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More "Mainsail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 party of dustmen sent upon secret service. Had there been nothing left as a memorial of the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... livelier, stiffer, and drier little vessel of her size never was built. She jumped over the waves, as if the sea was a great play-ground, and the game for the morning, Leap-Frog. Though the wind was so high that we were obliged to lower our foresail, and to double-reef the mainsail, the only water we got on board was the spray that was blown over us from the tops of the waves. In the state of the weather, getting down Channel was out of the question. We were obliged to be contented, on this first day of our voyage, with ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... then felt so satisfied that our request was granted that I could not continue asking, and very soon went up again on deck. The first officer, a godless man, was in charge. I went over and asked him to let down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging. He answered, "What would be the good of that?" I told him we had been asking a wind from GOD, that it was ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... 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 ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... third wasted day, we managed, despite a new hole 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 escaped being wrecked by a northerly ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... deck was cleared, and order reigned on board, though the mainsail could not be set until ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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. In a few ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... excellent time that before I had traversed half the distance between the two vessels I caught sight of him clambering over the rail, and of his box being passed up. All the brigantine's canvas was loose, her mainsail was set, and the windlass was just beginning to clink as I stepped upon her deck: her master, a dapper little half-caste of forty or so, in a blue flannel suit, with lively eyes, his round face the colour ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... a 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
... 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 from the Navy, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... time of it with Colonel Euan Smith and the Manchester Regiment, his only regret being that he had not killed a tiger. We waved adieux to the skipper, pointed the yacht's head to the southward, made sail, and, as soon as it was cool enough, lowered the funnel and set the mainsail. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... hopeless languour of the preceding days this 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 ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... 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 First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... sloop-rigged, and carried three officers, a passenger, and ten 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, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... a 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
... long hours of the hot night in fevered restlessness now from sheer exhaustion is just sinking into sleep, to be startled by the terrific bang above his head and the rush of the shell, like the tearing of a yacht's mainsail, as it speeds on its arched ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... bank, voices 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 ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... rapidly with 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 into ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... 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 ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... 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 ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the lake of truth,— Mayest thou sail upon it with a fair wind; May thy mainsail not fly loose. May there not be lamentation in thy cabin; May not misfortune come after thee. May not thy mainstays be snapped; Mayest thou not run aground. May not the wave seize thee; Mayest thou not taste the impurities of the river; Mayest thou not see the face of fear. May the fish come to ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... succeeded 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 over ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... 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 ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... her main-topsail yard was shot away in the slings by a double-headed shot, and the yard-arms came down in front of the mainyard, the leech ropes of the mainsail were cut to pieces and the sail riddled. All the time, also, whenever the ships were within musket-range, showers of bullets came rattling on board, and several of the men ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... with a topsail so 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 ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... he, and let raise the mast and hoist the mainsail, and the wind filled the sail, and they made taut the ropes all round. But anon strange matters appeared to them: first there flowed through all the swift black ship a sweet and fragrant wine, and the ambrosial ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... the well, and finding the ship had sprung a leak, and now had five feet water in the hold, the people clewed up the main-topsail, hauled up the mainsail, and immediately endeavored to furl both, but could not effect it. On discovering the leak all the pumps ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... began to blow from the north-east, accompanied by a drizzle, and he stood off to the northward and westward, knowing that the coast of New York lay in the opposite direction. At half-past one he stowed the flying-jib, reefed the mainsail, and took the bonnet off the jib. At two he was compelled to get a second reef aft; and by half-past two he had put a balance-reef in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... because they cannot go to sea, and, instead thereof, one builds him a new bark, and one caulks the sides of that which hath made many a voyage; one hammers at the prow, and one at the stern; another makes oars, and another twists the cordage; and one the foresail and the mainsail patches,—so, not by fire, but by divine art, a thick pitch was boiling there below, which belimed the bank on every side. I saw it, but saw not in it aught but the bubbles which the boiling raised, and all of it swelling ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... day at the