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Rudder   /rˈədər/   Listen
Rudder

noun
1.
A hinged vertical airfoil mounted at the tail of an aircraft and used to make horizontal course changes.
2.
(nautical) steering mechanism consisting of a hinged vertical plate mounted at the stern of a vessel.



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"Rudder" Quotes from Famous Books



... stood at the wheel in a tranquil reverie, blithely steering toward some bright belly of cloud that had caught his fancy. Mr. Pointer shook his head when he glanced surreptitiously at the steering recorder, a device that noted graphically every movement of the rudder with a view to promoting economical helmsmanship. Indeed Gissing's course, as logged on the chart, surprised even himself, so that he forbade the officers taking their noon observations. When Mr. Pointer said something about isobars, the staff-captain replied ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... about six knots, and every gentle wave that broke was a lamp of loveliness. The wake of the Morning Star was a milky path lit with trembling fragments of brilliancy, and below the surface, beside the rudder, was a strip of green light from which a billion sparks of fire shot to the air. Far behind, until the horizon closed upon the ocean, our wake was curiously remindful of the boulevard of a great city seen through ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... Marah. "A few more like that and she's all our own. Now it's my shot. I'll try to knock her rudder away. Wait till she swings. There she comes! There she comes! Over a little. Up a little. Now. Fire." He darted his linstock down upon the priming. The gun roared and upset; the bullets banged out the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... the ice-boat proceeded it was evident that those on her were not going to have an easy time to get to the Bobbsey dock. The wind blew harder and harder, and the sail seemed ready to rip apart. It took both Bert and Harry to hold the rudder steady, and even then the tiller was almost torn from ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope

... temper over Tom, or Robin either. Thou'rt like the most of maids—they'll never heed the experience of old folks. If thou wilt not be 'ruled by the rudder, thou must be ruled by the rock.' 'All is not gold that glitters,' and I'm afeard thou shalt find it so, poor soul! But I can't put wisdom into thee; I can only pray the Lord to give it thee. Be ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... the time I threw myself into the sea, I heard the men at the wheel say, 'The screw and the rudder ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... river. She ran foul of the Courier steamer, and unshipped her rudder. She put back for repairs, and won't ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... Principle which has since gone to such sublime heights among us—heights which we begin at last to suspect may be depths leading down, all men now ask whitherwards. A much-admired invention in its time, that of letting go the rudder or setting a wooden figure expensively to take care of it, and discovering that the ship would sail of itself so much the more easily. Of all things a nation needs first to be drilled, and a nation that ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... his head, and flung himself from the bough, throwing his weight upon his wings; and these, beating the fleeting air, now here, now there, bearing about inquisitively, while his tail served as a rudder to steer him, he came to a gourd; then with a handsome bow and a few polite words, he obtained the required seeds, and carried them to the willow, who received him with a cheerful face. And when he had scraped away with ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... supposed) a rock; however, upon heaving the lead, we could find no bottom, even with three hundred fathom. What made this circumstance the more wonderful, and indeed beyond all comprehension, was, that the violence of the shock was such that we lost our rudder, broke our bow-sprit in the middle, and split all our masts from top to bottom, two of which went by the board; a poor fellow, who was aloft, furling the main-sheet, was flung at least three leagues from the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... the particular offending gun with endeavor to compel its abandonment; in vain, for its work of destruction goes on. Captain Semmes places sharp-shooters in the quarter boats to pick off the officers; in vain, for none are injured. He views the surrounding devastation—a sinking ship, rudder and propeller disabled, a large portion of the crew killed or wounded, while his adversary is apparently but slightly damaged. He has completed the seventh rotation on the circular tract and is conscious of defeat. He seeks to escape by setting all available sail ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... fitted the timbers together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood. By and by Calypso brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... shrine The bark of our pursuers I behold, By divers tokens recognized too well. Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes That seem her onward pathway to descry, Heeding too well the rudder at the stern That rules her, coming for no friendly end. And look, the seamen—all too plain their race— Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white garb; Plain too the other barks, a fleet that comes All swift to aid the purpose ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... little assembly by the boat-house to speed the expedition on its way, and it is safe to say that no boat on the river that afternoon carried a happier, more excited party. The Captain rowed; Pixie sat in the stern and pulled the rudder-lines according to instructions, with occasional lapses of memory when she mistook her right hand for her left, and was surprised to find the boat going in an opposite direction from what had been intended; the little girls sat on either ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... sublime by the sorrows that tried its devotion,—with all these noble proofs in yourself of a being not meant to end here, your life has stopped short in its uses, your mind itself has been drifted, a bark without rudder or pilot, over seas without shore, under skies without stars. And wherefore? Because the mind you so haughtily vaunted has refused its companion and ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... boats were furnished with long, cumbrous sweeps, yet not a whit too heavy, since numbers of them snapped with the vigorous strokes of the rowers during the trip. A small sweep, passed through a ring at the stern, served as a rudder, by far the best steering gear for the "sturgeons," but not for a York boat, which is built with a keel and can sail pretty close to the wind. Ordinarily the only sail in use is a lug, which has a great spread, and moves a boat quickly in a ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... at thieving as the majority of the South Sea Islanders. One man, who had stolen some books from the Master's cabin, got off in his canoe, and being chased, took to the water, and diving under his pursuers' boat, unshipped the rudder, and got clear away. Mr. Wales, in going ashore, took off his shoes and stockings to save them from the wet, when they were at once snatched up by a native, who ran off with them over the coral rocks, leaving poor Wales in what Cook calls "an ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... that the last shot which struck her deranged whatever expedient her captain had adopted for controlling the rudder," replied the commander. "It failed when she was half round, and then she ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... in the boat. Marie, who had learned to row from Ludwig, sent the little craft gliding over the water, while Katharina held the rudder. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... steamer had swept a wide circle in mid-stream and the search-light picked up the castaways. From that to placing the Belle Julie so that the two bits of human flotsam could be hauled in over the bows was but a skilful hand's-turn of rudder-work, accomplished as cleverly as if the great steamboat had been a power-driven launch to be steered by a touch of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... with one hand to the rope which had never left his grip, and grasping his unconscious burden with the other, Fred was drawn to the side of the Ariel by Bill's muscular arms. But the strength of all three was necessary to lift the two of them on board, so Lester had to abandon the rudder, while Teddy left the sheet to help. They succeeded at last, after a vast amount of tugging and straining, and laid the stranger's body on the deck, while Fred slumped down beside him trying to get back ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... which, two additional sentinels were placed over them, with orders to shoot any who should attempt to get rid of their fetters. Seeing no prospect of escape, they betook themselves to prayer, and prepared to meet their fate, everyone expecting that the ship would soon go to pieces, her rudder and part of the sternpost being already beat away. No notice was taken of the prisoners, as is falsely stated by the author of the 'Pandora's Voyage,' although Captain Edwards was entreated by Mr. Heywood to have mercy upon ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... the weather being good, and the council having once more been convened, I proposed to try every possible means to get the Aernem into sailing trim again, in the first place by constructing another rudder. This we found impossible since there were no new square rudders in either of the yachts; we were accordingly compelled to try some makeshift, and in order to be able to continue our voyage and avoid abandoning the yacht, it was finally resolved that with the available materials ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... moment, however, when we were upon the point of being dashed to pieces, a sudden breeze providentially sprang up, and filling our sails, impelled the vessel forward three or four yards. This was enough, but only just sufficient, for the rudder was not more than six yards from the rock. No sooner had we passed this frightful danger than the breeze fell again, and was succeeded by a dead calm; the tide, however, continued to carry us on with a gradually decreasing strength until one o'clock, when we ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... most crucial moment, when maximum power is being exerted by the cox on the rudder-lines, one of them snaps, and the boat goes out of control. The cox shouts the instructions for an emergency stop, and to back water. The other boat proceeds to the end of the course. It can now be seen that the rudder-line had been deliberately half cut ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, With Palinure's unalter'd mood Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repell'd, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall with fateful sway The steerage of the realm gave way. Then—while on Britain's thousand plains One polluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The bloody tocsin's maddening sound, But still upon the hallow'd day Convoke the swains to praise ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... is not necessary to change from one side to the other as often as you do, Davy, when you have a breeze blowing like it is now, and you're heading across it. By holding the blade in the water this way after a stroke, it serves in place of a rudder and checks the turning of the canoe under the influence of the push. And another thing, you reach too far out. That helps to whirl the boat around in a part circle. Dip deeply, but as close to the side of the ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... were her arms, And far whiter her neck— Her long locks in armfuls Overflow'd all the deck: One hand on the rudder She pleasantly laid, Another on Sandy, And merrily said— "Thy halve-net has wrought thee A gallant day's darg— Thou'rt monarch of Solway, My young ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various

... planes, on a light latticework of wood covered with silk, trussed and wired like a kite frame, the upper plane about five feet above the lower, which was level with the boat deck. We could see the eight-cylindered engine which drove a two-bladed wooden propeller, and over the stern were the air rudder and the horizontal planes. There she was, the hobbled steed now of the phantom bandit who had accomplished the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... into the hands of the bourgeois imperialists. They were inherited with all their knowledge and technical skill, by the coalition government in the next period of the revolution. But when the revolting workingmen, soldiers and peasants flung the parties of the exploiting classes away from the rudder of State and tried to take the management of affairs into their own hands, then the bureaucrats and clerks flew into a passion and absolutely refused to support the new government in any way. More and more extensive became this sabotage, which was organized mostly ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days. He found him a very amiable fellow, by no means haughty, who began to tell him funny stories, and who even let him take the helm for a while. The rudder-handle was of polished iron, very different from the clumsy wooden affair of a freight-boat; and the packet made in a single night the distance which the boy's family had been nearly two days in travelling when they moved away from the ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... went over the ship's side, carrying twelve seamen with it, who were swallowed up by the billows. The rudder was unshipped, the tiller tore up the gundeck, and the water rushed in at the port-holes. At this fearful moment most of the passengers and crew joined in solemn prayer to the Almighty. Morning came, but it was only to witness the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... of detail. I do not recall exactly how it occurred, but my duty during that first night chanced to place me at the after oar. In consequence I sat directly facing Madame de Noyan, operating the rudder bar. It was so warm, merely a delicate, fragrant breeze blowing from the south, she had felt no necessity for drawing up her hood, and the soft light of distant stars, glimmering along the bosom of the river, reflected back into her face, illumining it until I could almost note the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... emigres when they returned. The aristocracy would have soon adored me; and I needed it; it is the true, the only support of a monarchy, its moderator, its lever, its resisting point; without it, the state is like a ship without a rudder, a balloon in mid-air. Now, the strength, the charm of the aristocracy lies in its antiquity, the only thing I could not create." It must be confessed that from an old Republican general, for the man who had sent Augereau to execute the coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor, and who the 13th ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... ready as I ever shall be," answered the Trapper, in a voice in which doubt and resignation were equally mingled. "It may be as ye say," he continued; "but the rudder be too fur behind to suit me, and ef anything happens on this cruise, jest remember, Wild Bill, that ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... it,' I shouted, 'before I brain you!' I held the very gaff with which Grimalson had torn my arm. He had plucked the tiller from the rudder-head, and with these two weapons in our right hands we faced one another, each with his left feeling for the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... hit got so atter a w'ile dat hit wuz all Mars Marrabo's wife could do ter git a 'ooman ter stay in de kitchen in de daytime long ernuff ter do de cookin'; en dey wa'n't naer nigger on de plantation w'at wouldn' rudder take forty dan ter go 'bout dat kitchen atter dark,—dat is, 'cep'n Tenie; she didn' pear ter mine de ha'nts. She useter slip 'roun' at night, en set on de kitchen steps, en lean up agin de do'-jamb, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... folded, balancing himself to the sway of the rather clumsy craft and watching the water ahead. In the stern, on a little platform whence he could look over the heads of the others and catch any signal from the lookout, a squat, dark-faced steersman lounged against his crude rudder. Between these two the paddlers stood, each with one foot on the bottom of the long dugout and the other on the gunwale, swinging in nonchalant unison as their blades moved fore and aft. Under the curving ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... he always does—gets real good and cooks when he wants to make up," 'Frisco Kid hazarded, slipping the tiller into the rudder-head and obeying the order. "But even then ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... the wedding, and a few days after came the big November gale. One of the boats of the fishing-village was swept out into the sound. It had neither rudder nor masts, so that it was quite unmanageable. Old Mattsson and five others were on board, and they drifted about without food for two days. When they were rescued, they were in a state of exhaustion from hunger and cold. Everything in the boat was ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... rudder not go fer trubble dat bug; you mus' git him for your own self." Hereupon Legrand arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabaeus, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists—of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... critical emergency, when the implacable foe was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called to protect. The assassin's hand, too, tore the steersman from the rudder, and with William of Orange the career, seemingly, of the infant republic and all her guardian angels fled; but the ship continued to scud along in the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her safe without ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... lowered in a trice and Frank and a score of sailors sprang in. The launch darted toward Jack at full speed, Frank standing erect and with the quartermaster at the rudder. ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... and cast off. It was a clumsy, broad-beamed, leaky old conveyance, and that it was as dirty as Hewitt had described it I could feel as I groped for the sculls and got them out. The night was light and dark by turns—changing with the clouds. We shipped the rudder, and Styles steered, or I should probably have run ashore more than once, for the banks were not always distinct, and the channel was narrow and dark. We passed the black forms of several factories with tall chimneys, and then drew out among the Marshes, flat ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... to move the rudder very gradually; for if the course were suddenly changed a quarter of the circumference of the compass in such a sea as was then raging, it would be liable to make the steamer engage in some ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... seen at a point of the roof, indicating that she, too, was steaming: for it was known that she had a screw and a rudder; and so closely was she observed, that her now added rate could be fixed—two to three ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... her nose pointed determinedly northward and her rudder set steady as the tail of a frozen fish, the Thunder Bird came humming defiantly, flying swift under the moon. Over San Diego bay, watching through night-glasses the outlaw bird, the two scouting planes dipped steeply toward their nesting place on North Island. Three planes were up with ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... the wind, which drives this man upon a rock, where he is dashed to pieces, and blows the other happily to his haven. But what seemed to Faustus most incomprehensible was, that the shipwrecked mariner should be punished in an after-state for not having guided his vessel better; when the rudder which had been given him to shape his course by was so weak that any extraordinary billow could not ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... has!" laughed Jack. "And it also has a rudder that you can unship and use as a safety razor. You might open up a barber shop with it, only the eminent citizens over here don't have any more whiskers than ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... like those of heaven, have two distinct motions. Each of them rolls in his own political orb, but each of them is hurried at the same time round the great vortex of his religion. If this general notion be just, apply it to the present case. Whilst a Roman Catholic holds the rudder, how can we expect to be steered in our proper course? His political interest will certainly incline him to direct our first motion right, but his mistaken religious interest will render him incapable of ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... more especially our thoughts, are often turned from one groove into another by some single word or reference that, like a little rudder at the stern of a great ship, seems of no account. To Albert, who for a year had had no thought except to win success amid the hard, selfish scramble of life in a busy city, this episode, and more especially the utter ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... Charley and Neil returned to the Reindeer and got under way, the junk towing astern. I went aft and took charge of the prize, steering by means of an antiquated tiller and a rudder with large, diamond-shaped holes, through which the water rushed back ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... of wealth within her own rank. She was as tender and compassionate as she was heroic. She was treated as a superior, rather than as an equal. There was a poetical admiration among the whole circle of knights. A knight without an object of devotion was as "a ship without a rudder, a horse without a bridle, a sword without a hilt, a sky without a star." Even a Don Quixote must have his Dulcinea, as well as horse and armor and squire. Dante impersonates the spirit of the Middle Ages in his adoration of Beatrice. The ancient poets coupled the praises of women with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... expression, "a man without a master," occurs several times in the Berlin Papyrus, No. ii. For instance, the peasant who is the hero of the story, says of the lord Miruitensi, that he is "the rudder of heaven, the guide of the earth, the balance which carries the offerings, the buttress of tottering walls, the support of that which falls, the great master who takes whoever is without a master to lavish on him the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... trace now of the scene he had just been through. He was cool, masterful, like the seasoned sea-dog who knows that in spite of the ocean's rage and the wind's howl, the wheel will answer his hand and the craft its rudder. "Jim, come over to the Exchange." The crowd followed along. "We have but a minute and I want to have you say you forgive me," he said to me. "I know, Jim, you understand it all, but I must tell you how sorrowful I am that in my madness I should have so forgotten ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... and beech trees,) the birds fly low, in order to discover the portion of woods most plentifully supplied, and there they alight. The form of body of these swift travellers is an elongated (lengthened) oval steered by a long, well-plumed tail,"—just as you know, Harry, you steer your boat by the rudder in the great tub of water; "they are furnished with extremely well set muscular wings. If a single bird is seen gliding through the woods and close by, it passes apparently like a thought, and the eye, on trying to see it again, searches in vain—the ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen

... composed of the five men, including the master, Howik, which formed the whole crew of the "Pilgrim." The four sailors were going to take their places at the oars, and Howik would hold the stern oar, which serves to guide a boat of this kind. A simple rudder, in fact, would not have a prompt enough action, and in case the side oars should be disabled, the stern oar, well handled, could put the whale-boat beyond the reach of the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... bow-stem chafed and water-soaked, the iron ring-bolt secured by a nut—both covered with rust. From its appearance it had evidently been for a long time buried in the sand. In ploughing a field on the bottom-lands the nails, rudder-hangings, bow-ring and other irons of a boat were discovered, together with a heap of ashes: having been cast high and dry upon the shore by the waves, no doubt this batteau was burned to keep it from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... at the foot of the bed. It was swinging to and fro with the regularity of a pendulum, and that which is regular in a pendulum is fantastically irregular in an underskirt. She sat up quickly, and listened. There was a swish of water outside. Now and again she heard a slight movement of the rudder chains in their boxes. Then, all aglow with wonder and excitement, she jumped out of bed and drew the curtain of one of the two tiny portholes that gave light ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... some pull up anchors, some for haste cut their cables, they set up their sails, they apply their oars, and stricken with extreme terror, in great haste they fled most confusedly. Among them the Pretorian Galleass floating upon the seas, her rudder being broken, in great danger and fear drew towards Calais, and striking in the sand, was taken by Amias Preston, Thomas Gerard, and Harvey; Hugh Moncada the governor was slain, the soldiers and mariners were either killed ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... handle alone. But the BUTTERFLY will be just the thing," and Tom looked over to where a new monoplane rested on the three bicycle wheels which formed part of its landing frame. "I haven't had it out since I mended the left wing tip," he went on, "and it will also be a good chance to test my new rudder. I believe I WILL go ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... Hereward, and took the rudder into his own hand. "Now then," as she rushed into the breakers, "pull together, rowers ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... some builder, skillful in his art, Frames, for a ship of burden, the broad keel, Such ample breadth Ulysses gave the raft. Upon the massy beams he reared a deck, And floored it with long planks from end to end. On this a mast he raised, and to the mast Fitted a yard; he shaped a rudder next, To guide the raft along her course, and round With woven work of willow-boughs he fenced Her sides against the dashings of the sea. Calypso, gracious goddess, brought him store Of canvas, which he fitly shaped to sails, And, rigging her with ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... the Mississippi. Fortunately for our friends, it proved a clear night, with countless stars bespangling the heavens.—They had managed to find two lanterns fit for use and each was lit and placed in position. Most of the boys remained on the forward deck, watching anxiously. Dick was at the rudder, steering as ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... difficulty Kirkwood transhipped himself, landing asprawl in the cockpit, amid a tangle of cordage slippery with scales. The skipper followed, with clumsy expertness bringing the dory's painter with him and hitching it to a ring-bolt abaft the rudder-head. Then, pausing an instant to stare into the East with somber eyes, he shipped the tiller and bent to the halyards. As the sail rattled up, flapping wildly, Kirkwood marked with relief—for it meant so much time saved—that it ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... contagious as even to tighten certain strings about her father's heart which had long been too slack to vibrate with any simple gladness. Her questions were incessant—first about the sails and rigging, then about the steering; but when Malcolm proceeded to explain how the water reacted on the rudder, she declined ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... whether much of this is not to be imputed to ourselves. We trust the rudder of a vessel, where a few sailors and some goods alone are in jeopardy, to none but skilful pilots; but the state, wherein is comprised the safety of so many thousands, we leave to the guidance of any chance hands. A charioteer ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the boat, enabled us to direct the sail at pleasure. Fritz next ornamented the top of the mast with a little red streamer. He then gave our boat the name of the Deliverance, and requested it might henceforward be called the little vessel. To complete its equipment, I contrived a rudder, so that I could direct the ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... or so, I saw a boat put off for the reef, and lying well hid I watched this boat, steered by a knowing hand, pass through the reef by a narrow channel and so enter the lagoon. Now in this boat were six men and at the rudder sat Tressady, and I saw his hook flash in the sun as he sprang ashore. Having beached their boat, they fell to letting off their calivers ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... for heroes yet showed then the agonies of fear in their looks and whole deportment. The Prince still retained his usual calmness, and the same tranquillity of spirit that I had observed in him in his happiest days. On the 28th it calmed a little, and our fleet came all in, to our great joy. The rudder of one third-rate was broken; and that was all the hurt that the storm had done. At last the much-longed-for east wind came. And so hard a thing it was to set so vast a body in motion that two days of this wind were lost before all could ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... Cob didn't answer. He just steered the shoeboat toward the shore by putting one leg over the side as if it were a rudder, and in a little while they ran the boat up on the shore and Sweetclover hopped out and Kernel Cob pulled the boat up on the beach so the tide, when it came in, wouldn't take it out to ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel

