HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.
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wish to alter it, it is effected in the following simple and artless manner : theybear away a little to bring the stern up to the wind, when, by trivially easing thehaulyard, raising the yard, and carrying the heel of it along the lee-side of theproa, they fix it in the opposite socket. The boom at the same time, by let-ting fly the sheet M, and hauling that marked N, represented fig. 1, is shiftedinto the contrary situation to that in which it before stood ; so that what hadappeared as the stern of the proa, immediately becomes the head, and the proais trimmed on the contrary tack. When it is considered necessary either to reefor furl the sail, it is effected by rolling it round the boom.
These vessels, or proas, in general, carry six or seven Indians, two of whomare stationed in the head 01 stern, and steer it alternately with a paddle, accordingto the tack on which it is, the person in the stern being, as might be naturallysupposed, the steersman. The remainder of the crew are employed, either in occa-sionally bailing out the water which is casually shipped, or trimming the sail.It must be sufficiently, obvious, from the description of this vessel, how peculiarlyit is adapted to the navigation of that cluster of islands, known by the name of theLadrones *. These bearing N. and S. from each other and being all within thelimits of the trade-wind, the proas, whose peculiar excellence consists in theirsailing nearer to the wind than any vessels in the known world, are enabledto perform their contracted voyages, and pass from one isiand to another, aswell as back again, by only shifting the sail, as either end will answer far thebow. The advantages they derive from the flatness of their lee-side, and theirvery narrow breadth in proportion to the length, materially co-operate inpreventing them from making lee-way; and such is their swiftness thatsome persons have imagined they actually pass through the fluid with greatervelocity, than the wind itself does over it. This experiment, however, owingto the want of a proper apparatus, has never perhaps been sufficiently tried,to warrant a determination as to its truth : notwithstanding the ingenious au-thor of Commodore Anson’s Voyage has had recourse to all the subtlety of argu-ment, in the hope of establishing the fact. “ However paradoxical it may appear,”
* Vessels bearing some obscure resemblance to these, are to be met with in various parts of theEast Indies; but none of them appear comparable to those of the Ladrones, cither for theirconstruction or celerity; which would induce a belief, that this was originally the invention ofsome genius of these islands, and was afterwards imperfectly copied by the neighbouring nations : for,though the Ladrones have no immediate intercourse with any other people, yet there lie to the S. andS.W. of them a great number of islands, which are imagined to extend to the coast of New Guinea.-—Anson’s Voyage, Quarto Edit. p. 339.
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