south, and now theres a lull, as 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 ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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, but not at all to our satisfaction, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... big, half-decked boat beautifully built and fitted in Toronto. Stirling, who admitted that he knew nothing about such matters, sat down aft and lighted a cigar, while Weston proceeded to get the tall gall mainsail and big single headsail up. He was conscious that his companion was watching him closely, and when he let go the moorings and seated himself at the tiller the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... apparent inequality is most obvious in the smallest vessels, as cutters: and of 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, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... of the New England fleet. The ketch, often referred to in early annals, was a two-master, sometimes rigged with lanteen sails, but more often with the foremast square-rigged, like a ship's foremast, and the mainmast like the mizzen of a modern bark, with a square topsail surmounting a fore-and-aft mainsail. The foremast was set very much aft—often nearly amidships. The snow was practically a brig, carrying a fore-and-aft sail on the mainmast, with a square sail directly above it. A pink was rigged like a schooner, but without a bowsprit or jib. For the fisheries a multitude of smaller ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... and the yacht drifting with the falling tide. A moment more and she spread a low treble reefed mainsail behind, a little jib before, and the western breeze filled and swelled and made them alive, and with wind and tide she went swiftly down the smooth stream. Florimel clapped her hands with delight. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of 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 ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... they 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... said Jack, as the mainsail was hoisted. This was true, and the run to the village took but a few minutes. While the boys went off to send their message to the Fords, Isaac Fasick hunted up the constable and related ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... 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 ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... not very likely to be so with the wind rising out of the northeast; and ere long the Petrel's topmast was sent down, and a double reef put in her mainsail. Until midnight it blew hard with a fast rising sea, and a mist as thick as a hedge. After this, it was ugly weather all the way home, and as they passed Ailsa Craig the wind changed to full north, and fetched the sea down ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... brace coils with an air of 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 ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... gale of wind arose, heralded by the piercing cries of many hundred birds flying before it. It lasted only twenty minutes—sufficiently long, however, to throw the vessel on its beam end before it was possible to let go the halliards. At the same moment a blow from the sheet of the mainsail overthrew the first lieutenant, and sent him rolling to a distance, while the mizen-mast, which was not entirely lowered, was torn ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... 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 on the wind, and the point of Dick's ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... last command. Crouching together on the edge, we waited, straining every sense, for the 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 that disclosed ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... sloop's jib and mainsail and started on his journey eight miles seaward, with orders to make fast on arrival to the spar buoy which lay within a few hundred yards of the Ledge, and there wait until the tide turned, when she could drop into position to unload. The tug with all of us on board would follow ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... an air of independence and unconcern, as the "monarch of all he surveyed," casting his eye up now and then at the trim of his canvass, but more frequently keeping it on me. Dick began to open his budget of chat, and I found him as full of fun as his mainsail ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... single mouthful of the 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, to make room ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... observed by those employed on the water that when it 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 such as we are now passing through. Again, we have had an unusually ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... as they left us, we got up out of the cabin scuttle, which they had neglected to secure, and extinguished the fire, which if it had been left a few minutes, would have caught the mainsail and set our masts on fire. Soon after we saw a ship to leeward of us steering to the S.E. the schooner being in pursuit of her did not overtake her whilst she was in sight ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... most graceful of all the single masters. This is the type of our great yacht racers. Next to the sloop, and very much like it, is the schooner rig yacht. This is a fine boat, but beyond the pockets of boys; however, smaller sizes can be rigged on the same plan, with a jib and mainsail, and they will be found to be both ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... in the lagoon, using only our engine to escape the coral traps. Past the ever-present danger, with the wind now half a gale and the rain falling again in sheets—the intermittent deluge of the season—the Morning Star, under reefed foresail, mainsail and staysail, pointed her delicate nose toward the Dangerous Islands and hit hard ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the 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 ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... name from the Carib word "boucan," a kind of gridiron on which, like the natives, they cooked their meat, hence, bou-canier. The word filibuster comes from the Spanish "fee-lee-bote," English "fly-boat," a small, swift sailing-vessel with a large mainsail, which enabled the buccaneers to pursue merchantmen in the open sea and escape among the shoals and shallows of the archipelago when pursued in their ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... 