Thank you to everyone who wrote the U.S. Postal Service asking them to issue a postage stamp commemorating the Captain Joshua Slocum Centennial. We tried! It is not at all inappropriate however, for us to fall back on the Remember the Maine stamps that were issued in 1998 to commemorate the centennial of the Spanish American War.
One of the highlights of Sailing Alone Around the World is the encounter between the Spray and the U.S. battleship Oregon. It was on May 14, 1898. The Spray was 14 days out of Ascension Island, homeward bound. They had crossed their outbound track the week before. Captain Slocum reported sighting the Oregon.
" ...I saw first the mast, with the Stars and Stripes floating from it, rising astern as if poked up out of the sea, and then rapidly appearing on the horizon, like a citadel, the Oregon! As she came near I saw the great ship was flying the signals 'C B T,' which read, 'Are there any men-of-war about?' Right under these flags, and larger than the Spray's mainsail, so it appeared, was the yellowest Spanish flag I ever saw. It gave me a nightmare some time after when I reflected on it in my dreams.
"I did not make out the Oregon's signal till she passed ahead, where I could read them better, for she was two miles away, and I had no binoculars. When I had read her flags I hoisted the signal 'no,' for I had not seen any. My final signal, 'Let us keep together for mutual protection,' Captain Clark did not seem to regard as necessary. Perhaps my small flags were not made out; anyhow the Oregon steamed on in a rush, looking for Spanish men-of-war..."
Quotations are from Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum.
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Last Updated September 29, 1998 by Col. Donn C. Slocum