|
|
|
More "Topgallant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fore-topgallant yard, sir, a bit ago, just to look to the strap of the jewel-block, which wants some sarvice on it, and I see'd her over the land, blowin' off steam and takin' in her kites. Afore I got out of the cross-trees, she was head to wind under bare-poles, and if she had ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... green-painted hull, I soon enough recognized as the Lydia. She was struggling slowly onward against the rapids of Hoy Sound, with the wind on her starboard quarter, and as we got nearer her I could see the extent of the damage she had sustained in the late storm. She had lost her fore and main topgallant masts, and her port bulwarks were stove in. The quarter boat was missing and her jolly ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... We had passed close by the Snares in the morning, but the weather was too thick for us to see them, though the birds flocked therefrom in myriads. We then passed between the Traps, which the captain saw distinctly, one on each side of him, from the main topgallant yard. Land continued in sight till sunset, but since then it has disappeared. To-day (Sunday) we are speeding up the coast; the anchors are ready, and to-morrow by early daylight we trust to drop ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... remember when I was with Milburn's, running to Hamburg? The old gentleman asked me to take a few overmen a trip. They belonged to some mine he was interested in. By the time we got outside, and got the decks cleared up, it was dark, and the watch was set. The look-out man went on to the topgallant forecastle, and I was walking from side to side of the bridge when one of the miners came running up, and in great excitement ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... "A vessel will lie" (at Mokha) "with a whole chain on end, topgallant masts struck, and yards braced by, without being able to communicate with the shore; while at the same time in Aden harbour she will lie within a few yards of the shore, in perfectly smooth water, with the bight of her chain cable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... straw for the purpose of performing his duty more expeditiously and effectually; and indeed he had nearly succeeded in getting rid of it altogether, had it not been for the promptness of a forecastle man, who seizing a bucket of water, opportunely standing near him on the topgallant forecastle, dashed it down the funnel, preventing the flames from communicating with the foresail, and ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... plunged under before he had climbed high enough to avoid it, and then he rested, until his head cleared and the awful pain of fatigue left his arms. When strength came back he mounted to the bowsprit, crept in to the topgallant forecastle, and sprang down on the main-deck, to the consternation of two men at the weather fore-rigging. These were foremast hands, and Scotty had no present use for them. He ran past them in his stocking-feet—and they gave room to the wild-eyed apparition—and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... and bumboat women being robbed of their money by our starting so suddenly; but he could get no satisfaction from old Charley. 'Bumboat women be hanged!' was all he said. 'Let 'em take their payment out of the fore tops'l, and the main topgallant s'l shall be witness to the bargain!' With that, he orders the men, who were muttering to be ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Torrens, and the subdued, as if distant, roar of the rising sea. I noted the growing disquiet in the great restlessness of the ocean, and responded professionally to it with the thought that at eight o'clock, in another half hour or so at the farthest, the topgallant sails would have to ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... quite hard. On Friday, October 7, we were doing 7.8 knots under sail alone, which was very good for the old Terra Push, as she was familiarly called: and we were then just 1000 miles from Melbourne. By Saturday night we were standing by topgallant halyards. Campbell took over the watch at 4 A.M. on Sunday morning. It was blowing hard and squally, but the ship still carried topgallants. There was a ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... ordered me to the mizentop, to close reef and furl the mizen-topsail; and this being done, from the increase of the gale, we had before twelve o'clock to take in successively every reef, furl most of the sails, and strike the topgallant-masts and other spars, to make the ship snug; the midshipmen being on the yards as well as the men, and the captain, when the gale became severe, at their elbow. In close reefing the main-topsail, there was much difficulty in clewing up the sail for the purpose of making it quiet, and the captain ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... and about 152 feet 9 inches on deck. She was to carry a battery of 22 long guns (32-pdr.), on the main deck 12 carronades (42-pdr.), on forecastle and quarter decks. She was to have been rigged to rather lofty and very square topgallant sails, and would have been capable of sailing fairly well, though of rather shoal draft, drawing only about 8 feet 6 inches when ready for service. She was sold on the stocks at the end of the war and her later ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... outward-bound vessel as cabin-boy. He was, however, pursued by his