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 the afternoon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... blankets. The three days at sea passed like a horrid dream. So covetous was his gaze, that the crew instinctively clutched their nether garments and looked to the buttoning of their coats as they passed him. He saw coats in the mainsail, and fashioned phantom trousers out of the flying jib, and towards the end began to babble of blue serges and mixed tweeds. Oblivious of fame, he had resolved to enter the harbour of Battlesea by night; but it was not to be. Near home the ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... was some confusion on board. They hadn't reckoned that we carried such heavy metal, and our luck in getting both shots on board must have surprised them. Then her bow paid off, there was a puff of smoke amidship, and a ball from the long swivel gun buzzed overhead, passing through our mainsail without touching ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... down the topsail-yard and topmast, unbent the mainsail, main-topsail, and gaff—sent down the topmast and running-rigging on deck—cast loose the lanyards of the lower rigging, and quite dismantled the mainmast, so as to make it appear as if we were about to haul to the wharf and take ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... of Plymouth we'll run up the mainsail and then she'll go a-humming," said he, rubbing his hands gleefully together. "This is the first time I was ever in command of a vessel sailing by government authority, and I feel an inch or two taller'n I ever felt before on my own quarter-deck. But this is a ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... smack—one of the so-called "ironclads"—was sailing so as to cross the bows of his vessel. The breeze had by that time increased considerably, and both smacks, lying well over, were rushing swiftly through the water. Suddenly some part of the ironclad's tackling about the mainsail gave way, the head of the vessel fell to leeward; next moment she went crashing into the Lively Poll, and cut her down to the water's edge. The ironclad seemed to rebound and tremble for a moment, and then passed on. The steersman at once threw her up into the wind with the intention of ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... wrong," answered Harriet. "How do I know? Never mind. You will find that you are." She had seen a man hauling in on the main sheets—the ropes that led from the mainsail back toward the cockpit. From that she knew the boat was preparing to change its course. This it did a few moments later, heading in toward the shore, but pointed at a spot a full half mile below the camp, as nearly as the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... in a way to spread sail after sail with a rapidity little short of that seen on board of a vessel of war. The rattling of the clew-garnet blocks, as twenty lusty fellows ran forward with the tack of the mainsail, and the hauling forward of braces, was the signal that the ship was clear of ground, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... many dramatic gestures, he made known how the trader, roused from a two-day stupor by the pitching of the vessel and the banging of the boom sticks, had staggered up out of the cabin, and been struck by the heavily swinging boom of the mainsail. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... to fight us," cried another. "See, he is hauling up the foot of his mainsail; but he wants to keep ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... was under her mainsail and two jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her sails were drawing, she was laying a course about northwest, and I presumed the men on board were going round the island on their way back to the anchorage. Presently ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cry out that he saw land, he would give a silk doublet, besides the 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 without ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... 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' ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... 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 and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... 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 three miles ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... 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, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... from boiling down fish into phosphates for the midland markets. He preserves, however, the habit and appearance of old days: that is to say, his chin is folded away under his lip like a reef in a mainsail; his cheek-bones hide his ears, so tusky and prominent are the former, and tipped with a varnish of red, like corns on old folks' feet; he has a nose which is so long and bony that it seems to have been constructed in sections, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... hardly spoken of our letters, which reached us yesterday, shortly before the play began. A hundred thousand thanks for your delightful mainsail of that gallant little packet. I read it again and again; and had it all over again at breakfast-time this morning. I heard also, by the same ship, from Talfourd, Miss Coutts, Brougham, Rogers, and others. A ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... their stations promptly enough, and when the anchor was hove up to a short stay, the foresail and mainsail ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... reached the point of the islet; she rounded it with ease; the mainsail was braced up, and the brig hugging the wind, stood across the mouth ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... man at the helm, so that his ship ran into the wind and her sails lay "a-back" as the mariners say. This gave us time to come up under the stern of his vessel, and firing continually into the vessel we killed as many as came to the helm, and cut in two his mainsail and brace. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in the painter, and pushed off, hoisting the mainsail as the boat receded from the wharf. Mr. Parasyte reached the pier while I was ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. "Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... broadside, but there was enough of it to have sunk the Goshhawk, if the iron thrown had struck her at or near the water-line. None of it did so, but the next exclamation of Senor Zuroaga was one of utter dismay, for the foremast of the bark had been cut off at the cap and there was a vast rent in her mainsail. Down tumbled a mass of spars and rigging, forward, and the ship could ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to my astonishment and filled me with fears and doubts was, that in spite of the pace at which she was approaching us and the dead calmness of the air, she had no other sails than her foresail and mainsail, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... about one hundred tons burden, completely decked, with a high poop and forecastle. Her length has been variously estimated. Two of her masts had square sails, the mizzen being lateen-rigged. The foremast had a square foresail, the mainmast a mainsail and maintopsail, and there was a spritsail on the bowsprit. The courses were enlarged, in fair weather, by lacing strips of canvas to their leeches, called bonetas. There appear to have been two boats, one with a sail, and the ship was armed with lombards. The rigs of these vessels ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... seat, it will 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, as ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... 