Moreover, it was likely enough that the ship was strained with the wrench of the falling mast.
There was no spare sail on board which we could use in the way of storm canvas, and the sails of the boat were too small to be of any use.

Nor was there a spar which we could use as mast, save the yard itself.

It must be that or nothing, and time pressed.
I suppose that we might have done better had we the chance, but what we did now in the haste which the rising sea forced on us, was to lash the forward end of the yard to the stump of the mast, without unbending the sail from it.

Then we set it up as best we might with the running rigging, and so had a mightily unhandy three-cornered sail of doubled canvas.

But when we cast off the lashings which had kept the sail furled while we worked, and sheeted it home, it brought the ship's head to the wind, and for a time we rode easily enough.
Then we baled out the water we had shipped, and sought for any leak there might be.