guardian, and his place of retreat discovered. Young Burr, one day, while busily employed, perceived his uncle coming down the wharf, and immediately ran up the shrouds, and clambered to the topgallant-mast head. Here he remained, and peremptorily refused to come down, or be taken down, until all the preliminaries of a treaty of peace were agreed upon. To the doctrine of unconditional submission ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... twenty guns, only ten small ones being mounted. The other ports were provided with imposing wooden dummies. She had a high poop and a topgallant forecastle. The four partners, with James Lewis, acting captain's clerk, and one other, with the two mates, slept in the cabin or wardroom below the poop. Forward of this main cabin was a large room extending across the ship, called the steerage, in which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... was now piled on to the ship, and as many of the others were showing nothing above their topgallant sails she rejoined the rest just ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it done. This he did. Then, casting the yard-arm gaskets off from ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... even this lower number an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... through the Golden Gate came from. I have discovered the laboratory. For the past two weeks we have been sailing continually in a dense, wet, grey cloud of mist, so thick at times as almost to hide the topgallant yards, and so penetrating as to find its way even into our little after-cabin, and condense in minute drops upon our clothes. It rises, I presume, from the warm water of the great Pacific Gulf Stream across which we are passing, and whose vapour ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... 27th.—About two o'clock this morning the yacht plunged so heavily into a deep sea, that the jibboom, a beautiful spar, broke short off, and the foretop-gallant mast and topgallant yard were carried away almost at the same moment, with a terrible noise. It took about eight hours to clear the wreck, all hands working all night; and a very forlorn appearance the deck presented in the morning, lumbered up with broken spars, ropes, &c. The jibboom fell right ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... protest against the smugness of Salem opinion. A fine sailor, and a master at twenty-two. A great one to carry sail; yet in the sixteen years of his commands he had had no more serious accident than the loss of a fore-topgallant mast or splitting a couple of courses. It was Gerrit's ability, the splendid qualities of his ship, that made Jeremy hope he would still come sailing into the harbor with some narration of delay and ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the backstays of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and the foretop-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... fire grew hotter, and their aim truer—down came our mizzen-topgallant-mast, and hung down over our quarter; away went our bowsprit—but we held on till we struck their line 'twixt the 'Santissima Trinidado' and the 'Beaucenture,' and, as we crossed the Spanisher's wake, so close that our yard-arms grazed her gilded starn, up flashed his ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the latter and a shoal, three miles to the northward, called the Middle Ground. The British fleet, when the French were first seen from it, was steering south-west for the entrance, under foresails and topgallant sails, and it so continued, forming line as it approached. The wind was north-north-east. At noon the ebb-tide made, and the French began to get under way, but many of their ships had to make several tacks to clear Cape Henry. Their line was consequently late in forming, and ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... dreary day, through the deadly boredom of a long blockade. Like caged eagles the crews passed many a weary week of dull monotony without the chance of swooping on a chase. "Smoke ho!" would be called from the main-topgallant cross-tree. "Where away?" would be called back from the deck. "Up the river, Sir!"—and there it would stay, the very mark of hope deferred. Occasionally a cotton ship would make a dash, with lights out on ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... permission was given to the people to attend to their own affairs. The frigate, too, seemed to be aware that it was the moment for the siesta of vessels as well as of men; for she clewed up her royals and topgallant-sails, brailed her jib and spanker, hauled up her courses, and lay on the water as motionless as if sticking on a shoal. The two vessels were barely long gunshot apart, and, under ordinary circumstances, the larger ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the ratlines with the men, for they took their share of duty aloft. Arthur's place was in the mizzen, Jim's in the main, and Jack's in the fore-top. The stunsails were first got in, then the royals and topgallant-sails. The men were working well, but the captain's voice came up loud from the quarter-deck, "Work steady, lads, but work all you can! Every minute ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... no use of then, and, being willing to assist the three honest men, he gave them the horse for the carrying their baggage; also, for a small matter of three days' work that his man did for him before he went, he let him have an old topgallant sail[194] that was worn out, but was sufficient, and