"Topgallant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discharge from the enemy. The confusion of the moment probably prevented much care in their direction, and though under the fire of nearly a hundred pieces for half an hour, the only shot which struck the ketch was one through the topgallant sail. We were in greater danger from the Philadelphia, whose broadsides commanded the passage by which we were retreating, and whose guns were loaded, and discharged as they became heated. We escaped these also, and while urging the ketch ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... a squall rising to windward, but boy like, instead of shortening sail, and taking down royals and topgallant masts, and making all snug, I just braved it out, and prepared to meet the blast with every inch of canvas set. "Yes, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and was under good headway and perfect control. Captain Lane then acted hurriedly, but with precision, giving his orders to his mate and helmsman, and, seizing the cabin lantern and his speaking trumpet, he jumped upon the topgallant forecastle, and, holding up his lamp, made the master mason's "hailing sign of distress." He then hailed through his trumpet, in ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... respected and admired Marine Superintendent of the British Meteorological Office, has told us how, during a cyclone which he rode out in the HOTSPUR at Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly, the three naked topgallant-masts of his ship, though of well-tested timber a foot in diameter, and supported by all the usual network of stays, and without the yards, were snapped off and carried away solely by the violence of the wind. It must, of course, have been ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... a heavier gasp of the squall, the topgallant masts went, and the small loss of of top-weight seemed momentarily to ease her. Kettle seized upon the moment. He left the trimmer and one of the Portuguese at the wheel, and handed himself along the streaming decks and kicked and cuffed the rest of his crew into ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... the high land in Stewart's Island. We had passed close by the Snares in the morning, but the weather was too thick for us to see them, though the birds flocked therefrom in myriads. We then passed between the Traps, which the captain saw distinctly, one on each side of him, from the main topgallant yard. Land continued in sight till sunset, but since then it has disappeared. To-day (Sunday) we are speeding up the coast; the anchors are ready, and to-morrow by early daylight we trust to drop them in the harbour of Lyttelton. We have reason, from certain newspapers, to believe that the mails ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... green-painted hull, I soon enough recognized as the Lydia. She was struggling slowly onward against the rapids of Hoy Sound, with the wind on her starboard quarter, and as we got nearer her I could see the extent of the damage she had sustained in the late storm. She had lost her fore and main topgallant masts, and her port bulwarks were stove in. The quarter boat was missing and her jolly ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... the watch swarmed on to the poop to haul on the port- braces of the mizzen-sky-sail, royal and topgallant-sail. The sailors passed us, or toiled close to us, with lowered eyes. They did not look at us, so far removed from them were we. It was this contrast that caught my fancy. Here were the high and low, slaves and masters, beauty and ugliness, cleanness and filth. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... to agree with you, Ready; so we must send topgallant yards down on deck, and all the small sails and lumber out of the tops. Get the trysail aft and bent, and lower down the gaff. I ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the fore-topgallant-sail,—and a little splash of rain falling broke up our party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it did; so, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... high sea-light, and the dark began to fall. "All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call. "By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried. . . . "It's the one way or the other, Mr. ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came on the tail of Ichi's words. A heavy, ominous rumbling came out of the black depths. Martin recalled hearing the same sound the day before, when he was on the topgallant-yard. And suddenly the hard, packed sand began to crawl beneath his feet, things swayed dizzily before his eyes, and a sharp nausea attacked the pit of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... still continued, and when the day broke, there was the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitching, as she tore her way through the boiling sea, under a close—reefed main—topsail and reefed foresail, with topgallant—yards and royal masts, and every thing that could be struck with safety in war time, down on deck. There she lay with her clear black bends, and bright white streaks and long tier of cannon on the maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle grinning through the ports in the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... sternmost ships. Having passed all their line, ceased firing, the centre and rear still engaging as they passed the enemy. Our masts, yards, sails, and rigging, very much damaged; the mizen-mast, dangerously wounded, struck the mizen yard, and sent topgallant-masts and yards down upon deck, unbent the mizen topsail, a spritsail, topsail, and a jib for a mizen. At twenty-five minutes past nine saw the Prince George to leeward without a fore-mast. Employed fishing the fore and mizen topsail yards, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... replied the young executive officer; and then lifting the trumpet to his lips, he called out with a powerful voice, "Lay aloft and loose the topgallantsails! Man the topgallant ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady |
