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More "Topsail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the topsail dipped over the watery sky before breakers begin to thunder on the sand reefs. Air and earth lash to fury. Sails are torn from the ship of the marquis. His {24} masts go overboard, and the vessel is driven, helpless as a chip in a maelstrom, clear ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... brought the two of us to an inn on the West Coast, and all its windows opened on a wide harbour, hill-enclosed. Only small coasting craft were there, mostly ketches; but we had topsail schooners also and barquantines, those ascending and aerial rigs that would be flamboyant but for the transverse spars of the foremast, giving one who scans them the proper ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... with a heavy swell, a strong gale, and a mist so thick that land, sea, and sky were confounded in one general obscurity. The rain and the heavy spray raised by the storm, and the coming on of night, made it necessary to put the Uranie under a close-reefed topsail and jib, under which pressure of sail she behaved splendidly. The only available course was to run before the wind, and the travellers had just begun to feel thankful for their good fortune in being driven by the storm far away from the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... for which none are ready, dashes in, and with it tumble ashore, in one great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, stout hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail down, forestay-sail in tatters, keel up, everything gone to pieces in the swash ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... not yet returned, she was surprised to see the supposed vessel here. To add to her perplexity, she could not be positive, now that it came to a real nautical query, whether the craft of Neigh's friends had one mast or two, for she had caught but a fragmentary view of the topsail over the apple-trees. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of surprise, that the rigging and sails of the Resolution should be essentially damaged, and even worn out, and yet, in all this great run, which had been made in every latitude between nine and seventy-one, she did not spring either lowmast, topmast, lower or topsail yard; nor did she so much as break a lower or topmast shroud. These happy circumstances were owing to the good properties of the vessel, and the singular care ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... take a raking position under the stern of the "Hope," and to board her without a shot being fired. But as Mugford, at the head of the boarders, clambered over the taffrail, he heard the captain of the "Hope" order the men to cut the topsail halliards and ties, with the intention of so crippling the ship that the British squadron ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... called propriety. It was all she could do to restrain herself from dancing on the little deck half swept by the tiller. The boat of a schooner which lay at the quay towed them out of the harbour. Then the creature spread her wings like a bird —mainsail and gaff topsail, staysail and jib—leaped away to leeward, and seemed actually to bound over the waves. Malcolm sat at the tiller, and Blue ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... a well-defined, narrow, lake-like watercourse, which was entered not long after I debouched from Alligator Lake. Stump Inlet having closed up eighteen months before my visit, the sound and its tributaries received tidal water from New Topsail Inlet. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... this immediate region, save the hundred or more on Sullivan's Island and the one or two exotics in the streets of Charleston. In the middle of the Ashley, which is here more than a quarter of a mile wide, lies anchored a topsail schooner, the nursery of the South Carolina navy. I never saw it sail anywhere; but then my opportunities of observation were limited. Quite a number of boys are on board of it, studying maritime matters; and I can bear witness that they are sufficiently advanced to row themselves ashore. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... that some of the older and more experienced hands, though now borne down by the general feeling of insubordination, would side with us if only we could show a strong hand. If so, there would not be seamanship enough in the rest to set a topsail or read a chart; and every moment the breeze was freshening and ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Used aboard yachts for bending on the gaff topsail halliards. It consists of two turns around a spar or ring, then a half hitch around the standing part and through the turns on the spar, and another half hitch above it ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... the young of every race. Wild winds carried away some clothes and cooking-dishes from the ship; there was a birth and a death, and occasional illness, besides the dire seasickness. John Howland, "the lustie young man," fell overboard but he caught hold of the topsail halyard which hung extended and so held on "though he was sundry fathoms under water," until he was pulled up by a rope and rescued by a boat-hook. [Footnote: Bradford's History of Plymouth ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... you talking about? Yes.... [To MOZGOVOY] Yes, if there's a head-wind you must... let's see... you must hoist your foretop halyards and topsail halyards! The order is: "On the cross-trees to the foretop halyards and topsail halyards" and at the same time, as the sails get loose, you take hold underneath of the foresail and fore-topsail halyards, stays ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... 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," including an immense gaff-topsail, which extended on poles far above the topmast head, and far beyond the peak, a balloon-jib, a jib-topsail, and a three-cornered studding-sail. The balloon-jib, or the jib-topsail, was bent on with snap-hooks ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... sailor men soon acquired the habit of the sea, growing accustomed to meeting fair and foul weather with an equally good face, rejoicing with us sailor men at a fair wind and full sail and standing by top-gallant and topsail halyards when the prospects were more leaden coloured and the barometer falling. We numbered about forty now, which meant heaps of beef to haul on ropes and plenty of trimmers to shift the coal from the hold to the bunkers. One or ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... soothed into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have been heard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... gaining the shelter of the river; but the Palmetto was compelled to anchor outside and await a higher tide. The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf. We felt the most serious apprehensions for the safety of the unfortunate bark; but as the water would not permit her to cross ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... spent several days under a close-reefed main-topsail and a reefed fore-sail; but at length reached an anchorage on the eastern shore of Flinders Island within the north-east side of a granitic lump called Babel Islet. The flood tide came from the north-east at this anchorage, which can only ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... drew up the Strait from the southward, and blew strong for twenty-four hours from that quarter. In the course of the night, and while lying-to under the storm-sails, an iceberg was discovered, by its white appearance, under our lee. The main-topsail being thrown aback we were enabled to drop clear of this immense body, which would have been a dangerous neighbour in a heavy seaway. The wind moderated on the 11th, but on the following day another gale came on, which for nine or ten hours blew in most tremendous gusts from the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... received a wound through his body about an hour after the action commenced, when standing at the gangway. The enemy had then suffered much, having lost the yard-arms of both his lower yards, and had no sails drawing but his foresail, main-top-gallant-sail, and mizen-topsail, the others flying about. We had engaged her to leeward, which, from the heel his ship had, prevented him from making our rigging and sails the objects of his fire; though I am well convinced he had laid his guns down as much as possible. When I assumed the command, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... ship was la Surveillante, which means the watchful maid; She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade. Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail. On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... buttoned straight down. This great coat had two pockets on each side, into which its owner's hands were deeply inserted, and so close did his arms lie to his sides, that they appeared nothing more than as would battens nailed to a topsail yard. The only deviation from the perpendicular was from the insertion of a speaking-trumpet under his left arm, at right angles with his body. It had evidently seen much service, was battered, and the clack Japan worn ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... how matters stood, ordered the Major to come aboard his own ship, while he put his lieutenant, Richards, to command Bonnet's vessel. The poor Major was most depressed by this undignified change in his affairs, until Blackbeard lost his ship in Topsail Inlet, and finding himself at a disadvantage, promptly surrendered to the King's proclamation and allowed Bonnet to reassume command of his own sloop. But Major Bonnet had been suffering from qualms of conscience latterly, so he sailed to Bath Town in North Carolina, where he, too, surrendered ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... have shown no more than a single close-reefed sail; but as we were going before it, we could carry on. Accordingly, hands were sent aloft and a reef shaken out of the topsails, and the reefed foresail set. When we came to masthead the topsail yards, with all hands at the halyards, we struck up, "Cheerly, men," with a chorus which might have been heard ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... charge and puffed with us down the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... away when he might, and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any help other than his own, and without any resources save those which his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in the thirties, not so very long before my time, that a Captain Rous, of the British navy, achieved renown—I ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... everything was ready for getting the brigantine under way. Her fore-topsail—or foretawsail as Spike called it—was loose, the fasts were singled, and a spring had been carried to a post in the wharf, that was well forward of the starboard bow, and the brig's head turned to the southwest, or down the stream, and consequently ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... his superstitions, and even the young apprentice boys soon discovered his weakness, and terrorised him whenever they got the chance. One awful morning in November, 1864, the vessel was hove-to under close-reefed main topsail. All hands had been on deck during the whole night, which was one of raging storm and disaster. The decks had been swept, and the galley carried away in the general destruction, so that no food could be cooked on deck. The captain ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... that remote highway towards the North Pole; but this was not a whit more novel than to hear the pianoforte, and played, too, with both taste and skill. While another 'lion' of those parts that met our view was a topsail schooner lying in the river at the lower fort, which made occasional trips into Great Lake Winnepeg of the North, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... little brig was close hauled upon the wind, and lying over, as it then seemed to me, nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head sea was beating against her bows with the noise and force almost of a sledge-hammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsail halyards had been let go, and the great sails filling out and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... danger was visible ahead on the allotted course. But time was precious. Delay would lose us. As I felt confident of my opinion, I turned abruptly from the disobedient mariners, and letting go the main brace, brought the vessel to with the topsail aback. Quickly, then, I ordered the watch as it rushed aft, to clew up the mainsail;—but alas! no one would obey; and, in the fracas, the captain, who rushed on deck ignorant of the facts or danger, ordered me back to my state-room with curses ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of the wheel as at the brows of tall and beetling cliffs. The gale was white with snow, and dark with the blinding fall of it too, when I came on deck at noon. I was in the chief mate's, or port watch, as it is called. The ship was running under a double-reefed topsail—in those days we carried single sails,—reefed foresail, close-reefed foretopsail, and maintopmast staysail. The snow made a London fog of the atmosphere; forward of the galley the ship was out of sight at times when it came thundering ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... a matter o' three years ago. I was bo'sun on the Swallow, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to Calcutta. There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an' square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon to the Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what should I do but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the Swallow was in a manner of speakin' on the wing. Not but what it sarved me right, for what ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... has "nine sails." Marsden thinks 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 ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... direct your fore lights to her trim; every rope just where it should be, and not a line too much; and when she fills well with a stiff breeze, not a wrinkle in all her canvas from the gib to the gaff topsail. Then observe how she dips in the bows, and what a breadth she 151has; why she's fit for any seas; and if the Arrow ever shoots past her, I'll forfeit every shot in my lockers." "Avast there! master Horace," said our master at the helm, who was an old Cowes ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... your aim; our only chance is to wing him." The men—with cutlasses buckled round their waists, and many with nothing but their trousers on—instinctively cheered. Blaze went our cannonades and long gun in succession, and down came the fore-topsail; the head of the topmast had been shot away. "That will do; now knock off, my boys, and let us run for it. Make ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... in Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope. Sailed again on the 7th of May, and fell in with a favourable wind; and too much of it. For six days we were scudding before it under a close-reefed main-topsail and fore-staysail. On the 10th we lost one of the best men in the ship, the sailmaker, Charles Downing, who fell overboard; the ship was rounded to, the life-buoy let go, but we saw nothing of him. June 7th saw Christmas Islands, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the gasket on the fore-topsail yard, and dropped off, as though he had fallen, though he clung to the rope, and was brought up with a jerk ten or twelve feet below the spar. Some of his gang, believing he had really fallen, screamed, and the attention of the whole crew was drawn off from their duty. When ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... deck this morning, found the wind had come out nearly dead ahead, and the ship barely heading her course under a topsail breeze, with her ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... Barely has the topsail dipped over the watery sky before breakers begin to thunder on the sand reefs. Air and earth lash to fury. Sails are torn from the ship of the marquis. His {24} masts go overboard, and the vessel is driven, helpless as a chip in a maelstrom, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... aboard, some of whom, as he remarked, were 'very keen on shanties,' and their suggestion of passing away the time by singing some was received with enthusiasm. The whole party of about thirty apprentices at once collected themselves aboard one vessel, sheeted home the main topsail, and commenced to haul it up to the tune of 'Boney was a warrior,' changing to 'Haul the Bowlin'' for 'sweating-up.' In the enthusiasm of their singing, and the absence of any officer to call ''Vast hauling,' they ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... Barbadoes, and a fair wind blowing From nor'-nor'-west; and I, an idle lubber, Laid neck and heels by that confounded bond! I said to Ralph, says I, "What's to be done?" Says he: "Just slip your hawser in the night; Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon." But that won't do; because, you see, the owners Somehow or other are mixed up with it. Here are King Charles's Twelve Good Rules, that Cole Thinks as important as the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the afternoon the declension had become so remarkable, that he felt uneasy, and, somewhat to the surprise of the crew,—for there was now scarce a breath of air,—furled his slight sails, treble reefed his topsails, had his top-gallant and royal yards and gaff topsail bent on deck, got his flying jib-boom in, &c., ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... assist Martin Harris, and soon the mainsail and jib were set, and they turned away from the dock and began the journey down the Hudson. As soon as they were clear of the other boats, the skipper set his topsail and flying jib, and they bowled along at a merry gait, the wind being very nearly in their favor and neither ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... wind persistently pounding at her day after day, he had thought, as some more than ordinarily angry puff whitened the water to windward and broke him off his course, with the weather leech of his close-reefed topsail shivering, how pleasant it must be to be a landsman, to go where he pleased in spite of wind or weather. Ah! they were the happy ones, those lucky landsmen, who could always do as they chose, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... exhibitions of daring by which this young officer earned his promotion to the rank of a commander, while still hardly more than a boy, were the ascent of New River Inlet in the steamer "Ellis," for the purpose of destroying the enemy's salt-works, and a blockade-runner at New Topsail Inlet; and finally, the great achievement of his life, the destruction of the ram "Albemarle" in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and most impressively were the services ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... the spar may be considered by some as objectionable, (an old argument against double-topsail yards). The spar used for the reef may be about one-half the diameter of the yard on which it is to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... told him that he was sure it would be well pleasing to the King that care should be taken of not endangering the Duke of York; and, after much persuasion, Harman was heard to say, "Why, if it must be, then lower the topsail." And so did shorten sail, to the loss, as the Parliament will have it, of the greatest victory that ever was, and which would have saved all the expence of blood, and money, and honour, that followed; and this they do resent, so as to put it to the question, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... again spent several days under a close-reefed main-topsail and a reefed fore-sail; but at length reached an anchorage on the eastern shore of Flinders Island within the north-east side of a granitic lump called Babel Islet. The flood tide came from the north-east at this anchorage, which can ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Why—why—no wonder old Babbitt looked as if the main topsail yard had fell on him. Tut, tut, tut! Well, I declare! Now what do you suppose put him up ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... tornado struck us last night. We were prepared for it, however, with nothing on the ship but the topsail, clewed down, and the fore-topmast-staysail. The last mentioned sail blew away, and the ship lay over with her guns in the water. In five minutes, nevertheless, we were going before the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... a craft like your mother, so trim and neat, ropes all taut, stays well set up, white hammock-cloths spread every day in the week, and when under way, with a shawl streaming out like a silk ensign, and such a rakish gaff topsail bonnet, with pink pennants; why, it was for all the world as if I was keeping company with a tight little frigate after rolling down channel with a fleet of colliers; but, howsomever, fine feathers don't make fine birds, and handsome ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... the captain. "Mr. Johnson," he called to the first mate, who was a big blonde-haired Swede, "this young man wants to go aloft. Will you let him help your man take in that fore-topsail?" ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... sails of the Resolution should be essentially damaged, and even worn out, and yet, in all this great run, which had been made in every latitude between nine and seventy-one, she did not spring either lowmast, topmast, lower or topsail yard; nor did she so much as break a lower or topmast shroud. These happy circumstances were owing to the good properties of the vessel, and the singular care and ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... greater part 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 ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... in the midst of ice, and we had had snow and hail almost every day. Several times our decks and rigging were covered with them. Our shrouds and sails were frozen. On the 10th of January, it was impossible to work our fore-topsail. The cold was severe, for men accustomed to a warm climate, and who were lightly clad. Many had chilblains on the hands and feet. Still they were forced constantly to tack about, bring to, get under weigh, and take soundings at least once a day. One of the sailors belonging ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Blackbeard, and the latter, quickly appreciating how matters stood, ordered the Major to come aboard his own ship, while he put his lieutenant, Richards, to command Bonnet's vessel. The poor Major was most depressed by this undignified change in his affairs, until Blackbeard lost his ship in Topsail Inlet, and finding himself at a disadvantage, promptly surrendered to the King's proclamation and allowed Bonnet to reassume command of his own sloop. But Major Bonnet had been suffering from qualms of conscience latterly, so he sailed ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... steward. Lacy, with Captain Burr, was pacing to and fro smoking his pipe, and laughing heartily at Sukie de Boos's attempts to make his wife smoke a cigarette. Presently old Bruce came along with the second mate and some men to set a new gaff-topsail, and the ladies rose to go below, so as to be ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... clear dome of stars. There is a gloom around as one gets nearer and nearer the bays and cliffs of this lonely island; and now one hears the sound of breakers on the rocks. Hamish and his men are on the alert. The topsail has been lowered. The heavy cable of the anchor lies ready by the windlass. And then, as the Umpire glides into smooth water, and her head is brought round to the light breeze, away goes the anchor with a rattle that awakes a thousand echoes; and all the startled birds among the rocks ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... assisted the riggers in "bending sails," and received an ill-natured rebuke from a crusty old tar, for my stupidity in failing to understand him when he told me to "pass the gasket" while furling the fore-topsail. Instead of passing the gasket around the yard, I ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... trained and fired. The heavy boom rang out over the bluffs and water. The ball went through the Royal George from stern to stem, sending splinters as high as her mizzen topsail yard, killing fourteen men ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... to reduce sail, and the men lay out on the topsail yards. I noticed that my friend Fred Borders was the first man to spring up the shrouds and lay out on the main-topsail yard. It was so dark that I could scarcely see the masts. While I was gazing up, I thought I observed a dark object drop from the yard; at the same moment there was a loud shriek, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... same are Inlets of several Depths of Water. Some of their Channels admit only of Sloops, Brigantines, small Barks, and Ketches; and such are Currituck, Ronoak, and up the Sound above Hatteras: Whilst others can receive Ships of Burden, as Ocacock, Topsail-Inlet, and Cape-Fair; as ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... up his voice and hailed the ship. Immediately, the most magnificent fore-topsail-yard-ahoy voice I had ever heard bellowed a reply, "Ahoy, the boat! ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... aboard yachts for bending on the gaff topsail halliards. It consists of two turns around a spar or ring, then a half hitch around the standing part and through the turns on the spar, and another half hitch above it around ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... neighbourhood of the wheel as at the brows of tall and beetling cliffs. The gale was white with snow, and dark with the blinding fall of it too, when I came on deck at noon. I was in the chief mate's, or port watch, as it is called. The ship was running under a double-reefed topsail—in those days we carried single sails,—reefed foresail, close-reefed foretopsail, and maintopmast staysail. The snow made a London fog of the atmosphere; forward of the galley the ship was out of sight at times when ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... All this, finished just as Cuffe reappeared on deck, was done by the watch and in about five minutes. As soon as sail was thus taken in the helm was put to port, the ship came up to the wind on the starboard tack, and the main-topsail was laid to the mast, bringing the yawl under her lee and close alongside of the ship. This manoeuvre was no sooner executed than a seaman ran lightly down the vessel's side and entered the yawl. After examining ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the brig fired at the privateer showed she was broad awake. Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. "Have you mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail?"—"Aye, aye, sir."—"Then keep your course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night, and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall haul my wind after the suspicious ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... maidens passed the hotel, a group of French naval officers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable gold lace dangling in festoons from their shoulders,—"topsail halyards" the American midshipmen called them. Philip looked hard ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of his fluency, to which he turned an attentive ear, struggled for the possession of his broad simple face. He scowled and beamed at me, and watched with satisfaction the undeniable effect of his phraseology. Dark frowns ran swiftly over the placid sea, and the brigantine, with her fore-topsail to the mast and her main-boom amidships, seemed bewildered amongst the cat's-paws. He told me further, gnashing his teeth, that the Rajah was a "laughable hyaena" (can't imagine how he got hold of hyaenas); while somebody else was many times falser ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... stiffening quite a strip of it," he said. "Well, I guess I can somehow fix the thing up so as nobody will notice it. It should be easier than putting a new cloth in a topsail, and I've a mending outfit in ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... lives on this agreeable island; at any rate, they determined to sail no farther in our company. The captain was ashore, settling his accounts and receiving his papers; the chief-mate had given orders to loose the fore-topsail and weigh anchor; and we were all in the cuddy, quietly sipping our wine, when we heard three cheers and a violent scuffling on deck. In a few moments down rushed the mate in a state of delirious excitement, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... men," cried Mr. Leach, placing the end of the main-topsail halyards in the hands of half-a-dozen athletic steerage passengers, who had all the inclination in the world to be doing, though uncertain where to lay their hands; "lay hold, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll try to bring you off," he said, pointing toward the boat. "If you don't signal I'll stand off and on with a thimble-headed topsail over the mainsail. You'll start back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the wind ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... had already opened upon her with his long gun. Captain Horton pressed onward without noticing the balls, which as yet had not injured hull or sail. But as the chase approached nearer and nearer, the shots began to take effect—a heavy ball made a huge rent in the mizzen-topsail—another dashed in the galley, and a third tore up the companion-way, and still another cut down the fore-topmast, and materially decreased ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... expected operations. The two following days were calm. Orders had been given to pass the Sound as soon as the wind would permit; and, on the afternoon of the 29th, the ships were cleared for action, with an alacrity characteristic of British seamen. At daybreak on the 30th it blew a topsail breeze from N.W. The signal was made, and the fleet moved on in order of battle; Nelson's division in the van, Sir Hyde's in the centre, and Admiral ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... took all the men's clothes that I could find, and a spare fore-topsail, a hammock, and some bedding; and with this I loaded my second raft, and brought them all safe on shore, to ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind was moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea, and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy street under the jeers of ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... and the West Indies. They had the good fortune to escape the Spanish cruisers, which were so dangerous to English vessels sailing at that day upon this course. On the 14th day of July they first saw the coast of North Carolina, probably at a point just below Old Topsail Inlet. They continued northward along the low, barren barriers of sand which divide the waters of the ocean from those of Pamlica and Croatan Sounds, and, two days later, came to anchor off an island called Wocoken, in what was ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... me terribly about the instep; and I was obliged to gash them cruelly, which went to my very heart. The legs were quite long, coming a good way up toward my knees, and the edges were mounted with red morocco. The sailors used to call them my "gaff- topsail-boots." And sometimes they used to call me "Boots," and sometimes "Buttons," on account of the ornaments on my pantaloons ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... should enter first; but I stopped them, reflecting that these restless children might easily capsize our vessel. I remembered that savage nations made use of an out-rigger, to prevent their canoe oversetting, and this I determined to add to my work. I fixed two portions of a topsail-yard, one over the prow, the other across the stern, in such a manner that they should not be in the way in pushing off our boat from the wreck. I forced the end of each yard into the bunghole of an empty brandy-cask, to keep them ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... well-defined, narrow, lake-like watercourse, which was entered not long after I debouched from Alligator Lake. Stump Inlet having closed up eighteen months before my visit, the sound and its tributaries received tidal water from New Topsail Inlet. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... gave orders to lower the topsail and haul in the jib. Several reefs were also taken in the mainsail, and the boys stood ready to bring down the rest of the sheet with a rush at the first word from ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... the wind, Then your topsail you must mind. Comes the wind before the rain, Haul your topsails up again. Cape ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... spanker. At noon the sun was obscured. Sunday, 10th, the barometer falling fast, with the gale increasing, close reefed the topsails. At noon heavy gusts. The courses were taken in and furled. At 6 the fore-topsail was taken in, and the ship hove-to under the main topsail and the main trysail. All the sails were re-secured, the top-gallant yards sent down, and everything prepared for the storm, which it was evident was now approaching. At noon the ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... is called the yard. It is different from a boom or gaff, by reason of its lying against the mast instead of having one end butting on the mast. Anything belonging to the mainmast should be distinguished by the prefix main. Thus, there are the mainsail, the mainboom, main-topsail, etc. ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... intensely hot and I had climbed for a little air into one of the boats lying in the skids. The shadow of the main-topsail screened me from the sun; there was just enough wind to keep the canvas doing its work in silence. It was Sunday and the whole ship was curiously quiet. But as I lay in my little shelter I was presently disturbed by Pondicherry (that was what he was called by everyone), who ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... the captain's answer. "Watch, ahoy! Brace round those topsail-yards a bit more! Cheerily, men, with ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... head, hitched up his trowsers, and, taking the glass from the mate, rolled away up the fore-rigging. Meanwhile Mr. Binks walked forward, stopping a moment at the caboose to take a tin pot of coffee from the cook, and then, going on to the topsail-sheet bitts, he carefully seated himself, and leisurely began to stir up the sugar in his beverage with an iron spoon, making a little cymbal music with it on the outside while he gulped it down. He had not been many ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... loose her hawsers. He looked around him as if he had just awakened from sleep-walking and did not know where he found himself. He gazed up at the gaunt mainmast, black against the green night sky, at the main topsail, shaking still as the men ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... on the allotted course. But time was precious. Delay would lose us. As I felt confident of my opinion, I turned abruptly from the disobedient mariners, and letting go the main brace, brought the vessel to with the topsail aback. Quickly, then, I ordered the watch as it rushed aft, to clew up the mainsail;—but alas! no one would obey; and, in the fracas, the captain, who rushed