more than enough, to make a very good tent. The soldier showed how to shape it, and they soon, by his direction, made their tent, and fitted it with poles or staves ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... not sail so well as the Success, Clipperton used to shorten sail, particularly at night, and shewed us lights on all necessary occasions. Towards evening of that day, he stretched about two leagues a-head of us, and I could not see that he lowered even a topgallant-sail for us to come up with him. I kept standing after him however, till almost a-shore on the breakers, when I had to tack and stand out to sea. Next morning no ship was to be seen, which reduced us to the most terrible ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the sea. The collision had been so violent as to stave in some of the planks of her hull. After the first collision, the galley situated before the fore-mast had broken its fastenings. The door between Captain Len Guy's and the mate's cabins was torn away from the hinges. The topmast and the topgallant-mast had come down after the back-stays parted, and fresh fractures could plainly be seen as high as the cap ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... did not fail on this occasion to keep up its established character for bad weather. A severe gale set in from the east, which speedily increased to a storm. A sailor fell from "the third stage of the mainmast," (the main topgallant yard,) and was killed on the deck; and as the inhospitable shores of Africa were close under their lee, the ship appears for some time to have been in considerable danger. But in this (to him) novel scene of peril, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... gales and hazy weather; saw a seal and several pieces of weed. At noon, latitude 51 deg. 12', longitude 173 deg. 17' W. The wind veered to the N. and N.E. by N., blew a strong gale by squalls, which split an old topgallant sail, and obliged us to double-reef the top-sails; but in the evening the wind moderated, and veered to W.N.W., when we loosed a reef out of each top-sail; and found the variation of the compass to be 9 deg. 52' E., being then in the latitude 51 deg. 47', longitude 172 deg. 21' ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... was launched upon the sea of his yearnings, and voyaging behind the hurricane of passion. And, as usual, he hid nothing from his hearers. Then he hove to, and, as it were, climbed to the main-topgallant-sail in order to announce: ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... tail of Ichi's words. A heavy, ominous rumbling came out of the black depths. Martin recalled hearing the same sound the day before, when he was on the topgallant-yard. And suddenly the hard, packed sand began to crawl beneath his feet, things swayed dizzily before his eyes, and a sharp nausea attacked the pit ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the fore-topgallant yard, sir, a bit ago, just to look to the strap of the jewel-block, which wants some sarvice on it, and I see'd her over the land, blowin' off steam and takin' in her kites. Afore I got out of the cross-trees, she was head to wind under bare-poles, and if she had n't anchored, she ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the views of their leader. They could be heard chatting, discussing, arguing, calculating the different chances of an encounter, and observing the vast expanse of the ocean. Voluntary watches from the crosstrees of the topgallant sail were self-imposed by more than one who would have cursed such toil under any other circumstances. As often as the sun swept over its daily arc, the masts were populated with sailors whose feet itched and couldn't hold still on the planking of the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... nature could stand to keep forever on the extreme alert, day after dreary day, through the deadly boredom of a long blockade. Like caged eagles the crews passed many a weary week of dull monotony without the chance of swooping on a chase. "Smoke ho!" would be called from the main-topgallant cross-tree. "Where away?" would be called back from the deck. "Up the river, Sir!"—and there it would stay, the very mark of hope deferred. Occasionally a cotton ship would make a dash, with lights out on a dark night, or through a dense fog, when her smoke might sometimes ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... 177 deg. 22'. S. 31 E. 138'; to Circle 191'. The wind increased in the first watch last night to a moderate gale. The ship close hauled held within two points of her course. Topgallant sails and mainsail were furled, and later in the night the wind gradually crept ahead. At 6 A.M. we were obliged to furl everything, and throughout the day we have been plunging against a stiff breeze and moderate sea. This afternoon by keeping a little to eastward of the course, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the captain's log, "was crossed on the 65th day out, in lat. 35-1/2 degs. south, and the longitude was run down in the parallel of 42 degs. south. Light winds stuck to the barque persistently, and as an illustration of the tedious weather, it may be mentioned that not a topgallant sail was taken in from Biscay to St. Paul's, and the average running in crossing the Southern Ocean was only 161 miles per day." The last land sighted was the Island of Trinidad—an uninhabited rock—in lat. 20 deg. 45' south, ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... saw a man's figure, dimly