Pirates' Hope

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922. Excerpt: ... ANY PORT IN A STORM As an easy matter of course, Major Terwilliger won the pool. The land sighted proved to be Cape Gracias Dios, the easternmost point of Nicaragua, It would say itself that the Mosquito Coast, lowr swampy, and with only three practicable harbors along its three-hundred-mile sweep, could have no attractions for a party of winter pleasurers, and we were leaving Cape Gracias astern when the Andromeda's course was suddenly changed and she was headed for land. Climbing to the bridge a little later, where I found Van Dyck setting the course for the Madeiraman who had the wheel, I learned the reason for the unannounced change. "Trouble in the engine-room," Van Dyck explained. "The port propeller shaft is running hot and threatening to quit on us. We'll have to lay up for a few hours until Haskell can find out what has gone wrong." "The shaft hasn't been giving any trouble heretofore, has it?" I asked. "No; Haskell says it began to heat all at once, shortly after we sighted land." "You'll put in at Gracias?" He nodded. "The harbor isn't much, and the town is still less. But we don't need anything but an anchorage. Haskell thinks we won't be held up very long," That was a cheering prediction, but the event proved it to be too optimistic. The mechanical trouble turned out to be in the thrust bearing of the propeller shaft, and it was more serious than Haskell, chief of the engine-room squad, had supposed it would be. The bearing which, like everything else on the yacht, had been cared for with warship thoroughness, had apparently run dry and it was badly scored and "cut," as a machinist would say. The repair called for hours of patient scraping and filing, and Haskell, who had served as an assistant engineer in the Navy, was properly humili...