on deck ignorant of the facts or danger, ordered me back to my state-room ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... forecastle. Her quarter-deck was broken with a poop, which rose high out of the water. The bowsprit staved very much, and was to appearance almost as a fourth mast: the more so, as she carried a square spritsail and sprit-topsail. On her quarter-deck and poop-bulwarks were fixed in sockets implements of warfare now long in disuse, but what were then known by the names of cohorns and patteraroes; they turned round on a swivel, and were ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are, cruising slowly up and down, close in shore, spouting lazily, and showing their wet, gleaming backs and gaff-topsail-like dorsal fins as they rise, roll, and dive again.... Some of them have nicknames, and each is well known ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... I said; "perhaps these things are mere details. However, I would be under deep obligations to you if you'd change 'em from barkentine to schooner rig, and lower away this gaff-topsail which now sticks up under my chin, so that I can luff and come up in the wind without capsizing. And say, what is that hard ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... yachtlike in shape or nimbleness. With their length seldom more than thrice their width of beam, with narrow tower-like poops, with broad-shouldered bows and bowsprit weighed down with spritsail yards, and with no canvas higher than a topsail, these clumsy caravels could make but little progress against head-winds, and the amount of tacking and beating to and fro was sometimes enough to quadruple the length of the voyage. For want of metallic sheathing below the waterline the ship was ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... created a decided sensation in the bay, and our young skipper had heard glowing accounts of her, which made him anxious to see her with his own eyes. Her crew were hauling down her gaff-topsails and her jib-topsail, and it was evident that she intended to anchor in the harbor. Her foresail was lowered, and then her jib. As she lost her headway, the anchor went overboard near where the Skylark lay. Bobtail began ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... also a sloop-rigged vessel. We need not enter here into a discussion as to the comparative merits of sloops and cutters and smacks. It is enough if we state that when it was realised that a vessel of say 100 tons, sloop-rigged, with her one mast, mainsail, and two headsails and square topsail (set forward of the mast on a yard) could be handled with fewer men and therefore less expense than a lugger of similar size; was also more suitable for manoeuvring in narrow channels, and for entering and leaving small harbours, the fishermen, coasters, and so on took ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... I went on board as soon as possible in a canoe, having only three men along with me. Before I could reach the ship, I could distinctly see a large ship, with a Spanish flag at her fore-topmast-head, and her fore-topsail a-back. At this sight, two of my three men were ready to faint, and if it had not been for my boatswain, I doubt if I should have got on board; and if the Spanish admiral had acted with vigour, he might have taken ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... seemed to me, nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head sea was beating against her bows with the noise and force almost of a sledge-hammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsail halyards had been let go, and the great sails filling out and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... indications. They were decidedly unfavorable. It was probable that a squall, if not a tornado, would soon burst upon them, and he deemed it prudent, even at the risk of being shot, to haul down the jib-topsail, the staysail, and the gaff-topsails. This he succeeded in doing; but he had scarcely finished the job, without giving himself time to stow the extra sails, before he saw the boat of the pursuers dashing rapidly towards the Isabel. The slave-hunters had ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... sun's rays by day, and the river damp by night, without protection.'[2] Still more used the Durham boat for the river journey. This famous craft was a large, flat-bottomed barge, with round bow and square stern. With centre-board down and mainsail and topsail set on its fixed mast, it made fair progress in the wider stretches. But on the up trip it was for the most part poled or 'set' along. Each of the crew took his stand at the bow end of one of the narrow gangways which ran along both sides of the boat, ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... replied I. "Whew! there's a nasty shot," cried I, as one came in and upset half a dozen of the marines, who were hauling upon the mizzen-topsail sheet, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... forty leagues east of the island of Madeira, a swallow* (* Hirundo rustica, Linn.) perched on the topsail-yard. It was so fatigued, that it suffered itself to be easily taken. It was remarkable that a bird, in that season, and in calm weather, should fly so far. In the expedition of d'Entrecasteaux, a common swallow was seen 60 leagues distant from Cape Blanco; but this ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... man doing his utmost at the same moment. This is regulated by the song. And here is the true singing of the deep sea. It is not recreation; it is an essential part of the work. It mastheads the topsail-yards, on making sail; it starts the anchor from the domestic or foreign mud; it "rides down the main tack with a will"; it breaks out and takes on board cargo; it keeps the pumps (the ship's,—not the sailor's) going. A good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... highway towards the North Pole; but this was not a whit more novel than to hear the pianoforte, and played, too, with both taste and skill. While another 'lion' of those parts that met our view was a topsail schooner lying in the river at the lower fort, which made occasional trips into Great Lake Winnepeg of the North, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... his orders to his crew, the admiral was saying nothing. The topsail and jib were spread, and the sloop glided out of the estuary. The large man and his companions had bestowed themselves with what comfort they could about the bare deck. Belike, the thing big in their minds had been their departure from that critical ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... in the days before double topsail yards had reduced ships' crews, and the fo'cs'le of the Northumberland had a full company: a crowd of packet rats such as often is to be found on a Cape Horner "Dutchmen" [sic] Americans—men who were farm labourers and tending pigs in Ohio three months back, old ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... of the sea were ablaze with phosphorescence, and appeared to tower above the poop as high as the main-topsail-yard, and the sight of them sweeping along after the ship was positively appalling. The wind now began to increase in violence, literally tearing off the summits of the huge waves and sending them in spindrift hurtling across the deck like showers of shot that cut the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... shall be killed to-night." An hour later his ship was boarded by French pirates, and Lewis was despatched. After scratching the faces of nearly all the enemy, the cat ran up the mainmast, throwing off sparks and screeching, scrambled to the end of the topsail-yard, and leaped ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... headed us off a little rather suddenly, and when we had flattened in the jibs, we clewed down the topsails, while the two Benton boys got the spanker sheet aft. One of them was at the helm. I coiled down the mizzen-topsail downhaul myself, and was going aft to see how she headed up, when I stopped to look at a light, and leaned against the deck-house. While I was standing there I heard the two boys talking. It sounded as if they had talked of the same thing before, and as far as I ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... ordered the ship to be searched for a boy of this name in this disguise. The crew looked in the hold, and in the galley, and in the foretop, and on the quarter, and in the gaff, and the jib, and the topsail, and the boom, but they could not find Harold. They ransacked the cross-trees, and the engine-room, and the bowsprit; they explored the backstays, the stays, and the waist, but they found no stowaway. They examined truck and ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... in a place he calls Double Bay, during a storm "ABOUT 22nd December," and it may possibly have been the one Cook encountered on the 28th off the north end of the island. They were blown out of sight of land on the 13th, the main topsail being split, and next day both fore and