... against the submarine or whether they were but the last farewell of the old battleship. Fifteen minutes from the moment she was struck, her decks lay almost at right angles to the water, then the movement quickening, she turned bottom upward, only her red keel, propellers and rudder showing to the troubled troopers who sadly watched the demise of the famous old ship. A quarter of an hour longer she floated, sinking lower and lower, then, with an easy motion, she slid away from sight. For a few minutes a maelstrom of white, surging water foamed and spurted, then, sadly and ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... to land and walk home. Boddy caught the rudder lines and leapt on the bank to hand her out; then all the boys in her boat and in Catman's shouted, 'Miss Julia! dear Miss Julia, don't leave us!' and we heard wheedling voices: 'Don't go off with him alone!' Julia bade us behave well or she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Caledonia. His fears as to that vessel were but too well founded. On the very day when she was due in Boston (the 18th of February) it was learned in London that she had undergone misadventure; that, her decks having been swept and her rudder torn away, though happily no lives were lost, she had returned disabled to Cork; and that the Acadia, having received her passengers and mails, was to sail with ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... do: to make the passage quickly through the safe channel of the rapids, and to be of what service we could on the other side of the Slide, if necessary. We bent to the oars, and the boat shot through the water. Ruth held the rudder firmly, and her young sister and Mrs. Revel sat perfectly still. But the man in the other boat, thinking, doubtless, that we were attempting a race, added his efforts to the current of the channel. I am afraid that I said some ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was not far from the coast of Greenland, when he found the ship go out of her course. He turned the rudder, or how you say, to guide the ship—I am not sea-learned, I ask your pardon if I mistake— but the ship would not move. Then they found, beneath a sunken rock, and it was—how you say?—magnetical, that drew to it the iron of the ship. Then Mynheer Heningsen, he look to his charts, ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... and the red sail is drawn up the mast and set puffing, and the ship goes out, dipping and springing, into the deep. On the shore the religious stand watching; and Serapion is at the rudder, steering and glancing back; and the others aboard are waving hands landward; and on a thwart beside the mast stands the little lad, and at a sign from Serapion he lifts up his clear sweet voice, singing joyfully the Kyrie eleison ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... master of the American schooner Pilgrim. Delano's name was familiar to Governor King, inasmuch as he had taken a part in the 1803 attempt to colonise Port Philip, as follows: One of the officers, Lieutenant Bowen, on his way across Bass's Straits in a small boat, had the misfortune to carry away his rudder, and when in danger was rescued by Delano. Bowen, anxious to deliver some despatches, hired the Pilgrim's tender from Delano to carry them, omitting to make a bargain beforehand; and for this paltry service the American ...
— The Americans In The South Seas - 1901 • Louis Becke

