not be good, unlikely to lie closer than forty-five degrees to wind and sea. She had a canoe stern, however, fairly well tucked up. He decided to put out his sea anchor from the stern, battening the companion down and retiring below, using the forehatch for getting out on deck.
    He bent his heaviest warp on to the sea anchor, made the other end fast around both pairs of stern mooring bitts, and put the drogue overboard, taking a turn of the warp round one of the bitts as he paid out to ease the strain. The warp strained like a bowstring as the drogue sank in and took hold of the water; then the ship slowed, the strain eased, and he paid out the remainder slowly.
    He sent Jo below and stood himself on the companion steps for -a while behind the fashionboards, his head out of the hatch, watching the seas. The ship was riding well to her sea anchor, her buoyant stern lifting to the seas so that little came on board. The wind had steadily increased, however, and he judged that now it was blowing at about Force 8. It was so strong that it seemed to be blowing the tops off the seas in the form of flying scud beneath the heavily overcast sky, flattening the very seas; the warp stretched taut behind the vessel to the submerged drogue, hard as a