outlined in the gloom, slip from the topgallant forecastle and quickly descend the rope. It was evidently one of the men taking "French" leave, and it was the sentry's duty to give the alarm at once. But "Hod" had other views in this particular case. Hastily stepping back into the shadows, he laid his gun upon the floor ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... she got into latitude 37 deg. or 38 deg. south, and a little to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, when suddenly one night, when running before a strong gale, she came crushing into ice. The shock was so severe that her fore and main topmasts and mizzen-topgallant masts went by the board, and the foremast-head sprung. The hull was considerably shattered, and the main covering-board split up from forward as far aft as ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... the water, all awash from the break of her topgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the green seas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed a great mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship without a soul! A wisp of a flag, upside down, still floated in her slackened rigging; swinging falls dangled ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... quick at detecting the resemblance, and hailed her approach in thrilling nautical terms, such as: "Why didn't ye reef yer topgallant, ma!" when the handkerchief was torn off her head; and "hang to the main-royal, ma," as Grandma's apron was caught up and borne, wildly fluttering, about her ears; and "keep your ballast, ma," with frequent ejaculations of "Lor', how she ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the captain,' replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... was given to the people to attend to their own affairs. The frigate, too, seemed to be aware that it was the moment for the siesta of vessels as well as of men; for she clewed up her royals and topgallant-sails, brailed her jib and spanker, hauled up her courses, and lay on the water as motionless as if sticking on a shoal. The two vessels were barely long gunshot apart, and, under ordinary circumstances, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression on Western foreigners, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... rise at 5 a.m., lash up their hammocks and carry them to the upper deck for storage. One half of the boys of the watch take a bath and are inspected before dressing by the instructors. All the other boys in the ship scrub decks. Breakfast is piped at 7 a.m. At 8 a.m. the topgallant mast is hoisted, and the upper yards are crossed. Eight bells are struck, the national anthem is played, and the yards are ordered to be swayed across' at one and the same time. There is discipline! Decks are swept, the mess deck receiving special ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... pierced for twenty guns, only ten small ones being mounted. The other ports were provided with imposing wooden dummies. She had a high poop and a topgallant forecastle. The four partners, with James Lewis, acting captain's clerk, and one other, with the two mates, slept in the cabin or wardroom below the poop. Forward of this main cabin was a large room extending across the ship, called the steerage, in which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... when soon afterwards it came on to blow very hard, and at eleven she began to drive. More cable was veered away, and this brought her up; but in the morning, it coming on to blow harder, she drove again. All the appliances of seamanship were put into operation, but still she drove, when topgallant masts were got down, and yards and topmasts struck; and now, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... now hoisted aloft, the topgallant-sails set, and the anchor weighed; and, with a fresh breeze off the land, the first officer sound asleep and dreaming of "the girl he left behind him," a press of sail, and the starboard watch under the charge of Mr. Coffin, spinning ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... minutes from the commencement of the firing, and falling, together with the main-topsail yard, across the larboard fore and fore-topsail braces, rendered our head-yards unmanageable the remainder of the action. At eight minutes the gaff and main-topgallant-mast came down, and at twenty minutes from the beginning of the action, every brace and most of the rigging was shot away. A few minutes after separating from the Frolic, both her masts fell upon deck, the main-mast going close by the ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the 10th, there was a dreadful storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, during which the mainmast of one of the Dutch East Indiamen was split, and carried away by the deck; and the maintop-mast and topgallant-mast were shivered to pieces. The stroke was probably directed by an iron spindle, which was at the maintop gallantmast head. As this ship lay very near the Endeavour, she could scarcely have avoided sharing the same fate, had it not been for the conducting ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... few minutes the schooner, under her mizen, brigantine, topsail, and topgallant sail, loosed from her moorings and made full sail through the straits. In an hour the capital of Denmark seemed to sink below the distant waves, and the Valkyria was skirting the coast by Elsinore. In my nervous frame of mind ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