... rock on which we split, and hate is the shoal on which many a bark is stranded. When we are fearful, the judgment is as unreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when we hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if we stop to meditate on what the gossips say, we have allowed a hawser ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... present she will faithfully carry out my orders." Entire faithfulness takes precedence, I think, and deservedly so. Your accomplishments may be many, but if you have not this faithfulness, this obedience to the doctor as a rudder to the ship of your professional character, no matter how great may be the load of learning and accomplishments and good intentions, your self-will and vanity will bring you to the rocks where ruin ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... death. Would to God it were. Death would be welcome—even a death of torture refined. There is nothing that I could say that you would understand for nothing that I could say would I myself understand. It is simply the end.... I hope I am insane. Yet I fear that I am not.... I am a ship without a rudder. My will is gone from me; I have no volition of my own—no soul—nothing. All that is left of me is a body, and the power still to suffer, and for the rest, only a great emptiness, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... Me, through storms, it has brought to haven; through many griefs to self-knowledge; and through prisons to philosophy. He only can tranquilly descend to annihilation who finds reason not to repent he has once existed. My rudder broke not amid the rocks and quicksands, but my bark was cast upon the strand of knowledge. Yet, even on these clear shores are impenetrable clouds. I have seen more distinctly than it is supposed men ought to see. Age will decay the faculties, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... vast, vague swell flowing from far away down south under the night, lifted the Northumberland on its undulations to the rattling sound of the reef points and the occasional creak of the rudder; whilst overhead, near the fiery arch of the Milky Way, hung the Southern ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... only by the methods which those rules themselves prescribe, or is it the expression of certain political principles by which a living and growing Nation has resolved to guide itself in its life and growth? Is it an anchor which fastens the ship of state in one place, or a rudder to ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... Jake held the rudder lines, the boys sitting either side of him on the bottom of the boat where they could stretch out at full length in case they felt inclined to sleep, and after they had listened to the swish of the sea under the ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... fair son of gentle faery, That art in mighty arms most magnifyde Above all knights that ever battle tried, O, turn thy rudder hetherward awhile! Here may the storm-bett vessel safely ride; This is the port of ease from troublous toil, The world's sweet inn from ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... it with my hands along the wall," explained Frank, still in a whisper. "That will bring us to the opening—the smallest possible that would allow the boat to pass into the stream. Then the current will carry us down. I have a rudder, that will hold us in the shadow of the left bank through all the turns. It is a chance—the only one we had. If all goes well, we shall drift down below the ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... exclaimed a third. "She is not blind or fickle. At Antium, where our Arrius questions her, she answers him with nods, and at sea she abides with him holding the rudder. She takes him from us, but does she not always give him back with ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... The rudder had been left on the beach, and it was only possible to steer by the oars. He dismissed even the thought of Erica, and concentrated his whole being on the difficult task before him. So grand did he look in that tremendous endeavor that Erica almost forgot her ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... the one across the street, as he bolted from the sidewalk. "I'd rudder see Frank Merriwell than have a season ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... bloom his face o'erspread," a purple tinge as we see it in the pale thoughtful complexions of the Spanish portrait-painters, Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent; his chin good-humoured and round; but his nose, the rudder of the face, the index of the will, was small, feeble, nothing—like what he has done. It might seem that the genius of his face as from a height surveyed and projected him (with sufficient capacity and huge aspiration) into ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... to us it appeared a toss-up whether she got out again or got forced in against the rocks. She had no time or room to turn, and got clear by backing out through the belt of pack stern first, getting heavy bumps under the counter and on the rudder as she did so, for the ice was heavy and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... sheet. When on a wind the long bow and nose serve as a head-sail. The high, square, piled-up stern, with its antique carving, and the sides with their lattice-work, are wonderful, together with the extraordinary size and projection of the rudder, and the length of the tiller. The anchors are of grapnel shape, and the larger junks have from six to eight arranged on the fore-end, giving one an idea of bad holding-ground along the coast. They really are much like the shape of a Chinese "small-footed" woman's shoe, and look very unmanageable. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... daylight, anchor was got up, and when the yacht had sailed for seven or eight miles to the west, the gig was lowered, and the four black boatmen took their places in her. Frank took the rudder lines, and Dominique sat near him. The sail was then hoisted, and as the wind was light, the boatmen got out their oars and shot ahead of the Osprey, directing their course obliquely towards ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... the ship right into the trough of the sea, Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift, Started the stern-post, also shattered the Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could lift Herself from out her present jeopardy, The rudder tore away: 't was time to sound The pumps, and there were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... was a fine sight; but it was evident that the sails and ropes were in a very rotten condition, and soon, with anxious looks, we followed the growth of a tear in the mainsail, wondering whether the mast would stand the strain. A heavy sea broke the rudder, and altogether it was high time to land when we entered Port Olry in ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... reminds one of a monkey, while his clumsy and usually slow-moving body will often suggest the hippopotamus. By using head, hands, teeth, tail, and webbed feet the beaver accomplishes much. The tail of a beaver is a useful and much-used appendage; it serves as a rudder, a stool, and a ramming or signal club. The beaver may use his tail for a trowel, but I have never seen him so use it. His four front teeth are excellent edge-tools for his logging and woodwork; his webbed feet are most useful in his deep-waterway ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... use a very large rudder, with one mast in the middle of the machine, on which they have a large sail, like our west country barges on the river Thames. As these machines can only sail before the wind, they are only fit for these seas, where the wind blows constantly one way, seldom varying above a point or two in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... turned the world. Not a sailor would go voluntarily; so the king and queen compelled them. Three days out, in his vessels scarcely larger than fishing-schooners, the Pinta floated a signal of distress for a broken rudder. Terror seized the sailors, but Columbus calmed their fears with pictures of gold and precious stones from India. Two hundred miles west of the Canaries, the compass ceased to point to the North Star. The sailors are ready to mutiny, but he tells them ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... ma'am," said Bates, "Mr. Lavendar and Mrs. Loring they went out in the boat after tea. Mr. Lavendar asked William for the key, and William he went down and got out the oars and rudder, ma'am." ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... say that I do," came the reply, as the other eagerly bent his gaze on the tree tops that they were beginning to approach closer, for Frank had turned the lever of the deflecting rudder in order ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... I hate scorn. A soul with no religion— My mother used to say that such a one Was without rudder, anchor, compass—might be Blown everyway with every gust and wreck On any rock; and tho' you are good and gentle, Yet ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... puts a coat on his back, and he joins the forlorn brotherhood of "back volumes," than which, so long as they are unindexed, nothing can be more exasperating. Who wants a lock without a key, a ship without a rudder, a binnacle without a compass, a check without a signature, a greenback without ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... just under the surface of the water! He's trying to break off the rudder! Quick, ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... Persian Gulf I traveled once more through several provinces of Persia and the Indies, and arrived at a seaport. Here I embarked in a ship, the captain of which was bound on a long voyage, in which he and the pilot lost their course. Suddenly we saw the captain quit his rudder, uttering loud lamentations. He threw off his turban, pulled his beard, and beat his head like a madman. We asked him the reason; and he answered that we were in the most dangerous ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... the Weigh-house, that she observed a beggar woman sitting on a stair seemingly in great distress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... her young daughters. She looked at them, but she saw them not; for her thoughts were far away from the domestic hearth. She gave herself up to her grief, and it tossed her to and fro, as the sea tosses a ship without compass or rudder. So the day of the funeral passed away, and similar days followed, of dark, wearisome pain. With tearful eyes and mournful glances, the sorrowing daughters and the afflicted husband looked upon her who would not hear their words of comfort; and, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... hearken to such a blast through all the swish and sweat, Through rattle and rumpus and raps, and the kicks and cuffs that they get, Through the chatter and tread, and the rudder's wash, and the dismal clank Of the shameful chain which forever binds the slave ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... out to the boat, carrying an umbrella above his stately head. There were more farewells in shallow water, more running to and fro; a brief reappearance of the undecided parrakeet. The young men took their places at the thwarts, the old chief settled the tiller on the rudder head, the women, girls, and children crowded in wherever they could, and then, amid shouts and cheers, the paddles dipped and the boat moved ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... pushed the boat into the surf and sprang in. At Arthur's request, I took the rudder; he and Morton seized the two remaining oars, and the four commenced pulling with a degree of coolness and vigour, that would not have disgraced older and more practised oarsmen. As I saw the manner in which they bent to their work, and the progress ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... themselves alone, without sails or rudder, on the pathless ocean, they sank into each other's arms and ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... the boat was drifting, Death was staring in each face, When he grasped the fallen rudder, Took the ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper

... tindal in charge of the boat, with one or two convict boatmen, went on board the tongkong and found all the crew and passengers dead; but fancying they heard groans they searched round the tongkong, and at last found one of the Chinese boatmen clinging to the rudder. They lifted him on board, and found that he was severely cut about, and covered with wounds. The convict tindal in charge of the Government boat then shaped his course, with the tongkong in tow, for Butterworth, in ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... well My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings, And thou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou know'st; and that Thy beck might from the bidding of ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... went howling through the rigging, filling the only sail which was unfurled. The mast creaked; the ship groaned in all its joints, as it tipped on its side until the ends of the yards touched the water, and for one awful moment it seemed as if it could not right itself. Then yielding to the rudder it swung round to the west, and offered the point of the bow to the storm. Only the fact that it was very strongly ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... Thus every year, generally in March, the people of Leti, Moa, and Lakor, islands of the Indian Archipelago, send away all their diseases to sea. They make a proa about six feet long, rig it with sails, oars, rudder, and other gear, and every family deposits in its some rice, fruit, a fowl, two eggs, insects that ravage the fields, and so on. Then they let it drift away to sea, saying, "Take away from here all kinds of sickness, take them to other ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... somewhat analogous to the architectural ornaments of the land. Piety, superstition, and national usages, affect these characteristic ornaments, which are still seen, in different quarters of the world, to occasion broad distinctions between the appearances of vessels. In one, the rudder-head is carved with the resemblance of some hideous monster; another shows goggling eyes and lolling tongues from its cat-heads; this has the patron saint, or the ever-kind Marie, embossed upon its mouldings or bows; while that is covered with the allegorical emblems of country and duty. Few of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... Method of Bevelling Iron Frames in Ships;" and, in 1866, he read two papers—one of them demonstrating the means of finding the most economical rates of expansion in steam engines, and the other describing a balanced rudder for screw steamers. But he did not confine his contributions to one Institution, or even to one medium of publication, for we find that he read a number of papers before the Philosophical Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Institution of Engineers ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... sank down into his chair as he thought of this, and going back over the three past dreary years, remembered what a weary blank they were, thought, with a heavy sigh, what a shipwreck his life had been, and how he was now floating about without rudder or compass or anchor, merely a drifting wreck. And as he sits there in the sunshine which streams through the wide, high old window, we will see him for the ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... away and I have not raised the hedge, until the crop in which Thou didst take delight is destroyed. I am a worthless stake in the corner of a hedge, or I am like a boat that has lost its rudder, that would be broken against a rock in the sea, and that would be ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory

... was loaded up, and the bargemaster took his post at the rudder, whilst the old horse strained himself to start—and when the heavy boat swung slowly down the canal and passed out of sight, I felt more and more sorry to be left ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... journey was of about four hundred miles and occupied us for about fourteen days. Big Tom steered our boat with a long oar, which he used as a rudder. The principal propelling power of these boats, is the long strong oars, manned by the Indian crews. We had in our boat eight good oarsmen, and the vigour and endurance of these men was a matter of constant admiration. When head winds prevailed, or we were in the midst of calm, ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, 5 We lay, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... shall moil i' the ground, and plant his seed, A farmer foisoning a huge crop of grief. Your Life shall chaffer in the market-place, A merchant trading in the goods of grief. Your Life shall go to battle with his bow, A soldier fighting in defence of grief. By every rudder that divides the seas, Tall Grief shall stand, the helmsman of the ship. By every wain that jolts along the roads, Stout Grief shall walk, the driver of the team. Midst every herd of cattle on the hills, Dull Grief shall lie, the herdsman of the drove. Oh Grief shall grind your bread and ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... the lights, Ernest's beautiful plane seemed to sparkle with preparedness. He went over it bolt by bolt, nuts, screws, wires, and wings passing under his careful and critical eye. He looked at and tested the tension of the wires, the swing of the rudder, the looseness of the ailerons. Satisfied at last that everything was perfectly in tune, he turned and gave a critical glance ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... anchor cut, and the sweeps run out. At the first stroke of Bill's giant arm the schooner was nearly pulled ashore, for in his haste he forgot that I could scarcely move the unwieldy oar. Springing to the stern he lashed the rudder in such a position as that, while it aided me, it acted against him, and so rendered the force of our strokes nearly equal. The schooner now began to glide quickly down the creek, but before we reached its mouth, a yell ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... deserted and desperate on her own shores, and Fox and his friends in a row-boat are steering for Dover Castle with the remark, "I never saw her in my life!" ("No! never in his life, damme!" adds Fox at the rudder), we seem to be already getting drawn into the maeelstrom of the French Revolution. Perhaps to the average student the period of Gillray's work which we are here approaching will be of most interest, because a fairly exact knowledge of English party politics is necessary to follow with enjoyment ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton

... than half a bath. His arms and legs flung out contempt of that style of bathing, exactly in old Matey's well-remembered way. Half a mile off shore, the Susan was put about to flap her sails, and her boat rocked with the passengers. Turning from a final cheer to friendly Matthew, Weyburn at the rudder espied one of those unenfranchised ladies in marine uniform issuing through the tent-slit. She stepped firmly, as into her element. A plain look at her, and a curious look, and an intent look fixed her fast, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... search I found them, two of them dry and good, the third had taken water. Those two I got to my raft, with the arms. And now I thought myself pretty well freighted, and began to think how I should get to shore with them, having neither sail, oar, nor rudder; and the least capful of wind would have ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... not, or perhaps more. Well, so hour after hour passed, and the night was so calm we could hear the chimes of the Yarmouth clocks, and the water going lap-lap against the sides of the Lively Nan, and the rudder going cheep-cheep as the sway of the sea stirred it. At last, says Lawrence: 'It's reg'lar dull ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various

