"Main-topsail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swell from the northeastward as to make the ship labour violently for four-and-twenty hours. On the morning of the 25th we had again an easterly wind, which in a few hours reduced us to the close-reefed topsails and reefed courses. At eight P.M. it freshened to a gale, which brought us under the main-topsail and storm-staysails, and at seven the following morning it increased to a gale of such violence from N.E.b.N. as does not very often occur at sea in these latitudes. The gusts were at times so tremendous as to set the sea quite in a foam, and threatened to tear the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Trafalgar were only thirteen miles to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The Redoutable sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the Bucentaure had to be cut adrift, and ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... fly, the main-topsail was backed against the mast. She hove-to. I almost fell from my post with joy as I saw a boat lowered, which came rapidly pulling towards the rock. Putting on my shirt—it was now perfectly dry—I descended from my perch to the rock, and ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a storm, tried to stand by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks. Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she had to bear up under bare poles, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The Redoutable sank at the stern ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett |