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 really ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... and gave the necessary orders, the men received them, as I had quite expected, with black looks, muttered curses, and inarticulate growls; but the sight of Chips and me lowering and stowing the big mainsail while they surlily slouched about the deck, letting go halliards, clewing up and hauling down; and perhaps, more than all, the aspect of the heavens, conveying a message that no man could misinterpret, caused them somewhat to modify their attitude, and by four bells the ship was as nearly ready ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... 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 printed description of the picture, however, says: "The cut ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... crossed 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
... 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 ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... hours are not an uncommon passage, but such was our luck that, after being in sight of the lights on the Smalls, we were by contrary winds blown opposite to Arklow sands. A violent gale arose, which presently blew a storm that lasted thirty-six hours, in which, under a reefed mainsail, the ship drifted up and down wearing in order to ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... 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
... 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
... sufficiently earnest to hasten to his dear relations and country; yet the present haste he feared might hinder the seeing of them at all. Upon a strange earnestness in his own mind and judgement, he gave a positive command to the captain to cause all the sails to be taken down except the mainsail only, and that to be half-furled. Upon the captain's dispute, Whitelocke with quickness told him that if he did not presently see it done he would cause another to do it, whereupon the captain obeyed; and it was a great mercy that the same was done, which God directed as a ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... gave the order to shove clear of the dock the mainsail was hoisted. Then each crew captain kept one eye on the watch for the signals of the instructor, who was aboard a boat designated as ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to within fifty yards of the sea. Now you have run past the little cape, and are abreast of the beach. Down mainsail—down jib—down foresail. Let go the anchor while she forges, eight to nine lengths from the land, and let her swing round, stern to the sand. Clear away the dingy and launch her from amidships, and send a line ashore. Overboard with ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... "We want 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 Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... hoisted, and he hastened on board to put on his uniform and obey this order. He 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 ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Heart of Ireland, with the wind spilling out of her mainsail, came along over the heaving blue swell, satin-smooth here in ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... stick to which the upper end of the sail is fastened, is a broomstick. The boom, the stick at the bottom of the sail, was made of a rake handle with a broomstick spliced to make it long enough. Mother let me have a sheet, which I put down on the floor and cut into the shape of a mainsail. The wind was the cheapest power to be found, thus it was utilized; the three wheels were cast-off ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... 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
... the Sea Foam 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," ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... and then they would buy a little house on some harbor, while their sons went rolling down to Rio or fought the typhoon in the China Seas, and he could sit there with his telescope, watching the ships go by, or come in and out hauling up mainsail or making their mooring, and grumbling pleasantly at how good seamanship ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... skiff alongside a battered old schooner and his passengers clambered aboard. There was a tiny cabin aft and on it, sheltered from the night dew by a loose fold of the mainsail, were two sleeping men. The new-comers followed Morin down into the evil little cabin, where he warned them ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... topsail so 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 spar ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... 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, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... 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 a man-of-war. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Santa Maria, the flagship of Columbus, was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle" and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen in the Science ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... some time. It was very black in the southwest, and in about ten minutes we saw a distinct flash. The wind, which had been southeast, had now left us, and it was dead calm. We sprang aloft immediately and furled the royals and top-gallant-sails, and took in the flying jib, hauled up the mainsail and trysail, squared the after yards, and awaited the attack. A huge mist capped with black clouds came driving towards us, extending over that portion of the horizon, and covering the stars, which shone brightly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. "Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... 27th, when about thirty leagues west of North Cape, and about the same latitude as the Bay of Islands, no land in sight, the wind rose so that they had to bring to, under the mainsail, but moderated a little the next day so that they could run in towards the land. Again it freshened up and blew a perfect hurricane, accompanied by heavy rain, and a "prodidgeous high sea," which caused ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the 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 ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... westerly swell, the Fram, light as she now was, surpassed herself in rolling, and that is indeed saying a great deal. This rolling brought us a little damage to the rigging, the gaff of the mainsail breaking; however, that affair did not stop us long. The broken spar was quickly replaced by a ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Comfort Island!" sputtered Andy through the spray, as he and Jamie sprang for the mainsail ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... to leave each other from that point down. At the waist it looked like a deflated balloon. The top of the trousers fitted him about as snugly as a round manhole in the street. The legs flapped like the mainsail of a catboat that's coming about. They ended some time before his own legs did and there was quite a little stretch of yarn sock visible before the big tan shoes began. Ole had two acres of feet and he polished his shoes himself, with great care. They were not so ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... They would anchor the Cayosa as near shore as possible, in some well sheltered bay. Here 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 Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... meet local conditions. Imagine a cutter with one single long spar in the place of a mast and topmast; this spar is stepped rather farther aft than it would be in an ordinary cutter, and there is one huge mainsail, "leg-of-mutton" shaped, with a boom but no gaff, and a very large jib. Owing to their big head-sails, and to their heavy keels, these Bermudian craft fore-reach like a steamer, and hardly ever miss stays. For the same reason they are very wet, as they bury themselves in the water. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... who first paused to 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 ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... and the management of a three-oar vessel like this was an easy matter to me, as I soon let Sir Gilbert know. Once outside the river mouth, with a nice light breeze blowing off the land, we set squaresail, mainsail, and foresail and stood directly out to sea on as grand a day and under as fair conditions as a yachtsman could desire; and when we were gaily bowling along Sir Gilbert bade me unpack the basket which had been put aboard from the hotel—it was a long time, ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... 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
... chair by the water door, and join in conversation with more active persons mending seines upon the wharf; or you could dangle your heels from the work-bench, and listen to stories and debates inside, and look on Captain Philo sewing upon a mainsail. ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... when it 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 ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... ran into the wind and her sails lay "a-back" as the mariners say. This gave us time to come up under the stern of his vessel, and firing continually into the vessel we killed as many as came to the helm, and cut in two his mainsail and brace. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... new hole 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 escaped ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... 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 down ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... 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
... hours, the wind had gradually increased until it blew a gale: the foresail was taken in, the mainsail close-reefed, and the saucy boat flew along before it like a gull, the following seas just kissing the edge of her taffrail, as she slipped away ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... 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 Handy Solomon's ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... stewards, cooks, and a few of the hands that could be spared from the windlass, busy in a way to spread sail after sail with a rapidity little short of that seen on board of a vessel of war. The rattling of the clew-garnet blocks, as twenty lusty fellows ran forward with the tack of the mainsail, and the hauling forward of braces, was the signal that the ship was clear of ground, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... that I stood on the deck of an incoming steamer, straining my eyes across a heaving sea, the horizon lost in the dull haze of countless froth-caps; we had slowed for a pilot, so the word came down the deck. Suddenly, against the murky sky-line, with mainsail double-reefed and jib close-hauled, loomed a light craft plunging bows under at every lurch. Then a chip the size of your hand broke away from the frail vessel, and a big wave lying around for such prey, sprang upon it with wide-open mouth. The tiny bit dodged and slipped ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Ottoe and Missouri Indians, came, at sunset, on the 2d of August, accompanied by a Frenchman who had resided among them and acted as an interpreter. The next morning an awning was formed with the mainsail of the largest vessel; and, under this, Captains Lewis and Clarke received them. A speech was made to these Indians, announcing that the territory which they inhabited had been ceded to the American government, and advising them respecting ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... 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 light puffs, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... 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, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... 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 ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... cries of many hundred birds flying before it. It lasted only twenty minutes—sufficiently long, however, to throw the vessel on its beam end before it was possible to let go the halliards. At the same moment a blow from the sheet of the mainsail overthrew the first lieutenant, and sent him rolling to a distance, while the mizen-mast, which was not entirely lowered, was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... boat came and hailed the chief's vessel; he immediately hoisted his mainsail, and the fleet weighed apparently in great confusion. They worked to windward all night and part of the next day, and anchored about one o'clock in a bay under the island of Lantow, where the head admiral of Ladrones was lying at anchor, with about two hundred vessels and a Portuguese ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... before this gale 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 to the ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... of reefing the mainsail, which the boys accomplished successfully, though not without a hard struggle, for the wind