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More "Mainsail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clinker-built boat, about seventeen feet long, and her breadth of beam—that is, the distance across her from one side to the other—was great compared with her length. She was rigged like Frank's boat, having one mast and carrying a mainsail and jib; but as her sails were considerably larger than those of the Speedwell, and as she was a much lighter boat, the boys all expected that she would reach the island, which the young skippers always regarded ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... being in ballast, and the tide high, Captain Pomery found plenty of Water in the winding channel, every curve of which he knew to a hair, and steered for at its due moment, winking cheerfully at Billy and me, who stood ready to correct his pilotage. He had taken in his mainsail, and carried steerage way with mizzen and jib only; and thus, for close upon a mile, we rode up on the tide, scaring the herons and curlews before us, until drawing within sight of a grass-grown quay he let run down his remaining canvas and laid the ketch alongside, so gently that one of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of his nest, and as soon as he knew of the object in view he displayed plenty of eagerness. The sight of the cutter-rigged smack lying with her bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... The mainsail is made with the seams horizontal, to avoid the resistance perpendicular seams in so large a sail would offer to the wind. It has been calculated that the resistance of perpendicular seams, in a sail of this size, is equal to that of a plank 10 inches broad and 60 feet long, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... mountains of Bouru, which we have now approached considerably. Our crew seem rather a clumsy lot. They do not walk the deck with the easy swing of English sailors, but hesitate and stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower boom of our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning repairing it. It consisted of two bamboos lashed together, thick end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The rigging and arrangement of these praus contrasts ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... have done well until a week ago, when, after a series of very fine runs, and during as fair a breeze as one would wish to see, we were some of us astonished to see the captain giving orders to reef topsails. The royals were stowed, so were the top-gallant-sails, topsails close reefed, mainsail reefed, and just at 10.45 p.m., as I was going to bed, I heard the captain give the order to take a reef in the foresail and furl the mainsail; but before I was in bed a quarter of an hour afterwards, a blast of wind came up like a wall, and all ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... was dizzy speed. Two ridges of foam streamed from the ship's bows; the wind sang in a strenuous note which under other circumstances would have expressed to me all the joy of life. Whenever the hauled-up mainsail started trying to slat and bang itself to pieces in its gear, Mr. Burns would look at ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... run afore the wind 'twas worse than ever. The way Phil see-sawed that piece of pie back and forth over the river was a sin and shame. He could have slacked off his mainsail and headed dead for the buoy, but no, he jiggled around like an old woman crossing the ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... accordingly, and were overtaken by Mr. Jarvie's two lads, who bore two parting tokens of Mattie's care for her master. The first was conveyed in the form of a voluminous silk handkerchief, like the mainsail of one of his own West-Indiamen, which Mrs. Mattie particularly desired he would put about his neck, and which, thus entreated, he added to his other integuments. The second youngster brought only ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Jib. c. Foresail. d. Foretopsail. e. Foretopgallantsail. f. Foreroyal. g. Mainsail. h. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... corn-meal, in return for which their visitors brought them quantities of delicious watermelons. "Next day, August 3," says the journal, "the Indians, with their six chiefs, were all assembled under an awning formed with the mainsail, in presence of all our party, paraded for the occasion. A speech was then made, announcing to them the change in the government, our promises of protection, and advice as to their future conduct. All the six chiefs replied to our ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... we have recently made is that of a sailing-fish, called by the natives "ikan layer," of about ten or twelve feet long, which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat, and with considerable swiftness. I have sent a set of the sails home, as they are beautifully cut and form a model for a fast-sailing boat. When a school of these are under sail together they are frequently mistaken ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... were laid at the mercy of the travelling seas before the Scandinavians learned to use a fixed rudder instead of a huge oar! Not a bolt or rope or pulley or eyelet-hole has been fixed in our vessel save through the bitter experience of centuries; one might write a volume about that mainsail, showing how its rigid, slanting beauty and its tremendous power were gradually attained by evolution from the ugly square lump of matting which swung from the masthead of Mediterranean craft. But we must not philosophise; we must enjoy. The fresh morning breeze runs merrily over the ripples ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... weak devices, To thee let fly all my anxious longings: May thy cool breath to my heart bring healing! Let Death now follow, his booty seeking: The moves are many before the checkmate! Awhile I'll harass thy love of plunder, As on I scud 'neath thy angry eyebrows; Thou only fillest my swelling mainsail, Though Death ride fast on thy howling tempest; Thy billows raging shall bear the faster My little ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... her for eighteen months, sir. I knows every line of her,—that there spliced fore shroud, the patch in the mainsail,—I put it on myself,—besides, I know her; I don't know how, but know her I do, every stick in her. Curse her—saving your honor's presence—I 'm not likely to forget her. I was whipped at the grating till I was nearly dead, just for standing ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... as the wind was from the southward of east, we should have got under the lee of the land; but then we might have been detained there, very certainly for many days and perhaps for several weeks, so he resolved, at all hazards, to keep the sea. Under a close-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the little vessel continued her course, looking bravely up to the increasing gale. Still, at times she plunged heavily into the seas, and it often seemed, as I stood on her deck, as if she would never ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... her up to the wind at all, we couldn't run out of the storm. The gale drove us in and in to the centre of the hurricane. Somewhere around dawn on Sunday mornin' the wind decided to show us what it really could do. We were runnin' before the wind with a triple-reefed mainsail and not another stitch. "Why weren't we under bare poles," you asks? Because there was a sea chasin' after us with every wave looking like a whale out of water. We weren't lookin' to get pooped, any more than we had to. The mainmast went ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... now, for he's six-feet nothin' in his socks, an' drinks like a fish, if he don't do nothin' wuss. Good-night Capp'n. Baby'll ketch cold if I keep on jawin' here. Mind your weather eye, and port your helm when you reach the landin'. If you'll take the advice of a young salt, you'll clew up your mainsail an' dowse some of your top-hamper—ah! I ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the lugger touched our weather side, at the same time lowering down her foresail and mainsail with no little noise and confusion; in a second or two there were thirty of their men on our decks, flourishing their cutlasses, and looking round with their pistols ready cocked in their left hands for somebody to let ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the quarter-deck by Rev. Mr. Rising, of Virginia City, old friend of mine. Spread a flag on the booby-hatch, which made a very good pulpit, and then ranged the chairs on either side against the bulwarks; last Sunday we had the shadow of the mainsail, but today we were on the opposite tack, close hauled, and had the sun. I am leader of the choir on this ship, and a sorry lead it is. I hope they will have a better opinion of our music in Heaven than I have down here. If they don't a thunderbolt will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... N.W. by W. from Cape Finister, having then only six mariners and six merchants in health. The 16th we had a great storm at W.S.W. by W. which came on about 6 P.M. and our men being very weak and unable to hand our sails, we that night lost our mainsail, foresail, and spritsail, and were obliged to lie hulling till the 18th, when we got up an old foresail; and finding ourselves now in the Channel, we bore up for the coast of England. In less than two hours the old ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... time, was under her mainsail, jib, and fore-top-sail. The foresail was brailed, and the foot stopped, and the flying-jib was stowed. None of the halyards were racked, nor sheets stoppered. This was a precaution we always took, on account of the craft's being ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a racing yawl, A spare-rigged schooner sloop, Athwart the bows the taffrails all In grummets gay appeared to fall, To deck the mainsail poop. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the rigging the better," observed the Count, who never put himself out, whatever happened. The only man who was capable of doing this was the one who had been forward; he at once lowered down the mainsail and saved the mast from being carried away, which it might have been had a slight puff of ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... sir: when you're young you soon come right. It's when you are getting old, and fidget and worry about your health, that you get better slowly. Hah! there's another stuck up in the mainsail. That won't ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... passing into still gloomier night, they bore out to sea. The breeze soon freshened into a gale; the gale swelled into a hurricane, accompanied by a thick snow-storm: and when, early next morning, the smack opened the Firth, she was staggering under her storm-jib, and a mainsail reefed to the cross. Whatever wind may blow, there is always shelter within the Sutors; and she was soon riding at anchor in the roadstead; but she had entered the bay alone; and when day broke, and for a brief interval the driving snow-rack cleared up towards the east, no second sail appeared ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... under close-reefed mainsail and storm foresail, almost buried in the heavy sea, which washed over the deck from forward to the companion hatch, when Newton went down to rouse the besotted Thompson, who, having slept through the night without having had recourse to additional stimulus, was ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... had, called Rose. My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket, and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her neck was as thick as a bull's, and her scalp was large and woolly enough for a door-mat. She was as strong as a moose, and as ugly too; and her great-white ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... touched nor an important rope cut. We could see some of her crew aloft reeving and stopping braces and ready to repair any damage done, working as coolly under fire as old man-of-war's men. But while we were looking, down came the gaff of her mainsail, and the gaff-topsail fell all adrift; a lucky shot had cut her peak halyards. Our crew cheered with a will. "Well done, Hobson; try it again!" called the captain to the boatswain's mate, who was ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... on deck to make sail. Out wi' you, you blasted lubber, and lay aloft. Up wi' you, and loose that mainsail, and, when you've got it loose, furl it. I'll show you how I earned that money. Up wi' you, 'fore I give ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... impatience. It wanted but half an hour of 'knocking off time'—and that half-hour would be time enough, for his watch to finish the scraping of the deck-house—but the wind waits on no man, and already the weather clew of the mainsail was lifting lazily to a shift. It was hard to give up the prospect of having the house all finished and ship-shape before the Mate came on deck (and then trimming yards and sail after the work was done); but here was the wind working light into the eastward, and the sails nearly ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... and ballasted; also buy a red shirt, a small low-crowned straw hat, some tar to smear over your hands, and learn the first stanza of 'The sea! the sea!' to make every thing seem more nautical and ship-shape. Hoist jib and mainsail, and venture out. After you have drifted a mile or two, it will fall a dead calm, and the boat (Gazelle? Wave? Gull?) will float two or three hours, the sun flashing back from the glassy surface of the water, burning your face to the color of bricks, and almost frying the eyes out of your ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... to whistle to himself for a moment; and the next I heard him yell out sharply to the boys forward to tumble on the mainsail, strip her covers off, double-reef and hoist her. He took command from that moment. While a score of them flew to tackle this job, he beat his way forward and called on another lot to get out the staysail. Back he ran again, cursing and calling ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... night was one of those inefficients against whom the capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally destroyed it. There weren't any dividends that night, and the Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... sun, its broad face only saved from oily smoothness by half-hearted flutterings of a westerly breeze. Those faint airs blowing up along the Vancouver Island shore made tentative efforts to fill and belly out strongly the mainsail and jib of a small half-decked sloop working out from the weather side of Sangster Island and laying her snub nose straight for the mouth of the Fraser River, some sixty sea-miles east ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... tide marked long, curved lines and illusive circles on the oily sea. The Spindrift was poised motionless on the surface of the water, borne slowly, almost imperceptibly, forward by the sweep of the tide. Her mainsail, boomed out, hung in loose folds. The sheet, freed from all strain, was borne down by its own weight, until the slack of it dipped in the water. Terns and gulls, at lazy rest, floated close to the yacht's side. Long rows of dark cormorants, perched ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... Nancy Jane now," called the boy from the dooryard, pointing to a sloop on the other side of the wide estuary, bowling in with topsail and jib furled, and her rusty mainsail bellying under pressure of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... order and readiness; the men at her guns fuse in hand, an erect and pompous figure of a man, in a cocked hat, on the break of her poop. He raised his hand, two puffs of white smoke darted out, and I heard first the shrieking of shot, the broadside came crashing round us, one tearing through the mainsail below me, another mangling two men in the waist of our schooner, and Griggs gave the order to touch off. But two of his guns answered, one of which had been so gorged with shot that it burst in a hundred pieces and sent the fellow with the swab to perdition, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fore-and-aft rig, the cutter—the racing rig par excellence—is of an appearance the most imposing, from the fact that practically all her canvas is in one piece. The enormous mainsail of a cutter, as she draws slowly past a point of land or the end of a jetty under your admiring gaze, invests her with an air of lofty and silent majesty. At anchor a schooner looks better; she has an aspect of greater efficiency and a better balance to the eye, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... soundings wouid be taken, and the vicinity thoroughly inspected. When the bay gave promise of shells and coral, a camp was made on the silver-like beach under the shade of the towering cocoanut trees. The mainsail was detached and carried ashore to serve as an awning. The large sheet-iron boilers were also landed. While two of the crew gathered wood and decayed vegetation for fuel, the others were busy erecting a crude fire- place with rocks, over which the boilers were set. The ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the shoulders, thereby displaying their brawny arms as if they had dirty work before them. This strange metamorphosis was finally completed when Manton, with his own hands, ran up to the peak of the mainsail a bright scarlet flag with the single word "AVENGER" on ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... books descended upon me from the shelf overhead. Yet I slept pretty soundly. Once I was awakened by a tremendous noise outside—something like a gun going off. I afterwards found it had been occasioned by the mainsail being blown away to sea, right out of the bolt-ropes, the fastenings of which were immediately outside my ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... Gales and Cloudy the most part of these 24 hours. P.M. got up the spare Mainsail to dry, it being Wet by the Water getting into the Sail room, occasioned by the Ship being very Leakey in her upper works. At 5 a.m. loosed 2 Reefs out of each Topsail, and saw the Land, which we judged to be Cape Finister and Cape Ortugal. ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and brought tumbling to the deck; but the mainsail was a harder matter. Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... doubt that the permanent retention of all territory acquired from Spain will, in the interest of humanity and duty, be demanded with equal firmness. We shall go on in the same course of expansion which we have pursued from our earliest history as an independent nation. We have 'hoisted the mainsail' of the ship of state and started her about the world. While heeding Washington's warnings and the popular interpretation of the Monroe doctrine to keep the people of other nations from getting a foothold on this continent, we shall ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang out: "Smoke—oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of some nocturnal sea-monster. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... still used aboard deepwater-men as Ho—hissa! instead of Ho—hoist away! What ho, mate! is also known afloat, though dying out. Y-howe! taylia! is Yo—ho! tally! or Tally and belay! which means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail. What ho! no nearer! is What ho! no higher now. But old salts remember no nearer! and it may be still extant. Seasickness seems to have been the same as ever—so was the desperate effort to pretend one was not ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Candia. I carried sail until she nearly jumped her masts over the side and herself out of water. We were then carrying the double reefed topsails, reefed courses, inner jib, fore and main topmast staysail, but the gale had so increased I gave orders to close-reef the topsails and furl the mainsail. I thought it better to run no further risk of dismasting her, as there was always a chance so long as they were kept standing. All hands were up reefing the main topsail and I had the wheel. I saw the black shadow of the mountains in the darkness towering far above our heads, and ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... in stopping the leak, this was not accomplished until the mainsail had been carried away by the heavy sea, and other injuries sustained. It was a terrible time for all, and the crew, exhausted and overworked on insufficient food, were only held to their tasks by the captain and mates standing ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... hills of Rum, striking away the tops of the long ridgy billows that had risen in the calm to indicate its approach, and then carrying them in sheets of spray aslant the furrowed surface, like snow-drift hurried across a frozen field. But the Betsey, with her storm-jib set, and her mainsail reefed to the cross, kept her weather bow bravely to the blast, and gained on it with every tack. She had been the pleasure yacht, in her day, of a man of fortune, who had used, in running south with her at times as far as Lisbon, to encounter, on not worse terms than ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... thundering crash upon the ship's deck, fortunately injuring no one. At the same time a tremendous billow broke over the stern of the Ocean Queen, and falling into the lifeboat in a cataract completely sunk her. She rose like a cork, keel uppermost, and would have righted at once, but a bight of the mainsail, with some of the wreck, held her down. Her crew, one by one, succeeded in clambering upon her, and Harry shouted to the men in the ship to hand him an axe. One was thrown to him which he caught, and began therewith to cut ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... signal