Ocean Uphill

When there were packets on the Atlantic the sailors in them were called rats. Packet rats talked in a peculiar idiom. To them the ocean was a slope, as it was to Virgil's sailors. From west to east they called "downhill," from east to west "uphill." Last week a 20-foot whaleback lifeboat with four Dutchmen in it sailed out of the Thames into the Channel. One of the Dutchmen is 70 years old. He, Jacob Schuttvaer, designer of the lifeboat, wants to prove it is unsinkable. His boat has neither wireless nor auxiliary motor. With him are Captain Smith, Helmsman Gelissen, First Officer Robert Kruithof. He expects to get to New York in a month, uphill.