After ten minutes or so, he was able to free one of his hands and began to pull at the sail with the other. Soon, he found he could haul with both, or at lest trap with his body weight the canvas the others had hauled up onto the yard while they dived down for more. The wind aloft had increased to close to forty -five, maybe fifty, knots, and it was a hard skirmish for the five men. It took nearly an hour to get the sail secured. When they climbed back down to the deck, the mate sent them up the mizzen to do the same thing to its flogging lower topgallant. Another hour of sweating, cursing, fisting, hauling bloody labour before the last gasket was passed around and tied off.
Back on deck, Benjamin was so exhausted he could barely stand up. The ship still beat to windward, heading about Northwest under six topsails, two jibs, a jigger staysail and the spanker. The gale grew more severe, however, and almost right away, they had to haul down another jib, brail in the spanker and, to Benjamin's horror, lower the upper topsail yards, then clew up and furl their sails. ...