"With the port-tacks aboard," added Con. "Or would be, if this were a ship."
"Now we will attend to this wheel," continued the skipper. "We have been talking about a tiller. You can see that there is a cast-iron frame in the shape of a quadrant."
"Then, you did not look when the principal showed us one,--or perhaps you were not present. But you have seen a mince-pie."
"Not a whole one at a time. If you did, you saw a winged alligator before morning. But what part of a mince-pie is about a pattern for you?"
"That would be in the shape of a quadrant. This quadrant has a round hole cast in the right angle, which is fitted upon the rudder-head, as you can see for yourselves. On the round side of the quadrant are cogs, which fit into the cogs of the smaller wheel, under the large one, which is provided with handles, or spokes. It isn't easy to talk it, but you can see it. I am seated on the weather-side of the wheel."
"Must the helmsman always be on the weather-side?" asked Ash.
"There is no law about it; but for some reasons, it is the better side for him. He can see ahead better; and when the boat is on the wind, and she heels over, he has the higher side. Being on the weather-side of the helm, if I pull the spokes on the big wheel towards me, it turns the small wheel, which is part of the big one, in the same direction. By the action of the cogs, the round side of the quadrant is moved in the opposite direction. The quadrant is really the tiller. Then, drawing the spokes towards me is putting the helm down, which throws the boat up into the wind."
"It will not be so if you stand on the other side of the wheel," said Ben Sinker.
"Certainly not. I am standing on the starboard-side now: if I bring the spokes towards the starboard-side, it carries the quadrant, or tiller, over to the opposite side, and the head of the boat moves to starboard. You put the tiller to port to carry the head to starboard: with this wheel, the action is reversed. To sum it up short, put the spokes to starboard, and the head goes the same way. Now, Ash, you may try your hand at it, and see if it works as I say it does."
"Of course it does, for you know all about it," replied Ash.
"But a fellow never believes a thing of this sort till he has proved it," added the skipper. "Pull the handles of the wheel towards you, and it throws the head of the boat up into the wind. Remember this--'only this, and nothing more.' But there is one thing that a beginner has to learn; and that is, to steer small."