About midnight
`` But see , for all our turning of the helm , we are driving down the wind . '' So indeed we were . To our dismay , the _ Gerona _ sailed almost as far sideways as she did forward ; and , had we not been well out to seaward to start with , we might have been hard put to it even to clear the headlands of Innishowen . About midnight there was nothing for it but to order the sails to be let go , and depend only on the oars for our course . After that , for a while , we went better . But the men , worn-out and dispirited , pulled with but half a heart ; and hour by hour the vessel drifted in , until it was clear that nothing but a shifting of the wind or standing to at anchor could keep us off the opposite rocks . Off Innishowen , as we crossed the mouth of the Foyle river , we fell on a shoal of terrible shallows , which spun the _ Gerona _ round like a top , and washed her in raging foam from stem to stern .