sped by the line o' the British craft; The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed:— "It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all—we'll out to the seas again— Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... covered with the yellow forage. A solitary robin sings near. I sit in my shirt sleeves and gaze from an open bay-window on the indolent scene—the thin haze, the Fishkill hills in the distance—off on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little shad-boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... later, and the royal top-gallantsail, topsail and mainsail disappear from the main mast, upon which appears a regular fore and aft suit of canvass, consisting of mainsail, gaff topsail, and gaff top-gallantsail, reducing the vessel to a square rig forward, and a plain fore and aft rig aft. A few minutes more, and the foremast passed through the same metamorphose, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... Juan Fernandez above a degree, before we had a wind that we could make any southing with. On the 25th, in the latitude of 46 degrees, we met with a violent hard gale at west, which obliged us to lie-to under a reefed mainsail for some days, and before we got round the cape, we had many very hard gales, with a prodigious sea and constant thick snow; and after being so long in so delightful a climate as Chili, the cold was almost ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... liberty. Hearing a noise in front, I looked up and discerned the light spar of a mast peeping over an intervening barrier of rock; we wound round it, and on the other side found a cutter-rigged boat of about eighteen tons hauled close to the natural quay, with her mainsail set and flapping heavily in the night wind. Here we met another seaman. In ten minutes we were under way; the smooth groundswell running free and silent from our quarter, and the boat laying herself out with an easy speed, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... vinegar when seeking honey. There might be vinegar-pots to be found in her larder, but they were kept behind closed doors and sampled only when she was alone. As she sat looking out to sea, Max's brain still at work on the problem of her unusual mood, a schooner shifted her mainsail in the light breeze and set her course for ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to the wind," shouted Tarboe to Bissonnette. The mainsail closed up several points, the Ninety-Nine slackened her pace and edged in closer to the land. "Now, my girl," said Tarboe, "this is how it stands. If we fight, there's someone sure to be hurt, and if ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... beginning to paint the clouds with leprous hues, and the great ring grew wider and wider, he looked at the mainsail, and wished the trouble over. At midnight there came a sigh; then a rattle of blocks, and then a big, silent wave came pouring along. Something was astir somewhere, and before long the Esperanza's crew knew what was the matter. The last glare of wild-fire flushed ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... destruction on this—the attempt, the hope, the failure; then the stout-hearted, skillful captain would try one rare maneuver to save the ship, cargo, and crew. He would club-haul her, "and if that fails, my lads, there is nothing but up mainsail, up helm, run her slap ashore, and lay her bones on the softest bit ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... were, of course, Inquisition prisoners; for other offenders would have been dealt with on the spot. Cobham chased her down into the Bay of Biscay, took her, scuttled her, and rescued the captives. But that was not enough. The captain and crew he sewed up in their own mainsail and flung them overboard. They were washed ashore dead, wrapped in their extraordinary winding-sheet. Cobham was called to account for this exploit, but he does not seem to have been actually punished. In a very short time he was out and away again at the old work. There were plenty with him. After ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... dirt yard below became a hungry, roaring sea. His twelve-year-old vocabulary boasted such compound difficulties as mizzentopsail-yard and main-topgallantmast. He knew the intricate parts of a full-rigged ship from the mainsail to the deck, from the jib-boom to the chart-house. All this from pictures and books. It was the roving, restless spirit of his father in him, I suppose. Clint Kamps had never been meant for marriage. When the baby Tyler was one year old Clint had walked over to where ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... then restored it to the place from which he had taken it. He then examined his pockets to assure himself that some other article necessary for his purpose was all right. No mistakes or omissions had been made, and he proceeded to hoist the mainsail. He then cast off the moorings, and hoisted the jib. The wind was too fresh to permit the Greyhound to carry all sail, and even with what he had set, she put her rail under the water at ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... arranged that it could be lowered when the wind was too strong. The dimensions of the sail as we made it are given in the drawing (Fig. 15). The top of the sail was lashed to a spar, which was connected by a short stick to another spar tied to the mainsail about eighteen inches lower down. The sail was strengthened with an extra strip of cloth along the lower spar, and the tie strings were applied in the usual way. The connecting stick, or topmast we may call it, was hinged to the lower ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... time was precious. Delay would lose us. As I felt confident of my opinion, I turned abruptly from the disobedient mariners, and letting go the main brace, brought the vessel to with the topsail aback. Quickly, then, I ordered the watch as it rushed aft, to clew up the mainsail;—but alas! no one would obey; and, in the fracas, the captain, who rushed on deck ignorant of the facts or danger, ordered me back to my state-room with curses for my ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... if the last blast was out of the bellows; and theres a streak along the mountains, to the northard, that, just now, wasnt wider than the bigness of your hand; and then the clouds drive afore it as youd brail a mainsail, and the stars are heaving in sight, like so many lights and beacons, put there to warn us to pile on the wood; and, if so be that Im a judge of weather, its getting to be time to build on a fire, or you'll have half of them there porter bottles, and them dimmyjohns of wine, in the locker here, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... continues. "After sunrise the strength of the wind increased, and the sea became still more terrible. The Admiral all this time kept his mainsail lowered, so that the vessel might rise from among the waves which washed over it, and which threatened to sink it. The Admiral followed, at first, the direction of east-northeast, and afterwards due northeast. He sailed about six hours in this direction, and thus made seven leagues ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... was as well appointed as she was below. Her bowsprit had a gentle downward curve, her mast was a beautiful spar, and her topmast was elegantly tapered and set up in good shape. Unlike most of the regular highflyer yachts, her jib and mainsail were not unreasonably large. Mr. Ramsay did not intend that it should be necessary to reef when it blew a twelve-knot breeze, and, like the Skylark, she was expected to carry all sail in anything short of a full gale. But she was provided with an abundance of "kites," including ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... upon my own life-stream, I discern the remains of my precious system lying high and dry among the rocks of that winter's experience. Yet I tried all ways to make it go. I was like a boy with a new boat, who increases or lessens his ballast, now tries her with mainsail, foresail, topsail, jib, flying jib, and jibber jib, and now with bare poles,—anything to make her float. Each night I took my poor system home for repairs, and each morning, full of hope, tried to launch it anew in my school-room. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... received his despatches from the captain of the frigate, with orders to proceed to sea immediately. Mr Vanslyperken, under the eye of his superior officer, could not dally or delay: he hove short, hoisted his mainsail, and fired a gun as a signal for sailing; anxiously looking out for Ramsay's boat with his letters, and afraid to go without them; but no boat made its appearance, and Mr Vanslyperken was forced to heave up his anchor. Still he did not like to make sail, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... N.E.B.E.[3] about 5 Leagues. Tacked and stood to the Eastward. We lay up S.E.B.E. till 8 in the Evening, from 8 to 12 m.n. E.S.E. We had a very hard Gale at S. with a very great Sea. at half an hour past three this morning a sea broke over us and carry'd away our Boom and Mainsail. We layed the Helm to Lee and kept to w't the Jib but the Gale increasing We Try'd Hull to. at 5 in the morning the Breakers seemed close under our Lee and ahead. We hoisted the Jib to try if possible to clear the Danger, but our Endeavours were ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... calling to Fairfax, who stood up as he replied, ending the conversation with a wave of the hand to Sam, who had taken position at the wheel. The latter began shouting orders in a shrill voice. Carr cast off, and, with the negro and myself at the halliards, the mainsail rose to the caps, while we began gliding out from the shore into the deeper water. By the time we had hoisted the jib, and made all secure, we were out far enough to feel the full force of the stiff breeze, the Adele careening until her rail was awash, the white canvas soaring above us ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... 45 leagues N.W. by W. from Cape Finister, having then only six mariners and six merchants in health. The 16th we had a great storm at W.S.W. by W. which came on about 6 P.M. and our men being very weak and unable to hand our sails, we that night lost our mainsail, foresail, and spritsail, and were obliged to lie hulling till the 18th, when we got up an old foresail; and finding ourselves now in the Channel, we bore up for the coast of England. In less than two hours the old foresail was blown from the yard by a spurt of wind, and we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... a racing yawl, A spare-rigged schooner sloop, Athwart the bows the taffrails all In grummets gay appeared to fall, To deck the mainsail poop. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the bank, just above the belt of silt and sand that divided it from the river. The two men turned for a moment, and watched her from the yacht's deck. She waited till the big mainsail went up, and the yacht's head swung round and pointed up stream. Then she began to run fast along the shore, close to ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the s'uth'ard," said the skipper, anxiously, while they put a double reef in the mainsail. "'Twill be a ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... with a white beard and an umbreller came along the quay and talked to the hands. Said as how it was crool hard to be drownded in winter just for the sake of a few pounds more for the owner—he said. Nearly cried over them—he did; and he had a square mainsail coat, and a gaff-topsail hat too—all proper. So they chaps they said they wouldn't go to be drownded in winter—depending upon that 'ere Plimsoll man to see 'em through the court. They thought to have a bloomin' lark and two or three days' spree. And the beak giv' 'em six weeks—coss ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... possible. The sails and part of the rigging were consumed in the fire at Grimross. He had fortunately saved two of the compasses from the flames. After days of toil he managed to get the vessel in fair working order. The old half-burnt blankets were patched together and a mainsail and jib were completed. On the 30th of May, 1771, he set sail for ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... shots, and captured the ship, and took out with the hooks [?] all that they deemed necessary of the wine and brandy, and all the silver and other things that had value, and tortured two Spaniards in order to learn whether there was more silver, and cut down the sails and rigging, except the mainsail, and turned the ship adrift with the men, excepting five or six whom they took with them, and among others ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... nor an important rope cut. We could see some of her crew aloft reeving and stopping braces and ready to repair any damage done, working as coolly under fire as old man-of-war's men. But while we were looking, down came the gaff of her mainsail, and the gaff-topsail fell all adrift; a lucky shot had cut her peak halyards. Our crew cheered with a will. "Well done, Hobson; try it again!" called the captain to the boatswain's mate, who was ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... trumpet, she reached under the seat and brought out the pile of Blazeton weeklies. With her feet upon the pile to keep it from blowing away, she proceeded to unfold one of the papers. It crackled and snapped in the wind like a loose mainsail. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Mainsail haul!" and the ponderous yards were swung round as the Denver City payed off handsomely, close-reefed as she was, on the starboard tack, shaping a course at a good right angle to her former one, so as now to weather the Smalls light, off the Pembroke ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Constitution would be given to some one else—a breach of discipline for which he would probably have been court-martialled and shot, had the cruise ended disastrously—fell in with the powerful British frigate Guerriere. Inscribed across the Guerriere's mainsail in huge ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... that wore the toga. Yes, and a pretty affair that "toga" was. Just figure to yourself, reader, the picture of a hardworking man, with horny hands like our hedgers, ditchers, weavers, porters, &c., setting to work on the highroad in that vast sweeping toga, filling with a strong gale like the mainsail of a frigate. Conceive the roars with which this magnificent figure would be received into the bosom of a poor-house detachment sent out to attack the stones on some new line of road, or a fatigue ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... no sooner reached the vessel than the latter began to drift, carrying the boat along with her. Instantly those on board endeavoured to hoist the mainsail of the Smeaton, with the view of working her up to the buoy from which she had parted; but it blew so hard, that by the time she was got round to make a tack towards the rock, she had drifted at least ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... go drifting down the river. A quiet, smoky October day; the distant hills all softened in the haze; the near shores green with the fresh-springing aftermath. Reuben lounged upon the sunny side of the mainsail, thinking, with respectful pity, of the poor fagged fellows in roundabouts who were seated at that hour before the red desks in Parson Brummem's school-room. At length he was enjoying a taste of that outside life of which he had known only from travellers' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... sails. The topsails and topgallant-sails had fortunately been handed, and the men were coming down from aloft when the brig swung right in among the trees, and the end of a thick bough which had been shivered by lightning, or broken off by a storm, ran through the head of the mainsail just under the gaff. There we lay with our fore-topgallant and topsail yards caught in the branches, and ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the smugglers was to escape, and this they hoped to do if they could bring down the cutter's mainsail. The king's officer knew that he should have the smugglers safe enough if he could but make them strike; this, however, knowing that they all fought with ropes round their necks, they had no ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Fig. 138) is similar to a cutter rig, but has a small sail set up on another mast abaft the mainsail. The sheet is led aft to a spar that projects beyond the counter. The mast upon which the smaller sail is set is known as the mizzenmast. In this rig it will be seen that the main boom must be made considerably shorter than was the case in the cutter rig. This is done so ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... is home-sickness," she said in a low voice, while she pretended to be busy tightening up the mainsail sheet. "I should like to see ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... as we stood in for the Old Head of Kinsale pilot boat breasting the foaming surge like a sea gull—"Carrol Cove" in her tiny mainsail—pilot jumped into the main channel a bottle of rum swung by the lead line into the boat—all ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... stores taken aboard to go to sea. And that was attended to next morning, and she was out for her trial trip the same afternoon. Everybody said she looked as handsome as a photograph going out, though all the old sharks, when they saw her mainsail hoisted for the first time, said she'd certainly have need of her quarter and draught to stand ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... your forehead those creases," I cry to my friend on the yacht, "I admit that the mainsail's in pieces And most of the sheets in a knot; But remember that if We go ponk on that cliff It's The Blare will be paying your nieces ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... chasing each other over the surrounding sea. A half hour later the wind had developed into a gale. Skipper Zeb reefed the mainsail. Then taking a long oar from the boat, he dropped it between two pegs astern, and while he used this as a sculling oar to steer the boat, Toby unshipped the rudder and dragged ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... a fresh gale in the evening at S.W. by W., which, being fair for the Portugal fleet, and the weather pleasant and agreeable, we heard the signal given to unmoor, and running in under the island of Si—-, we hauled our mainsail and foresail up in the brails, lowered the topsails upon the cap, and clewed them up, that we might lie as snug as we could, expecting their coming out, and the next morning saw the whole fleet come out accordingly, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... and carried it on deck myself. Master Harold slung it over his shoulder, and in another minute was perched on the long tapering yard of the lateen mainsail. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... reefed in the upper part; a portion of the sail nearest to the yard from which it is suspended being rolled up and secured by strings to the yard. Fore and aft sails, like the spanker, the fore and main spencers, or the mainsail of a schooner, are reefed at the foot, the lower part being tied ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... white line that, as we came up on it, proved to be the current breaking against the wind over a very solid bar. For the first time our sailor gave signs of life. He stood on his feet, squinted ahead, ordered us amidships, dropped the peak of the mainsail, took the sheet in his hand. We flew down against the breakers. In a moment we were in them. Two sickening bumps shook our very vertebrae. The mast swayed drunkenly from side to side as the boat rolled on her keel, the sail flopped, ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... third reef was taken in the mainsail, and Johnson filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck, and sat cross-legged on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to rights with a couple of the hands. By dinner I had fled the deck, and sat in the bench corner, giddy, dumb, and stupefied with terror. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... jib. b. Jib. c. Foresail. d. Foretopsail. e. Foretopgallantsail. f. Foreroyal. g. Mainsail. h. Maintopsail. i. