"Anyway, we'll have a go at this.

If we have to give it up, all right, but we'd be silly not to try it.

Come on and we'll get the cables aboard." Two hours of hard work followed.

With the cruisers tagging along nearby, suiting their pace to the slow drift of the schooner, the boys cut away the wreckage and rigged a jury-mast at the stump of the foremast.

On this they spread a spare forestaysail which they dug from the sail locker.