mizzen topsails were lost, but they managed to bring up under shelter of a small island off Knuckle Point. On the 15th the latitude was found to be 34 degrees 6 minutes South, with land visible to the south-west, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... and Half-hitches. Clove Hitches. Gunners' Knots and Timber Hitches. Twists, Catspaws, and Blackwall Hitches. Chain Hitch. Rolling and Magnus Hitches. Studding-sail and Gaff-topsail Halyard Bends. Roband ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... in charge and puffed with us down the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew up ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in for the bay with all the sail she could make, and she came innocently into our very mouths, for we lay still till we saw her almost within gunshot, when, our foremost gears being stretched fore and aft, we first ran up our yards, and then hauled home the topsail sheets, the rope-yarns that furled them giving way of themselves; the sails were set in a few minutes; at the same time slipping our cable, we came upon her before she could get under way upon the other tack. They were so surprised that ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... had still sense enough to reflect that it would be little use to expect that the harassed mate would listen to reason then. Clawing his way up the ratlines he laid his chest upon the main-topsail-yard and worked his way out to the lower end of the long inclined spar. Here, still faint and dizzy, he hung with the footrope jammed against his heel, as he felt for the gasket that held the canvas to the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... points of the fore and mizzen-royal poles, are adorned with gilt balls, and over all, at the truck of the main sky-sail pole, floats a handsome red burgee, upon which a large G is visible. There are no yards across but the lower and topsail-yards, which are very long and heavy, precisely squared, and to which the sails are furled in an exceeding neat and seaman-like manner. The rigging is universally taut and trim; and it is easy to perceive ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... leaped out over the roof—cr-rack!—and the horse, presumably convinced that no speed other than a dead-run would ever again be demanded of it, tore frantically down the Avenue, the hansom rocking like a topsail-schooner in a heavy gale. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and Trundle with Kelson come to my assistance. O'Carroll grasped the man. "Haul away!" he shouted. In another instant he was on board again, with the man in his arms. The helm was put up, the ship righted, the man had got off the foreyard, and away the ship new, with the fore-topsail wildly bulging out right before the wind. In a few minutes it was blown from the bolt-ropes in strips, twisted and knotted together. The mainsail, not without difficulty, was handed, and we continued ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... only be appealed to through his superstitions, and even the young apprentice boys soon discovered his weakness, and terrorised him whenever they got the chance. One awful morning in November, 1864, the vessel was hove-to under close-reefed main topsail. All hands had been on deck during the whole night, which was one of raging storm and disaster. The decks had been swept, and the galley carried away in the general destruction, so that no food could be cooked on deck. The captain gave orders to the steward to light a fire in the ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... 90, was abreast and outside this interval, "that it was with difficulty I could keep betwixt them to engage, without firing upon them, and I was once very near on board the Egmont,"—next ahead of the Ocean. The Formidable kept her mizzen topsail aback much of the time, to deaden her way, to make the needed room ahead for the Ocean, and also to allow the rear ships to close. "At a quarter past one," testified Captain Maitland of the Elizabeth, 74, "we were very close behind the Formidable, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... capable of having their surface to be exposed to the wind increased by means of studding sails, which are narrow sails set on each side beyond the regular one, by means of small booms or yards, which can be slid out so as to extend the lower yards and topsail-yards: the upper parts of these additional sails hang from small yards suspended from the principal ones, and the boom of the lower studding-sails is hooked on to the chains. Thus each of the two principal ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... She was square-rigged on the foremast, carrying fore-topsail and fore-course. No jibs were set; neither, as far as he could see, was any sail set on the mainmast. The vessel's sides were painted green with a broad ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... stores in order to improve our sailing. Two of the enemy's frigates were now within gunshot and the two others nearing us fast. We had almost despaired of escaping, when fortunately one of our shot brought down the advanced frigate's fore topsail yard, and we soon found we were leaving her. The second yawed, and gave us a broadside; only two of her shot took effect by striking near the fore channels. Her yaw saved us, as we gained on her considerably. The wind had become light, which still further ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... sailor agreed, "but the wind is freshening every minute. She can't carry that topsail much longer. It's ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... sailing about; they are always the first in fishing or bathing parties; in short, they are for ever at some sailor-kind of work. At sea, their darling music is the loud whistle of the hardest storm-stay-sail breeze, with an occasional accompaniment of a split main-topsail. "The harder it blows, and the faster she goes," the merrier are they; "strong gales and squally" is the item they love best to chalk on the log-board; and even when the oldest top-men begin to hesitate about lying out ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... wholly passed away when he might, and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any help other than his own, and without any resources save those which his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in the thirties, not so very long before my time, that ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... had disappeared. But this time we had found, besides her general appearance and the cut of her sails, which no seaman could mistake, a mark by which any landsman must recognize her: on her fore-topsail there ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... that canvas, Skipper? It's bearing down to port, And it drives a blackish barquentine, with every topsail taut, There're guns upon her poop deck. There're cannon near her bow, And the bugler's bloomin' clarion, it shrills a how-de-row?' The skipper took a peep at her, his face turned ashen pale, His jaw began to tremble, and his ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Over she fell on her side and bumped along on the mud and shingle for a few yards. By repeated jerks she was eventually ours, but leaking so like a basket that we feared we should yet lose her. Pumps inside fortunately kept her free till we passed her topsail under her, and after dropping in sods and peat, we let the pressure from the outside keep them in place. When night fell I was played out, and told the crew they must let her sink. My two volunteer helpers, Albert Gould, of Bowdoin, and Paul ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... already on the main-yard, and the remainder, having completed the reefing of the fore-topsail, had descended from aloft forward and were on their way up the main-rigging to assist in the stowing of the main-sail, when a heavy black, threatening-looking cloud-bank, which lay stretched along the western horizon, was seen to suddenly ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... I see it," replied Noddy, who had been thoroughly instructed in these matters by the old man-of-war's-man of Woodville, though he had no practical experience in seamanship, even on as large a scale as a topsail schooner, which was the rig of ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... female, came down to the clipper which was thrown in the wind's eye long enough for those to get on board, or rather for three of them to do so; and then, as the other two pulled back to the shore, the schooner gradually came round under the force of her topsail, and one sail after another was distended and sheeted home until she looked to those on shore as though enveloped in canvas, and drove over the waters like ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... squall coming up from the S.W. brought a foul wind with it. It soon freshened, and by two o'clock in the morning the noise of the flapping sails, as the men were reefing them, and of the wind roaring through the rigging, was deafening. All next day we lay hove to under a close-reefed main- topsail, which, being interpreted, means that the only sail set was the main-topsail, and that that was close reefed; moreover, that the ship was laid at right angles to the wind and the yards braced sharp up. Thus a ship drifts very slowly, and remains steadier than she would otherwise; ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... wore on the sea and wind continued to rise, and the ship to plunge more and more. 