... cabin where her mistress lay almost senseless with sea-sickness. On board the ship the terror and confusion grew. For a while they were able to beat out to sea until the mast was carried away. Then the rudder broke, and, as the oars could not be worked in that fearful tempest, the galley began to drive shorewards. Night fell, and who can describe the awful hours that followed? All control of the vessel being lost, she drove onwards whither the wind and the waves took her. The crew, and ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... number of vessels in this country as well as on the three North German Lloyd steamers above named, is designed, primarily, to effect the distribution of the leverage more in proportion to the resistance of the rudder than exists in ordinary gears. The latter, as a rule, exert a uniform and decreasing, instead of an increasing, purchase on the rudder, in moving it from midgear to hard over. This important object is attained in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... water than he could wade through would dream of facing even a moderate breeze, in a huge three-storied coffer, or box, three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, left to drift without rudder or pilot. [8] Not content with giving the exact year of Noah's age in which the flood began, the Pentateuchal story adds the month and the day of the month. It is the Deity himself who "shuts in" Noah. The modest week assigned to the full deluge ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... usually introduced as a special weapon of a special hero, who fashions a gold-headed club to slay one that steel cannot touch, or who tears up a tree, like the Spanish knight in the ballad, or who uses a club to counteract spells that blunt steel. The bat-shapen archaic rudder of a ship is used as a club in the story of the Sons ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... from the leader's machine, which banked vertically, almost rolled over, and began to spin. For two thousand feet the irregular drop continued, and the observer gave up hope. Luckily for him, the pilot was not of the same mind, and managed to check the spin by juggling with his rudder-controls. The bus flew home, left wing well down, with the observer leaning far out to the right to restore equilibrium, while the icy rush ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... doing her best to keep the boat's head to the wind, but was slowly losing ground. She motioned to him to keep off and beckoned to him to cast the tow line to her so she could make it fast at that end. Harriet had forgotten that there was no rudder at the other end. But the boatman persisted in getting up close to the houseboat. All at once what Harriet had feared did happen. The launch was picked up on a heavy swell and hurled against the houseboat. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... anger, he plunged head foremost into the sea and began to swim after the ship with frightful speed. At each stroke he advanced forty feet, blowing like a whale, and like a whale cleaving the waves. By degrees he gained on his enemies; one more effort would bring him within reach of the rudder, and already he was stretching out his arm to seize it, when Finette threw the second silver bullet into the sea and ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... the line chosen;) that is another thing. The first is called seamanship; the second might be called shipmanship, but is, I believe, called navigation. They are perfectly distinct; one man rarely has both in perfection. Both may be illustrated from the rudder. The question is, suppose at the Cape of Good Hope, to steer for India: trust the rudder to him, as a seaman, who knows the passage whether within or without Madagascar. The question is to avoid a sunk rock: trust the rudder to him, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... and savage eyes. There was indescribably brutal threat in this sudden dart in their direction. It was as if a sea monster had swallowed an insect in the shape of a Hampton boat and now sought a real mouthful. But her great rudder swung to the quick pull of her steam steering-gear and again she sheered, cutting a letter s. The movement brought her past the stern of the Nequasset, a biscuit-toss away. The mighty surge of her roaring passage lifted the freighter's bulk aft, and the huge wave that was ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... tradition in the parish of Llanddona, Anglesey, that these witches, with their husbands, had been expelled from their native country, wherever that was, for practising witchcraft. They were sent adrift, it is said, in a boat, without rudder or oars, and left in this state to the mercy of the wind and the wave. When they were first discovered approaching the Anglesey shore, the Welsh tried to drive them back into the sea, and even after ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... I asked Brother Petersen how he had gotten along. He said, "When we realized the storm was on hand we packed up our fishing lines and I ordered my partner to take care of the motor and I myself took charge of the rudder. My partner was a saved man but we had a boy who was not saved. I ordered him to be ready to dip out the water if any ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... inert for a long minute trying to find out why I was not in my own bed, in my own home, and to account for the rushing, rippling sound of the tide eddies sucking and chuckling around the Lass's rudder-post. ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... saw, what we did not, that the coil of the rope on deck was foul, and so entangled round his long tiller, that ten seconds would do one of three things,—they would snap his new rope in two, which was a trifle, or they would wrench his tiller-head off the rudder, which would cost him an hour to mend, or they would upset those two horses, at this instant on a trot, and put into the canal the rowdy youngster who had started them. It was this complex certainty which gave fire to the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... point! Yes, a pivotal point for Jefferson, America and the world; for Jefferson gave the rudder of the Ship of State such a turn to starboard that there was never again danger of her drifting on to aristocratic shoals, an easy victim to the rapacity of Great Britain. Hamilton's distrust of the people found no echo in ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to take her not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a boat with two inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no boat flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and two boys—one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga schoolmaster, and a sailor lad—to pull us. All this was our first taste of the tender mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... distant spectators and go on board the "Merrimac," seeking the company of her devoted crew. It was Hobson's purpose to sink her in the narrowest part of the channel, dropping the anchor and handling the rudder so as to turn her across the stream. Her length was sufficient to close up completely the deeper channel. He would stop the engines, let fall the anchor, open the traps made for the sea-water to flow ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... in the salt sea-field, It would have made the boldest shudder; Untarr'd, uncompass'd, and unkeel'd, No sail—no rudder. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... governor therefore found it expedient positively to prohibit the building of a boat of any kind without having previously obtained his express permission; and to declare, that if any of the boats then in use in the settlement should thenceforward be found improperly secured at night, or left with oars, rudder, masts, or sails on board, they would be laid on ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... consideration, and what may be a perfectly commendable play in one situation may be altogether reckless and foolhardy in another. Therefore, the most important faculty of all, the pendulum which regulates, and the rudder which guides, is judgment. An illustration may make my meaning clear. In the ninth inning, with a runner on first base and the score a tie, it may be a good play for the runner to attempt to steal second, because from there a single hit may send ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... an ornament, but a symbol," replied the doctor. "It represents the modern ideal of a proper system of government. The mill stands for the machinery of administration, the wind that drives it symbolizes the public will, and the rudder that always keeps the vane of the mill before the wind, however suddenly or completely the wind may change, stands for the method by which the administration is kept at all times responsive and obedient to every mandate of the people, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... gathering storm tore at the mainsail. The ship reeled and pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing and gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a horse and refused to obey her rudder. Wind and current were carrying her out ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... case of Pierre de Rudder, at Oostacker, in the nineteenth century. That's the first of the series—the first, I mean, that has been scientifically examined. It's in ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... voyage.—Columbus sailed first for the Canary Islands, because from there it would be a straight line, as he thought, across to Japan and Asia. He was obliged to stop at the Canaries[13] more than three weeks, in order to make a new rudder for one of his vessels and to alter ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... leaving us in darkness, relieved only by the red flames of the conflagration from which we were endeavouring to escape. Our first object was to proceed to a distance from the vessel, lest she should explode and overwhelm us; but, to our inexpressible distress, we discovered that the yawl had no rudder, and that for the two boats we had only three oars. All exertions to obtain more from the ship proved unsuccessful. The gig had a rudder; from this they threw out a rope to take us in tow; and, by means of a few paddles, made by tearing up the lining of the boat, we assisted in moving ourselves ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... observed cheerfully. "Didn't see yer. Did yer pipe me chase wid de yelper? Dat stilt-legged son of a saw-toothed tyke has had his nose on me rudder-post fer more'n a mile." ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple

... had been the boy up to this moment that he had no time to observe closely the shipwrecked pair. Now, however, he cast a curious glance in their direction, as he let go the rudder and sheet-line, and threw out the painter to the man. Eagerly the latter seized the rope, and managed to ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... and not the sensuous nature, that will make it. If, on the contrary, it is reason itself which has made the inclination pass to the side of duty (which is the case in the fine character), and which has only confided the rudder to the sensuous nature, it will be always able to retake it as soon as the instinct should misuse its full powers. Thus the virtue of temperament in the affective movements falls back to the state of simple production of nature, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... gales at E.S.E. and fair weather. Last night the sea was so great, that it broke the rudder-head off; we were doubtful every moment of the vessel's parting, which if she had, we must have been all of us inevitably lost. We were obliged to put to sea, not being able to get the people off. We sent ashore in a scuttled puncheon some wearing apparel, four muskets, with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... on top of the cotton, as from the first I had intended to do. And Bruno again wagged his tail. The cotton never "crawled." When the calking was finished, two coats of copper paint were slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the topsides and bulwarks. The rudder was then shipped and painted, and on the following day the Spray was launched. As she rode at her ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum



Words linked to "Rudder" :   sailing, tiller, watercraft, aerofoil, vessel, rudder-like, seafaring, rudderpost, control surface, airfoil, vertical tail, navigation, steering system, steering mechanism, surface



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