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... that night was one of those inefficients against whom the capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally destroyed it. There weren't any dividends that night, and the Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... Spanish prizes, one was sighted, bound from Antwerp to Cadiz. Cobham gave chase, easily captured her in the Bay of Biscay, and discovered there were forty Inquisition prisoners aboard. After rescuing the prisoners, the captain and crew of the Spanish vessel were then sewn up in their own mainsail and tossed into the sea, no doubt with such sententious expressions of godliness as was thought befitting to sacred occasions of that period. This ceremony having been performed, the vessel was scuttled, so that she might nevermore be used in trading ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... a mainsail, the yard being seventy-one feet long, and reefyard sixty-six feet long, eleven inches diameter at center ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... grasp the storm mizen, a strongly made triangular sail, to be used only in untoward hours, and for which we must prepare by lowering the lug mizen, and shifting the halyard, tack, and sheet. Then the Rob Roy, with her mainsail and jib reefed, will be under snug canvas, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... the Free Rover, of whom thou hast doubtless heard. My good vessel and her gallant crew ne'er slackened a sky-raker in the chase, nor backed a mainsail astern of the enemy. But pirate as I am—hunted and driven forth like the prowling wolf, without the common rights and usages of my fellow men—I have yet their feelings. I had a child! Thy fell, unpitying purpose, remorseless monster, hath made me childless! But thou hast robbed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the Philadelphia, a mass of flames, drifted across the harbor, and blew up. Meantime the batteries of the shipping and the castle had been turned upon the Intrepid, but although the shot struck all around her, she escaped successfully with only one shot through her mainsail, and, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... however, very small; such accidents generally occurred on cold, icy days or nights, when the hands had become benumbed. Yet it was amazing how these mere children managed to hold on at any time. But that is not all. If the vessel had to be tacked, it was the cabin-boy's duty to let go the square mainsail sheet when "tacks and sheets" was called; and when the order was given to "mainsail haul," that is, swing the main yard round, he had to haul in the opposite main sheet; and if he did not get it in so that the foot of the mainsail came tight up against the foremain ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... showed a disposition to freshen, careening the boat so steeply that, despite Stukely's utmost care, the water began to slop in over the lee gunwale, as well as over the bows; and at length they decided to take a reef in the mainsail, for Dick had no fancy for spending the rest of the cruise in an ineffectual endeavour to free the boat of water that came in faster than he could throw it out. This was done, and the boat resumed her headlong rush to the southward, until by the time that the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and, as I could discover by his voice and gesture, gave his wife strict charge to take care of me. I was very much tired, and disposed to sleep, which my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... vessel within the surf, but a few yards distant from the outer rocks, thrown on her beam-ends, with both foresail and mainsail blown clear out of their bolt-ropes. The cry for succour was raised in vain; the wail of despair was not heard; the struggles for life were not beheld, as the elements in their wrath roared and ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the choppy waves with vigorous strokes and shot her around at the last moment for a perfect landing. The mainsail and jib went up with rapid jerks while the rings rattled their protest. The strenuous physical exercise brought him temporary relief; but, when he had cast off, taken the tiller and after a few moments of idle jockeying back and forth in the ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... but their eyes met and Philippa looked hurriedly away. There was a moment's queer, strained silence. Before them loomed up the outline of Mainsail Haul. ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Cape we have done well until a week ago, when, after a series of very fine runs, and during as fair a breeze as one would wish to see, we were some of us astonished to see the captain giving orders to reef topsails. The royals were stowed, so were the top-gallant-sails, topsails close reefed, mainsail reefed, and just at 10.45 p.m., as I was going to bed, I heard the captain give the order to take a reef in the foresail and furl the mainsail; but before I was in bed a quarter of an hour afterwards, a blast of wind came up like a wall, and all night it blew a regular hurricane. The glass, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... out perfectly round, like a big, pale balloon, this did, and for a second something was bounding through it—without a sound, you understand—something a shade solider than the smoke and big as a cow, it looked to me. It passed from the weather side to the lee and ducked behind the sweep of the mainsail like that—" McCord snapped his thumb ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... Inlet, we discovered a small sail standing to the northward. The breeze was very light, so we downed our sail, got out our oars, and gave chase. The stranger stood out to seaward, and endeavored to escape; but slowly we overhauled her, and finally a shot caused her mainsail to drop. As we pulled alongside I saw from the dress of the crew of three that they were man-of-war's men, and divined that they were deserters. They were thoroughly frightened at first, for our appearance was not calculated to impress them favorably. To our questions they returned evasive ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... sailing qualities, for in a few minutes the boat was far behind, when there was a put from the cutter's side, but not to send a ball across their bows, for before the report reached the boys' ears a peculiar sound came overhead, and there was a hole through the mainsail. ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoised up the mainsail to the wind, and made toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... before the officer of the deck, 2d Lieut. Jas. L. Parker, remarked to me that he thought it looked a little squally to windward. I immediately passed over to the weather side, and as it looked a little darker than it had done, I ordered him to haul up the mainsail, and brail up the spanker, and directed the helm to be put up. These orders were promptly obeyed. Lieut. Parker took the mainsail off her, and had got the spanker about half brailed up, when the squall ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... of the Swordfish, gave this order in disgust at last; for the tide was against her, with a heavy pitch of sea, and the mainsail scarcely drew the sheet. What little wind there was came off the land, and would have been fair if it had been firm; but often it dropped altogether where the cliffs, or the clouds that lay upon them, held it. The cutter had slipped away from Scarborough, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... terrible stories of damage done by the storm. It was reported that the Chicken Rock Lighthouse was blown down, that the tide had risen to twenty-five feet in Ramsey and torn up the streets, and that a Peel fisherman had been struck by his mainsail ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... ate, the first half took in all canvas and reefed it with the exception of the mainsail. This was unbent entirely and stowed away. In its place was bent on a riding sail, for until their salt was all wet there would be very little occasion for any sort of sailing, their only progress being as they ambled leisurely ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... inevitable end. It was long, however, and to us it seemed like ages, ere the schooner suddenly appeared for one brief instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering foam. I still see her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across the deck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still think I can distinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the whole sight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; the very wave ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deck to make sail. Out wi' you, you blasted lubber, and lay aloft. Up wi' you, and loose that mainsail, and, when you've got it loose, furl it. I'll show you how I earned that money. Up wi' you, 'fore I give ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Boston, and to tell Anne that her Aunt Martha knows the truth. You just run up and tell Mrs. Stoddard all about it, Amanda," he answered; and, having sent his boat into deep water, the captain drew in his oars and began hoisting the big mainsail. ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... situation, and directed the other five seamen to respect and obey the man he had selected as captain. Then he directed French to cast off the stops from the foresail and mainsail, and have the jib and flying-jib ready to set ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... at the helm, floated calmly down the deep creek until she reached a wider space, where the wind could catch her. Then they raised a white sail, half-mast high, and she leaned over to the pressure until she shot out amongst the breakers, and her mainsail and topsail shook out to the breeze, and she cut the calm sea like a plough in the furrow, and the waters curled and whitened and closed in her wake. Then, at a signal, her pennant was hauled to the masthead; and every eye could read in blue letters ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... up in the morning and went on deck, the island of Hoy lay far to windward like a bank of mist upon the sea. We were far out on the broad Pentland Firth, plunging about on the rough water, with our mainsail double-reefed, and the flying jib pulling away like to split itself in the wind. I enjoyed it all for a time; but when I went below to help Jerry to get ready some breakfast for the skipper, the smell of the coffee and the frying ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... in the old boiler, to steam out of hospitable Sinafir at 6:30 a.m. on the auspicious Wednesday, February 13. The appearance of the Mukhbir must have been originale enough: her canvas had been fished out of the hold, but in the place of a mainsail she had hoisted a topsail. We passed as close as possible to the islet-line of Secondary formation, beginning with Shu'shu', the wedge bluff-faced to south: the Palinurus anchored here in a small bight on the north-east side, between two reefs, and narrowly ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... approached, a man considerably over six feet in height, keen-faced, gray-eyed, straight-limbed and sinewy in frame, jumped into the big and rough boat and began to get ready for their departure. There was just enough wind to catch the brown mainsail, and the King of Borva took the tiller, his henchman sitting down by the mast. And no sooner had they left the shore and stood out toward one of the channels of this arm of the sea, than the tall, spare keeper began to talk of that which made his master's eye grow dark. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... has sent a gale. Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars, With their glimmering lanterns, all at play On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars, And I knew we should have foul weather to-day. Cheerily, my hearties! yo heave ho! Brail up the mainsail, and let her go As the ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... shaped not unlike an old-fashioned water-pitcher, and a form suggestive of an obese lobster balancing on an upright horse-shoe. His nose was too high up; his mouth and chin bulged too tremendously; his neck inside a whole mainsail of shirt-collar was too much fluted, and his eyes were as much too small and oyster-like as his ears were too ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... my soul!' said he, wiping his brow with a huge coloured handkerchief as big as a mainsail, 'one night in such a furnace as that would have brought ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... sloop drew nearer. She was a fair-sized craft, and carried a crew of three. The men seemed to be nice fellows, and not at all of the Captain Langless class. Soon the sloop dropped anchor close in shore and the mainsail came down at ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... the permanent retention of all territory acquired from Spain will, in the interest of humanity and duty, be demanded with equal firmness. We shall go on in the same course of expansion which we have pursued from our earliest history as an independent nation. We have 'hoisted the mainsail' of the ship of state and started her about the world. While heeding Washington's warnings and the popular interpretation of the Monroe doctrine to keep the people of other nations from getting a foothold on this continent, we shall not pervert their spirit by stubbornly refusing to improve ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... devices, To thee let fly all my anxious longings: May thy cool breath to my heart bring healing! Let Death now follow, his booty seeking: The moves are many before the checkmate! Awhile I'll harass thy love of plunder, As on I scud 'neath thy angry eyebrows; Thou only fillest my swelling mainsail, Though Death ride fast on thy howling tempest; Thy billows raging shall bear the faster My little ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... about one bell in the first dog-watch; the weather was fine, the water smooth, the breeze light; and the brig, with little more than bare steerage-way upon her, was laying her course, with squared yards, both clews of her mainsail hauled up, and studding-sails set on both sides, her topsails occasionally collapsing and flapping to the masts for lack of wind to keep them "asleep." Miss Trevor was, as usual, on deck, seated in ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... find no place in any known code, and in a moment the Bull Pup becomes a scene of unwonted excitement. The jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest; finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time looks around. The boys fail to suppress a loud guffaw, and forthwith dodge the flying tiller. The old man in the excitement had forgotten ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... nine o'clock at night we got a pretty good offing, but the wind still increasing, I took in my main-top-sail, being able to carry no more sail than two courses and the mizen. At two in the morning, August 3rd, it blew very hard, and the sea was much raised, so that I furled all my sails but my mainsail, though the wind blew so hard, we had pretty clear weather till noon, but then the whole sky was blackened with thick clouds, and we had some rain, which would last a quarter of an hour at a time, and then it would blow very fierce while ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... now," called the boy from the dooryard, pointing to a sloop on the other side of the wide estuary, bowling in with topsail and jib furled, and her rusty mainsail bellying under pressure ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... discovery we have recently made is that of a sailing-fish, called by the natives "ikan layer," of about ten or twelve feet long, which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat, and with considerable swiftness. I have sent a set of the sails home, as they are beautifully cut and form a model for a fast-sailing boat. When a school of these are under ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... parties who ought to have been correct) that the Association for building the Pilgrim Monument at Plymouth should issue a pamphlet giving a picture of the "Landing of the Pilgrims, December 21, 1620," in which women are pictured, and in which the shallop is shown with a large fore-and-aft mainsail, while on the same page is another picture entitled, "The Shallop of the MAY-FLOWER," having a large yard and square-sail, and a "Cuddy" (which last the MAY-FLOWER'S shallop we know did not have). ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... gloomier night, they bore out to sea. The breeze soon freshened into a gale; the gale swelled into a hurricane, accompanied by a thick snow-storm: and when, early next morning, the smack opened the Firth, she was staggering under her storm-jib, and a mainsail reefed to the cross. Whatever wind may blow, there is always shelter within the Sutors; and she was soon riding at anchor in the roadstead; but she had entered the bay alone; and when day broke, and for a brief interval the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... possessed a teak-built four-oared gig which, being heavy and strong, I rigged with a jib and mainsail, besides adding six inches to her keel, when she proved to be a handy and seaworthy little craft. An iron framework could be erected over the stern-sheets and covered with a canvas hood, thus forming quite a roomy ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... though, and means to fight us," cried another. "See, he is hauling up the foot of his mainsail; but he wants to keep ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... that I saw her, for there we chiefly lived, and occasionally there were guilty approaches and rencontres, she in her boat, I in mine, both being slight clinker-built Montreux pleasure-boats, which I had spent some days in overhauling and varnishing, mine with jib, fore-and-aft mainsail, and spanker, hers rather smaller, one-masted, with an easy-running lug-sail. It was no uncommon thing for me to sail quite to Geneva, and come back from a seven-days' cruise with my soul filled and consoled with the lake and all its many moods of bright and darksome, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... aft, and his heart stood still as she seemed on the point of descending the companion. But she had another purpose in mind. Throwing aside the gaskets, she stripped the sail covers off the mainsail and began, with practiced hands, to reef down to the third reef. Then she went forward and did the same to the forestaysail. A minute later, hardly knowing why or how, except that he was helping Madge, Gregory, like a man in a dream, was pulling with her ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... of flames, but they burst out with great fury from the cabin windows. I contrived, with great difficulty, to reach the deck, by climbing up that part which was not actually burning, and was followed by one of the sailors. The main-mast was on fire, and the flakes of burning canvas from the boom mainsail fell on us like a snow-storm; the end of the tiller was burnt to charcoal, but on the midship part of it I passed a rope, and, assisted by the sailor, moved the helm, and got her before ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not to start, as they feared dirty weather, but he snapped them up and took no notice of them. In his anxiety he dropped the telegram, and without being seen I pushed it under the counter with my foot. An hour later the yacht was under sail, with two reefs in her mainsail and a small ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... is, the lashings which had secured the two paddle-like rudders, one on either beam, which had been tied up to be out of the way when the stern anchors were put out—are loosed, and the rudders drop into place. The foresail (not 'mainsail,' as the Authorised Version has it) is set to help to drive the ship ashore. It is all exactly what we should expect ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... indeed a large ship about three miles distant; but although it was a perfect calm, she was to all appearance buffeting in a violent gale, plunging and lifting over a surface that was smooth as glass, now careening to her bearing, then recovering herself. Her topsails and mainsail were furled, and the yards pointed to the wind; she had no sail set, but a close-reefed foresail, a storm staysail, and trysail abaft. She made little way through the water, but apparently neared ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... fust began to blaw, an' all bustlin' 'bout in the dark, when the mainsail went lerrickin' 'cross an' knocked the poor dam bwoy owerboard into as ugly a rage o' water as ever I seed. Tom had his sea-boots on, an' every sawl 'pon the bwoat knawed 'twas all up as soon as we lost en. We shawed a light an' tumbled 'bout for quarter o' an hour wi' the ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... entered the Straits of Gibraltar I verily thought she'd have sunk, For the wind began so for to alter, She yaw'd just as tho' she was drunk. The squall tore the mainsail to shivers, Helm a-weather, the hoarse boatswain cries; Brace the foresail athwart, see she quivers, As through the rough tempest she flies. But sailors were born for all weathers, Great guns let it blow, high or low, Our duty keeps us to our ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... letter's lineaments Though swollen to mainsail measure,—magically, I gather from your words; and on its face Are three vast seals, red—signifying blood Must I suppose? It moves on Dresden town, And dwarfs the city as it passes by.— ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Cove below. How they scamper along, eager to walk the deck of that trim little craft, the Falcon, anchored in the stream, and sitting like a bird on the bosom of the famed river. Wait a minute and you will see the mainsail flutter in the breeze. Now our rollicking young friends have marched past ruins of "chapel, convent, hospital," &c., on the beach; you surely did not expect them to look glum and melancholy. Of course they knew all about "Monsieur Puiseaux," "le Chevalier de Sillery," ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and there were reefs amid which she might possibly make her escape, when a shot, flying higher than the rest, struck the head of her main-mast. Over the side went the topmast and topsail, down came the mainsail, and the vessel's head paying off, in five minutes she was hard and fast on a reef. The frigate had, meantime, been shortening sail, and scarcely had the schooner struck, when she dropped her anchor in a position completely to command the ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty bottle, broken by the neck, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very anxious night indeed for me; by far the most anxious that I had thus far spent since the destruction of the Saturn, for the wind steadily increased, compelling me to haul down a first and then a second reef in the mainsail, while—the wind and sea being now square abeam—I was continually exposed to the danger of being swamped by a sea breaking aboard. By constant watchfulness, however, I contrived to escape this danger, and my eighth morning found the boat bowling along ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... an avalanche of books descended upon me from the shelf overhead. Yet I slept pretty soundly. Once I was awakened by a tremendous noise outside—something like a gun going off. I afterwards found it had been occasioned by the mainsail being blown away to sea, right out of the bolt-ropes, the fastenings of which were ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... hoisted up we heard a sound like a short quick rattling of thunder, and the jib was blown to atoms out of the bolt-rope. We got the topsails set, and the fragments of the jib stowed away, and the foretopmast staysail set in its place, when the great mainsail gaped open, and the sail ripped from head to foot. "Lay up on that main yard and furl the sail, before it blows to tatters!" shouted the captain; and in a moment we were up, gathering the remains of it upon the yard. We got it wrapped ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to our anchor and helped to snug down the mainsail, I went below in the very worst of tempers, to find the cabin floor littered with the contents of a writing-case and a box of mixed biscuits, which had broken loose in company. As I stooped to collect the debris, this appeal ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with two other men, one of whom was John Major, an ordinary seaman, standing a short distance from me. Suddenly I heard a dull thud as if a heavy blow had been struck, followed by a piercing shriek. The clew of the mainsail was lashing about wildly in the gale. I saw a body lifted from the deck and carried over the bulwarks. It was but a momentary glimpse. I could scarcely have told whether or not it was a human being I had seen till I looked towards where the three persons had been standing. ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... close was she now, from the reef points on the great mainsail, luminous with the sunlight, and white as the wing of a gull, to the rail of the bulwarks. A crowd of men were hanging over the port bulwarks gazing at the island and the figures on the reef. Browned by the sun and sea-breeze, Emmeline's hair blowing ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Comfort Island!" sputtered Andy through the spray, as he and Jamie sprang for the mainsail ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... had now become beautifully fine, I thought I might attempt to get out some spare sails. I obtained what I wanted from the fo'c'sle, and after a good deal of work managed to "bend" a mainsail and staysail. Being without compass or chart, however, I knew not where I was, nor could I decide what course to take in order to reach land. I had a vague idea that the seas in those regions were ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... other rewards promised by the Sovereigns, which were 10,000 maravedis to him who should first see it.[109-4] At two hours after midnight the land was sighted at a distance of two leagues. They shortened sail, and lay by under the mainsail ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Shamrock sail? Watch, and you will see. When the wind is behind, each stiff quill at the end of the wing stands out by itself and is caught and driven by the blast; but as the bird turns round to face the gale, they all close up and form a continuous mainsail, close-hauled. And all the while the expanded tail is in play, dipping first at one side and then at the other, and turning the trim craft with easy grace "as the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... After which, having their starboard tacks aboard (the general's ship, the Old James, being the southernmost and sternmost ship in the fleet), the rest of his fleet tacking, first placed themselves in a line ahead of the general, who after tacking hauled up his mainsail in the brails, fitted his ship to fight, slung his yards, and run out his lower tier of guns and clapt his fore topsail upon the mast.' If Gibson could be implicitly trusted this passage would be conclusive on the existence of the line formation earlier ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... with famished delight. About sunset, as was its custom, the breeze veered and swept back from the mountains, cool and steady, bringing a taste of the stagnant lagoons and mangrove swamps that guttered the lowlands. The mainsail of the sloop was hoisted and swelled to it, and at that moment they heard shouts and a waxing clamour from the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... untrained men, was now in full chase of a vessel well-armed and equipped. On swept the sloop, and a sudden volley of musketry from her deck astonished and confused the enemy. The gunboat swerved, and the bowsprit of the Unity plunged into her mainsail, holding the two vessels together for ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... weather-thinned mainsail, black with mildew, and bent it; and by the time that was on the spars, he had completed his barter, and had been put on board again by ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... disapprovals, as some luckless turn of the helm exposed the lugger to the cruiser's fire. "She will be raked; she will lose her masts," was the general groan. As they neared the shore, the effect of every shot was visible. "There goes the mainsail all to ribands; the yards are shot in the slings." Then public opinion would change. "Fine fellow that! The Shark's main-top shakes like a whip." In this way all went on for nearly an hour, which, however, I scarcely felt to be more than a few minutes. "The skipper in command of that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... blacks, and the officers, kept the deck. The same expedient was likewise adopted, in part, by Captain Price, of the Volcano; and in order to give to his ship a still greater resemblance than it already had to a merchantman, he displayed an old faded scarlet ensign, and drew up his fore and mainsail in what sailors ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... and went away; but no complaint was found in their mouth. There was now an opportunity of trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger, and revenge. In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterward, "Were ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... those kept for pleasure, and therefore built for the purpose of sailing as fast as possible, without reference to freight or load, there are many the hull of which might be entirely wrapt up in the mainsail. It is of course very rarely, if ever, that a vessel carries at one time all the sail she is capable of; the different sails being usually employed according to the circumstances of direction of wind and course. The sails of a ship, when complete, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... moore; And thine arishes gleam softly when the October moonbeams wane, When in the bay all shining the fishers set the seine; The fishers cast the seine, and 'tis "Heva!" in the town, And from the watch-rock on the hill the huers are shouting down; And ye hoist the mainsail brown, As over the deep-sea roll The lurker follows the shoal; To follow and to follow, in the moonshine silver-clear, When the halyards creek to thy ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and brought tumbling to the deck; but the mainsail was a harder matter. Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more dangerous; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the serenity of the sky was suddenly changed, and gave us all the presages of an impending storm; and immediately the wind shifted to the southward, and blew in such violent squalls that we were obliged to hand our topsails and reef our mainsail. The tide, too, which had hitherto favoured us, now turned against us and drove us to the eastward with prodigious rapidity, so that we were in great anxiety for the Wager and the Anna pink, the two sternmost vessels, fearing ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... sniff—to sniff again—and to fancy he smelled smoke. But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and he forgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce the disordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and the mainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentous intervals, during which the fate of the First Venture ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... foresail and come to our anchor under jib and half-lowered mainsail. I sprang forward to take in the jib and carry it, with the foresail, to the locker abaft the ladies' cabin, when Captain Branscome sang out to me to be in no such hurry, but to fold and stow both sails neatly without detaching them—the one along the bowsprit, the other at the foot of the fore-stay, ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang out: "Smoke—oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... third, we were swept rapidly along in a smooth uniform current. Our interpreter, a Chinese priest, who had been educated in the college de propaganda fide at Naples, was not quite so composed as his countryman the pilot. The poor fellow, indeed, had nearly been thrown overboard by the boom of the mainsail, in the first, which was the most rapid, whirl of the ship; the same blow striking a sailor tossed his hat overboard; and it afforded some amusement, in our supposed perilous situation, to hear the different ejaculations of these ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... were placed on the break of the quarter-deck, and others along the hammock railing on the lee-gangway. The whole ship's company and officers were assembled; some on the booms, others in the boats; while the main-rigging was crowded half-way up to the cat-harpings. Overhead the mainsail, illuminated as high as the yard by the lamps, was bulging forwards under the gale, which was rising every minute, and straining so violently at the main-sheet, that there was some doubt whether it might not be necessary to interrupt the ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... bale at the fore scuttle and hatchway. Though they could not keep the water under, they still hoped to preserve her afloat, till she could be run upon Weymouth sand. The lashings of the boats were cut; but they could not get out the long-boat, without bending the mainsail aback, which would have retarded the vessel so much, as to deprive them of the chance ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... this bright summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the filler. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over to the White Water before going down to Borvabost, Frank Lavender was Sheila's sole companion out in this wonderland ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... islands, and Little Bobtail concluded to get under the lee of one of them, and wait for better weather. He took in his jib and mainsail, and the old boat went along very well, taking in very little water. The sun went down, and it was dark before he had made a harbor. He was approaching Blank Island, where he knew a good place to anchor for the night, ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... flexibility;[11] for which reason we find that after the poet himself, the poor man speaks most poetically. Witness the beautiful description: "All to once the nor'easter springed out from the land, an' afore us could down-haul the mainsail, the sea wer feather-white an' skatting in over the bows." New words are eagerly seized; hence the malapropisms and solecisms so frequently made fun of, without appreciation of their cause. Obsolete has come hereto ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... smile, helped them get away. The mainsail took a steady set; but the jib, from the first, possessed an active life ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... get alongside the pirate, so with desperate haste he began to throw his ballast overboard. More than that, he staved in every water cask, until, feeling that he had enough freeboard, he slipped his anchor, set his mainsail and jib, and bore down upon the stranded ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... meal, though he knew how rapidly the mountain showers and squalls travel over the lake. The sloop did not usually make more than four or five miles an hour, being deeply laden with lumber, which was piled up so high on the deck that the mainsail had to be reefed, ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... eye of an August sun, its broad face only saved from oily smoothness by half-hearted flutterings of a westerly breeze. Those faint airs blowing up along the Vancouver Island shore made tentative efforts to fill and belly out strongly the mainsail and jib of a small half-decked sloop working out from the weather side of Sangster Island and laying her snub nose straight for the mouth of the Fraser River, some sixty sea-miles ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the next half hour the owners of the boats which lay alongside the quay sauntered down one by one. Brown lugsails were run up on the smaller boats. The mainsail of the hooker was slowly hoisted. At half past eleven there was not a single boat of any kind left afloat in the harbour. Peter Walsh, his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, was laying long stripes of green paint ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... islands and in very narrow channels, the inward drawing of the tide marked long, curved lines and illusive circles on the oily sea. The Spindrift was poised motionless on the surface of the water, borne slowly, almost imperceptibly, forward by the sweep of the tide. Her mainsail, boomed out, hung in loose folds. The sheet, freed from all strain, was borne down by its own weight, until the slack of it dipped in the water. Terns and gulls, at lazy rest, floated close to the yacht's side. Long rows of dark cormorants, perched on rocky points, ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... pistol-shots, a scream, and then another pistol-shot, followed by silence. The clustering fishermen had disappeared. And then, suddenly, as the first puffs of a land-breeze came out from the Sussex shore, the boom swung out, the mainsail filled, and the little craft crept out with her nose ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the direction indicated. Not a fourth of a mile away a dingy fishing-sloop was bobbing along, with her dirty mainsail and jib set, yet seeming to catch no breeze. Both Merry and Hodge forgot their discomfort, forgot their chilled and benumbed condition, and, lifting themselves as high as they could, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... commenced the Francis had parted company with the Buffalo, but the Lady Nelson and the Integrity remained with the king's ship until the end of the storm, when both vessels lost sight of her. The Lady Nelson, having split her fore-and-aft mainsail, bore up for Twofold Bay to refit. On the 21st she again put to sea only to meet with another storm of still greater violence, which stove in her bulwarks, washed overboard her boats, compasses, and many articles belonging ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... a pilot," by burning a blue light on the bridge, and bears down on the pilot schooner. The moon reveals enormous figures, with a heavy dot beneath, on the mainsail of the schooner. Over the rail goes the yawl, followed by the oarsman and pilot, whose turn it is to go ashore. The pilot carries a lantern, which in the egg-shaped yawl dances on the white wave crests up and down like a fire-fly. The yawl is soon under the steamer's lee, and a line from the big ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... sails of their ships are made of bamboo, like matting. They do not use a yard on the mast, but raise the mainsail on the mast fastened to a pole as an infantry flag is placed on a pike; and the sheets hang down from the other side with which the sail is turned to this or that side, according to the direction of the wind. The sail is half the width of the ship, and the mast is ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... yes. The navy means hard work. There's a lot to think about and get a headache over. Every insignificant word has, so to speak, its special meaning! For instance, "Hoist her top-sheets and mainsail!" What's it mean? A sailor can tell! He, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... into frequent thunders. One evening just at dark we made out a heavy black squall. Not knowing exactly what weight lay behind it, I called up all hands. We ducked the staysail and foresail, lowered the peak of the mainsail, and waited to feel of it—a rough and ready seamanship often used in these little California windjammers. I was pretty busy, but I heard distinctly ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sooner than we expected; a black, heavy bank of clouds came rolling up towards us; and as the frigate's top-gallant sails, shining with peculiar whiteness against the dark mass, sank beneath the horizon, we were pitching our bows into a heavy sea under a close-reefed mainsail and foresail. We had made ourselves as snug as we could, but not a moment too soon. Had there been a trysail on board I should have set it. Even with the sail she had on her the vessel strained very much, and sometimes I thought she would ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... o'clock a breeze springs up—a northwest wind and very favorable—and Captain Spade gives an order to the boatswain. The latter immediately pipes all hands on deck, and the mainsail, the foresail, staysail and jibs are hoisted. The work could not have been executed with greater regularity and discipline on board ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... and shivering under the touches of the dawn. She was awake, alive; the life that had still beaten through her dreams in the night, stirred by the drowsy fingering of the harbor tide, was throbbing and thrilling with many pulses as she shook out her streamers to the wind. And now her mainsail went slowly up, and she leapt and shuddered through all her being, passionate as though the will of the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the tiller and the mainsail sheets into his care, and, with another glance ahead, pulled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... ceased blowing half a gale the sky at once became overcast, with damp weather or rain. This may all seem common enough to most people; but to those accustomed to gauge the wind by the number of reefs wanted in a mainsail or foresail it was not so; and the number of consecutive days when two or more reefs have been kept tied down during the last few summers has been remarkable—alternating at times with equally persistent spells of calm and fog ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... foresail, Hrolfur ordered. It was Eric who obeyed and held on to the sheet Hrolfur himself untied the mainsail, whilst at the same time keeping hold of the sheet. I imagined Hrolfur must be thinking it safer to have the sails loose as it was likely to be gusty in ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to unfurl the jib. With a little canvas on her I believed the sloop could be wore 'round and headed into the wind before the waves sprang up. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have given her a hand's breath of the mainsail. However, before the bit of canvas bellied out and I had dashed back to the helm, the first wave broke over the stern ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... men. At 11 A.M. we "sheeted home," and stood out of the harbor with a fair breeze, and all canvass spread: but, within an hour, the wind freshened to a gale, and compelled us to take in everything but a close reefed mainsail. The sea being rough, and the weather squally, our boat took in more water than was either agreeable or safe, until we somewhat improved matters by constructing a temporary forecastle of tarpaulins. Finding it impossible, however, to contend against wind and current, we ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... before was on and we could feel that she was rolling a little. A peek through the periscope while she was up disclosed further evidence of the breeze—tossing white crests, two coasters hustling for harbor under short sail, an inbound fisherman with reefed mainsail making great leaps for home. Looking through the periscope so, it was easy enough to understand the feeling of power which might well come to the master of a submarine in war time. The sub can be lying there—in dark or bright ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... promptly obeyed the several orders, and the mainsail was hauled up in much less time than it takes to ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... in a line with the ship's head. It was formed of a great steep of ice jutting a long way slantingly into the sea, the width between the point and the main being about a third of a mile. I seized the helm, and shouted to the men to hoist the head of the mainsail that she might round to when I put the helm down. But the fellows were in a panic terror and stood gaping at what they regarded as their doom, calling upon the Virgin and all the saints for help and mercy. Into this bay did we rush on top of a huge sea, Trentanove and the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... being at this time extremely wet, and the gale in the highest degree violent, they clung so fast to the masts and rigging, that it was scarcely possible to get them either up or down; yet by the dexterous activity of our people, we got the mainsail up, clewed up the main top-sail, and got the ship's head round without receiving much damage. The violence of the wind continued several hours, but before morning it veered again to the N.W. and continued in that quarter till ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
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