'We shortened sail to main topsail and staysail, stopped engines and hove to, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the pinnaces having returned to the fleet, the Lord-Admiral, who had been lying off and on, now bore away with all his force in pursuit of the Spaniards. The Invincible Armada, already sorely crippled, was standing N.N.E. directly before a fresh topsail-breeze from the S.S.W. The English came up with them soon after nine o'clock A.M. off Gravelines, and found them sailing in a half-moon, the admiral and vice-admiral in the centre, and the flanks protected by the three remaining galeasses and by the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stretch to the westward with the wind at N.N.W., which increased in such a manner as to bring us under our two courses, after splitting a new main-topsail. At noon Cape Campbell bore W. by N., distant seven or eight leagues. At three in the afternoon the gale began to abate, and to veer more to the north, so that we fetched in with the land, under the Snowy Mountains, about four or five leagues to windward of the Lookers- on, where ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... but the Palmetto was compelled to anchor outside and await a higher tide. The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf. We felt the most serious apprehensions for the safety of the unfortunate bark; but as the water would not permit her to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... men stationed there, and then swarmed down by a back-stay to join the fighting on the deck. Another middy tried to attack the Chesapeake's mizzentop from the starboard mainyard arm, but being hindered by the foot of the topsail, stretched himself out on the mainyard arm, and from that post shot three of the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... I, "as I am a livin' sinner, that is neither a ship, nor a brigantine, nor a hermaphrodite, but a topsail schooner, that's a fact. What in natur' is the meanin' of all this? Perhaps the captain knows," so I called ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... stronger wave, for which none are ready, dashes in, and with it tumble ashore, in one great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, stout hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail down, forestay-sail in tatters, keel up, everything gone to pieces in the swash of ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... I had made the acquaintance of Dr. Perera, owner and editor of "El Commercio Jornal," and soon after the Spray was safely moored in Upper Topsail Reach, the doctor, who is a very enthusiastic yachtsman, came to pay me a visit and to carry me up the waterway of the lagoon to his country residence. The approach to his mansion by the waterside was guarded by his armada, a fleet of boats including a Chinese sampan, a Norwegian ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... accompaniment of vociferation and laughter. Among these we met several of the Nevada's officers, riding in the stiff, wooden style which Anglo-Saxons love, and a horde of jolly British sailors from H.M.S. Scout, rushing helter skelter, colliding with everybody, bestriding their horses as they would a topsail-yard, hanging on to manes and lassoing horns, and enjoying themselves thoroughly. In the shady tortuous streets we met hundreds more of native riders, clashing at full gallop without fear of the police. Many of the women were in flowing riding-dresses of pure white, over which their unbound ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Jane now," called the boy from the dooryard, pointing to a sloop on the other side of the wide estuary, bowling in with topsail and jib furled, and her rusty mainsail bellying under pressure ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... sitting on a small blue cloud, a little above the topsail yard. 'Fear not, Francois,' said she, motioning with her hand, 'to throw the image overboard.'" The inquisitors were astonished at my boldness: a consultation was held, as to whether I should be treated as a blasphemer, or the circumstance blazoned into a miracle. But ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... land, till, when the ship had rounded a point into smoother water, she seized on her like some tiny spider on a huge unwieldy fly; and then how one still smaller black speck showed aloft on the main-yard, and another—and then the desperate efforts to get the topsail set— and how we saw it tear out of their hands again, and again, and again, and almost fancied we could hear the thunder of its flappings above the roar of the gale, and the mountains of surf which made the rocks ring beneath our feet;—and how we stood silent, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... 1st.—Since writing the above upwards of 100 sail have arrived: we conclude that the whole fleet is there: for we have counted 140 topsail vessels; some say there are 160: people are moving out of York; and I think we must very soon come to action; the flower of our Reg. is picked for a field fight, which we imagine will take place on long island. Wherever I am, whatever I am ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... passed from the last shelter of the cliff; the wind caught us, and made us heel a little; the men went to the weather side; the noise of talking water deepened. Soon the water creamed into brightness as we drove through it. They set the little main topsail—luggers were never very strictly rigged ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... of 1850 a topsail schooner slipped into the cove under Trinidad Head and dropped anchor at the edge of the kelp-fields. Fifteen minutes later her small-boat deposited on the beach a man armed with long squirrel-rifle and an axe, and carrying food and clothing in a brown canvas ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... an hour after the action commenced, when standing at the gangway. The enemy had then suffered much, having lost the yard-arms of both his lower yards, and had no sails drawing but his foresail, main-top-gallant-sail, and mizen-topsail, the others flying about. We had engaged her to leeward, which, from the heel his ship had, prevented him from making our rigging and sails the objects of his fire; though I am well convinced he had laid his ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... the bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... extraordinary vacancy existed on the waters! At length an island was seen, and the news was sent down on deck. Towards that island the ship steered, and about two in the afternoon, she came up close under its lee, and backed her topsail. This island was a stranger to all on board! The navigators were confident they must be within a few leagues of the Peak, as well as of the volcano; yet nothing could be seen of either, while here was an unknown island in their places! This ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... wooded, like the hills of the Alten Fjord, the trees have long since disappeared, and now nothing can be more bleak and desolate. The wind blew violently from the east, gradually lifting a veil of grey clouds from the cold pale sky, and our slow little steamer with jib and fore-topsail set, made somewhat better progress. Toward evening (if there is such a time in the arctic summer), we reached Kistrand, the principal settlement on the fjord. It has eight or nine houses, scattered along a gentle slope a mile in length, and a little ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Stream Camp, Major A. R. Dugmore Along the Mohawk Trail, Percy Keese Fitzhugh Animal Heroes, Ernest Thompson Seton Baby Elton, Quarter-Back, Leslie W. Quirk Bartley, Freshman Pitcher, William Heyliger Billy Topsail with Doctor Luke of the Labrador, Norman Duncan The Biography of a Grizzly, Ernest Thompson Seton The Boy Scoots of Black Eagle Patrol, Leslie W. Quirk The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill, Charles Pierce Burton Brown Wolf and Other Stories, Jack London Buccaneers and Pirates ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... river mouth by Lieutenant Derby of the Topographical Engineers, for the War Department, seeking a route for the water transportation of supplies to Fort Yuma, now ordered to be a permanent military establishment. He came up the river a considerable distance, in the topsail schooner Invincible and made a further advance in his small boats. The only guide he had to the navigation of the river was Hardy's book, referred to in a previous chapter, which assisted him a good deal. He arrived at the mouth December 23, 1850. "The land," he says, "was plainly ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... we mastered the art of manipulating these sails properly. Our ideas on this sail were obtained from a French illustrated paper which Dutchy Van Syckel picked up in his father's library. This sail was formed 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 ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... getting on board again. Our poverty, in the article of cordage, was here very conspicuous; for we had not a single coil of rope in the store-room to fix the buoy, but were obliged to set about unreeving the studding-sail geer, the topsail-halliards and tackle-falls for that purpose; and the boat was at this time driving to the southward so fast, that it was not before we had veered away two cables, and almost all our running-rigging, that she could fetch ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... 