Chapter XLIV

Whenever Cappy Ricks made up his mind that his Blue Star Navigation Company ought to add another vessel to its rapidly growing fleet, he preferred to build her; for a few bitter experiences early in life had convinced him that the man who buys the other fellow's ship quite frequently is given a bonus in the shape of the other fellow's troubles--troubles which have the unhappy faculty of tilting the profit-and-loss account over into the red-ink figures. In order to avoid these troubles, therefore, Cappy would summon his naval architect, whom he would practically drive to distraction by fussing over the plans submitted before giving a final grudging acceptance. The blue prints approved, Cappy would spend a week picking holes in the specifications, and when there was no more fault to find Mr. Skinner, his general manager and the president of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company, would send a list of the timbers, planking, and so on required, to one of Cappy's sawmills in Washington; for Cappy had a theory--the good Lord knows why or where acquired--that Douglas fir from the state of Washington was better for shipbuilding purposes than Douglas fir grown in Oregon. Perhaps he figured that the Columbia River, which separates the two states, made a difference in grade.

The woods boss would then be adjured to select his trees with great care. No tree would do that sprouted a limb within eighty feet of the butt, and the butt had to be at least six feet in diameter, in order that it might produce fine, clear, long-length planks that would not contain "heart" timber--the heart of a log having a tendency to check or split when seasoned. When the material was sawed a Blue Star steam schooner would transport it to San Francisco Bay, and it would be stored in Cappy's retail lumber yard in Oakland, to be seasoned and air-dried; following which Cappy Ricks would let the contract for the building of the vessel to a shipyard on Oakland Estuary, and sell the builder this seasoned stock at the price of rough green material, even though it was worth two dollars a thousand extra--not to mention the additional value for the extra-long lengths furnished specially. Cappy's ancestors, back in Maine, had built too many ships to have failed to impress upon him the wisdom of this course; for, on this point at least, initial extravagance inevitably develops into ultimate economy.

Following the laying of the keel, Cappy would come out of retirement and become an extremely busy man. He had the vessel's engines to consider; and for two weeks his private office would resound with the arguments and recriminations of Cappy and his port engineer. There would be much talk of pistons, displacement of cylinders, stroke, reciprocating engines, steeple compound and triple-expansion engines, Scotch boilers, winches, compressors, dynamos, composition and iron propellers and the latest developments in crude-oil burners. And on the day when the port