increased in violence every moment. Holding the boat, which now carried only a few square yards of canvas, well up ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... was racing, however, Dolly changed her tactics. Fresh as the wind was, she shook out a reef in her mainsail, and as they neared the bar the Eleanor actually carried more canvas than Gladys dared to keep on the Defiance, Being less used to heavy going than Dolly, she was not so sure of the strength of her sticks, and reckless though she was, she was too wise to be willing to ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... preceding days this 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 ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... the Moray Firth, where, 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 rise again above them. I sat, while I could, by my wife ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... run of the shingle, lay the lugger. Her jib was flapping; the mainsail set for the hoisting; every stick and stay in place. Half a dozen burly Grenadiers, black-muzzled with a week's beard, were busy about her, stowing ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... though, and means to fight us," cried another. "See, he is hauling up the foot of his mainsail: but he wants to keep ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... takes a 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
... an accident which well-nigh proved fatal to us all. A gust of wind blew the mainsail (made of grass-cloth) into ribbons, the consequence being that our rate of sailing was reduced to two knots an hour, and our hope ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... 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 a deck-chair, with a book on her ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... without making ten miles; the boat was kept under the jib, as they dared not hoist the mainsail, and the wind was so variable that much time was lost ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... corners of the 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, strained their ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... town - Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail! A trader sailed from Stepney town With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown: Ho, the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback Out upon the ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a sort of scared hurry when the master threw the wheel hard over and trod on the spokes with all his weight. As soon as the bellying mainsail began to flap, the three men let it go on the run. They kept up the jumbo sail, as the main jib is called; they reefed the foresail down ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... were 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 ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... a bit wi' a hollow place in the middle, an' if it do rain, there then,— my boy, we'll ha' a pool big enough to swim ye in. Hurrah! it's sure to rain. See yonder. It be comin' nearer every minute. Let's be ready for it. Down wi' the mainsail. Let go the sheets,—an' instead o' spreadin' our canvas to the wind, as the song says, we'll stretch it out to the rain. Come, Will'm, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and every Spaniard aboard—whether in arms or not—to sew them up in the mainsail and to fling them overboard. There were some twenty dead bodies in the sail when a few days later it was washed up ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... nothing could save her, for she broke off short of the point, and drove in within half-a-mile of the rocks. Then, while I waited to see the end of her, she suddenly wore round, and after staggering a moment while the sea broke over her, hauled up to the wind, and careening over, with her mainsail sweeping the water, started gaily on ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... lone palm, that had formerly stood in dignified solitude upon a nearby point of land, now bent in the wildest agony, its leafy top resembling an umbrella turned inside out. I saw the Whim, greenish white in a greenish foam, heeled over till her masts were all but on the waves and her mainsail, half torn from its boom, snapping in the wind. In this fashion she was being driven at breakneck speed across the Gulf. I thought—I tried to think—that I had seen a small boat being dragged behind. Surely my ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... 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
... 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, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... was lumpy; the evening was growing thick; a swirl of the tide and a shift of the wind caught the chaloupe and swung her suddenly around. The mainsail jibed, and before he knew how it happened Dan Scott was overboard. He could swim but clumsily. The water blinded him, choked him, dragged him down. Then he felt Pichou gripping him by the shoulder, buoying him up, swimming mightily toward the ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... 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 party of dustmen sent upon secret service. Had there been nothing left as a memorial of the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... said briskly to the new mate, "keep all hands on deck now they're here. Get in the topsails and jibs and make a good job of it. We're in for a sou'-easter. Better reef the jib and mainsail too, while you're ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... 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, but not at all to our satisfaction, for they consisted of twenty-six ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... but not a spar was 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 ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... 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 ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... raptures with the new 'ship-yard.' It was as large as the mainsail of a ship of four hundred tons, was complete as to shade, with the advantage of letting the breeze circulate, and had a reasonable chance of escaping from the calamities of a flood. Mark, too, was satisfied with the result, and the very next day after this ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... cutters: and of 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
... and finding the ship had sprung a leak, and now had five feet water in the hold, the people clewed up the main-topsail, hauled up the mainsail, and immediately endeavored to furl both, but could not effect it. On discovering the leak all the pumps ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... 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 (type-written) caught ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hadn't reckoned that we carried such heavy metal, and our luck in getting both shots on board must have surprised them. Then her bow paid off, there was a puff of smoke amidship, and a ball from the long swivel gun buzzed overhead, passing through our mainsail without touching ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... and carried a large jib and mainsail. Everything about her was fitted up in good style; indeed, the carpenters, riggers, and painters had been at work upon her for a month. I was rather sorry, as I looked at her, that I was not a rich man, able to own just such a craft, for I could conceive of nothing more pleasant than coasting ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... 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 ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... 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, and such a hell ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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 printed description of the picture, however, says: "The ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... 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 ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... rather disappointed at the result of the conference, for I was interested in the chase. I ordered the jib and mainsail to be taken in, and the helm to be put down. The fog had lifted to the northward and westward of us, so that I could see St. Augustine light and the pilot-boat. We took up one of the pilots, and in ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... rig is that they have no boom to their mainsail, which in shape somewhat resembles a barge-sail, and, like it, can in a moment be brailed completely up. They carry a lofty topmast and large topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obliged to have two reefs ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... the green hands, a tramp—and he must already have got a taste of Mr. Harding—fell off the lower-topsail-yard. I was only a little girl, but it looked like certain death, for he was falling from the weather side of the yard straight down on deck. But he fell into the belly of the mainsail, breaking his fall, turned a somersault, and landed on his feet on deck and unhurt. And he landed right alongside of Mr. Harding, facing him. I don't know which was the more astonished, but I think Mr. Harding ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... 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
... water bared to the hot 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 east ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... built. She jumped over the waves, as if the sea was a great play-ground, and the game for the morning, Leap-Frog. Though the wind was so high that we were obliged to lower our foresail, and to double-reef the mainsail, the only water we got on board was the spray that was blown over us from the tops of the waves. In the state of the weather, getting down Channel was out of the question. We were obliged to be contented, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... Brine, and had her decked and newly rigged, and many's the cruise I had with him and old Tom Sanders, we three managing the two big sails well enough. After that came the cutter, when we had to have two men and a boy, for the mainsail was pretty big to manage, and took some hauling and setting in a breeze, and some strength to tackle in one of the squalls that come rushing out of the gullies and combes down along our Cornish coast, where the great peninsula or promontory, or whatever you call it, is scored across ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the moon 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 ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... or causeways, on one of which we crossed without difficulty. The men had hoisted one sail upon the cart at first setting off; but the wind being now, as they expressed it, "on the larboard quarter," a second blanket was rigged as a mainsail, to their great ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... time when the poor devil who has tossed and turned through the long hours of the hot night in fevered restlessness now from sheer exhaustion is just sinking into sleep, to be startled by the terrific bang above his head and the rush of the shell, like the tearing of a yacht's mainsail, as it speeds on its arched ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... the party. They went up the narrow channel called the Caledonian Canal, examined the bluffs, shores, and islands of Shallow Inlet, and at night encamped on St. Margaret's Island. When shelter was required, Davy usually put up the mainsail of his boat for a tent; but that night was so fine and warm that it was decided to avoid the trouble of bringing the sail ashore and putting it up. After supper the men lay around the fire, and one by one fell asleep; but about midnight heavy ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... apprehensions, of those in the town. Two or three of her people were visible in her rigging, but even these did not hasten their work, or in any manner seem deranged at the salutation they had just received. After a few minutes, however, the lugger jibed her mainsail, and then hauled up a little, so as to look more toward the headland, as if disposed to steer for the bay, by doubling the promontory. This movement caused the artillerists to suspend their own, and the lugger had fairly come within a mile of the cliffs, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... signal-rocket was thrown up by an invisible war-ship in the direction of Fort Taylor, and instantly two powerful search-lights were focused upon a pale, whitish object, far out at sea, which looked in the bluish, ghostly glare like the mainsail of the Flying Dutchman. Before I had time to form a conjecture as to the significance of these mysterious signals and apparitions, I was startled by a sudden flash and the thunder of a heavy gun from ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... means to fight us," cried another. "See, he is hauling up the foot of his mainsail; but he wants to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... absent-minded, John Woolfolk locked it. He dropped his long form on a carpet-covered folding chair near by. He was tired. His sailor, Poul Halvard, moved about with a noiseless and swift efficiency; he rolled and cased the jib, and then, with a handful of canvas stops, secured and covered the mainsail and proceeded aft to the jigger. Unlike Woolfolk, Halvard was short—a square figure with a smooth, deep-tanned countenance, colorless and steady, pale blue eyes. His mouth closed so tightly that it appeared ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
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