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 were set ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the other chap you done in," said Raft. "Well, I reckon you've been through it. Rum thing I saw you first when I was handling a topsail in that blow. The weather broke and I was holdin' on to the yard when I sighted you away to starboard with the sun on you. Old Ponting was close to me and he yelled out he'd seen you before and give you your ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... mind now,' murmured Bob, with a stupefied gaze around. 'I fell in slipping down the topsail halyard—the rope, that is, was too short—and I fell upon my head. And then I went away. When I came back I thought I wouldn't disturb ye: so I lay down out there, to sleep out the watch; but the pain in my head was so great that I couldn't get to sleep; so I picked some ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was out again. After two years of the Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, The Happy Delivery, was prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the violet rim of the ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Pelican's name to the Golden Hind, which was the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the chief promoters of the enterprise and also one of Doughty's patrons. Then every vessel struck her topsail to the bunt in honor of the Queen as well as to show that all discoveries and captures were to be made in her sole name. Seventeen days of appalling dangers saw them through the Straits, where icy squalls came rushing down from every quarter of the baffling channels. But the Pacific ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... morning light showed us the ship we had been fighting, she appeared a mere ruin; her main yard down and shot to pieces, her fore-topsail yard shot away, her mizzen mast by the board, all her rigging gone, and her sides bored through and through with our double-headed shot. And near by us stood my old ship the Falmouth, which in the darkness had assisted us very much in crippling this great vessel ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... and the Regulus, and the Manhattan, and the Wilful Girl, and the Deborah-Angelina, and the Sukey and Katy, which, my dear young lady, I may say, was my first love. She was only a fore-and-after, carrying no standing topsail, even, and we named her after two of the river girls, who were flyers, in their way; at least, I thought so then; though a man by sailing a packet comes to alter his notions about men and things, or, for that matter, about women ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... disunion and individuality, which naturally induced every man to look after himself without caring for his neighbour. We therefore could not expect, nor did we receive, any sympathy; we were in a scene of bustle and noise, yet alone. A spare topsail, which had been stowed for the present between two of the guns, was the best accommodation which offered itself. We took possession of it, and, tired with exertion of mind and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... set to work like the indomitable seadogs that they were. They could not make her suck, but before they were utterly exhausted they reduced the water much, and then they cast themselves clear and began to prepare for the tide. They put the fore topsail on her, and then signalled for their own vessel. With a last effort they got one anchor, but, when Joe proposed trying the other, poor Billy groaned, "That's a pill enough for me, Joe; I shall die if we stand to it any more. Slip the other cable, boy." Joe agreed; ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... the boatswain's shrill call rings through the ship, "All hands, reef topsails; tumble out, and up with you, everybody!" On deck Egyptian darkness, driving rain, and salt spray, the ship staggering under a press of sail, or, as happened in her last cruise, the topsail sheets were parted, and the great sails flapping and slatting out to leeward like a thunder-cloud, orders given in quick succession, then rally of men at the clew-lines, then a rush aloft and out ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Captain Fleetwood. "We'll show the poor fellows we do not intend to give them the go-by. Helm's a-lee! Tacks and sheets! Main-topsail haul. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... I took all the men's clothes that I could find, and a spare fore-topsail, hammock, and some bedding; and with this I loaded my second raft, and brought them all safe on shore, to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... to go west 14 miles, when we break through a long line of heavy brash mixed with large lumps and 'growlers' We do this under the fore-topsail only, the engines being stopped to protect the propeller. This takes us into open water, where we make S. 50 W. for 24 miles. Then we again encounter pack which forces us to the north-west for 10 miles, when we are brought up by heavy snow-lumps, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw—the topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to our hearts there was menace in ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... tropical-looking Spanish bayonet. Of palmettos there are none that I know of in this immediate region, save the hundred or more on Sullivan's Island and the one or two exotics in the streets of Charleston. In the middle of the Ashley, which is here more than a quarter of a mile wide, lies anchored a topsail schooner, the nursery of the South Carolina navy. I never saw it sail anywhere; but then my opportunities of observation were limited. Quite a number of boys are on board of it, studying maritime matters; and I can bear witness that they are sufficiently advanced to row themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... crochick, and spanker stowed. We hammered away under this, carryin' on very heavy, 'cause she were headin' west-nor'west, which were a good course, till eight bells in the arternoon watch, when the sea gittin' up so tremendiously we had to furl the reefed mainsail and mizzen topsail and close reef ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... ourselves now in the Channel, we bore up for the coast of England. In less than two hours the old foresail was blown from the yard by a spurt of wind, and we were again forced to lie to till the morning of the 19th, when we got up an old bonnet, or topsail, on the fore-yard, which by the blessing of God brought us to the Isle of Wight in the afternoon of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... a mile from the shore a small brigantine, stripped to a lower topsail, storm-jib, and balance-reefed mainsail, was trying to claw off shore. She had small chance, unless the gale shifted or moderated, for she evidently could not carry enough sail to make any way against the huge sea, and to heave to would be sure destruction within ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... After drinking a tumbler of grog he appeared to recover rapidly; and we found on inquiry that he was master of the vessel just wrecked on the coast. He shook his head on a further inquiry as to the fate of her crew. "A score as good hands," said he, "are gone to the bottom as ever unreefed a clean topsail or hung out a ship's canvas to the wind; I saw them all go down as I lashed myself to the jib." He groaned deeply; but speedily assuming a gayer tone, requested a quid and a quiet hammock. "My lights are nearly stove in,—my head hangs as loose as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Chase of the 5 Vessells. Sett our Spritsail, Topsail and Square Sail with a fine Breeze of Wind. About 11 AM. One of Ships brought too and fired a Gun to wait for a Sloop that was in Comp'y with her, and to wait for Us. We took in all Our Small Sails and bore down to her and hoisted ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
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