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The design was Jack's own. He chose a craft he never seen, a ketch, a compromise between a yawl and a schooner, a two-master with a larger sail forward. She was to be fifty-seven by fifteen feet overall, forty-five feet at the waterline. History Jack London often would find release from his problems aboard his boat, the Spray (and later the Roamer), as he cruised about San Francisco Bay. It was in February 1906, after a four-month lecture tour from which he returned ill, exhausted, and discouraged, that he began to make plans for his long-dreamed-of world cruise. |
Inspired by the adventure of Captain Joshua Slocum who single-handedly had sailed around the world in a small boat, Jack began to build a boat to his own design and specifications. Money was no object. Only the best materials were to be used in its construction. To obtain them he literally chained himself to his desk and increased the load of his already staggering work schedule. The building of the Snark as related in "The Inconceivable and the Monstrous" turned out to be a heartbreaking farce. Originally estimated at seven thousand dollars, the Snark cost over thirty thousand dollars. When, in desperation, Jack put out to sea the boat proved to be "an unfinished, internal wreck." For all of its shortcomings, however, the Snark safely carried the Londons and her small crew across the Pacific to Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, and the Solomons. When a severe case of tropical sun poisioning forced Jack to terminate the voyage in Australia and to desert the Snark he and Charmian were truly heartbroken. Their "little boat" had brought them safely through a superb adventure. The cruise of the Snark had lasted twenty-seven months. |
 Photo courtesy of Jack London Research Center
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