The shore resembled bread that had been broken and scattered, with some round loaves remaining intact and others crumbled into chunks of brown crust. Sherwin felt dismay at the manner in which the vessel, so stalwart at sea, appeared utterly helpless on shore. She was, even so, an impressive ship. The Vixen was a type of vessel made popular by Fletcher’s rival privateer John Hawkins, who had found that the old-fashioned carracks with their towering forecastles were less seaworthy than a ship with more modest lines. Like most such galleons, the Vixen had three masts, square-rigged on her fore- and mainmast, with her mizzen mast, nearest her stern, rigged for a slanting sail. Sherwin took the opportunity to look into the gaze of her figurehead, the carved image of a woman with blue eyes and black hair, one arm sweeping across her breast in modesty or self-defense. This hand held two arrows, and the figure’s outlines were well coated with paint, down to the gilded points of the arrowheads.
