"Seamanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... desired effect; the firmness and confidence with which he spoke, and their reliance on his seamanship and judgment, as well as his constant presence and attention to every accident, had a wonderful effect upon them; they became pacified, and returned to their duty and their labors. Since the first disaster, the admiral had, in fact, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... excitement or peril. We were at war with France and Spain. Every white sail, therefore, that showed above the horizon meant the coming of a possible enemy; no day passed, in some part of which there might not chance to arise the necessity to employ every device of seamanship if escape were to be effected should the enemy prove too big to fight, or in which there was not at least the possibility of smelling powder burned ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... beyond the curtain of mist. When last seen, one of them was dismasted and the other was laboring in grave peril. The Revenge loomed as a spectral shape while Blackbeard was endeavoring to get her running free in pursuit of the Plymouth Adventure. But slovenly, reckless seamanship had caught him unready. His sails were blowing to ribbons, ropes flying at loose ends, and it was with great difficulty that the vessel could be made ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... monasteries and ideal hermits people the "deserts of the ocean." All beings therein (save daemons and Cyclops) are Christians, even to the very birds, and keep the festivals of the Church as eternal laws of nature. The voyage succeeds, not by seamanship, or geographic knowledge, nor even by chance: but by the miraculous prescience of the saint, or of those whom he meets; and the wanderings of Ulysses, or of Sinbad, are rational and human in comparison ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... only scotched the mutiny. Prickett's narrative of the doings of the ensuing seven weeks deals with what he implies was purposeless sailing up and down James Bay. He casts reflections upon Hudson's seamanship in such phrases as "our Master would have the anchor up, against the mind of all who knew what belongeth thereto"; and in all that he writes there is a perceptible note of resentment of the Master's ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... captain had a half-defined suspicion that neither he nor the pilot knew exactly where they were. That is a bad condition for a great ship to be in, and that, too, so near a coast which requires good seamanship and skillful pilotage in the best of weather. Not that the captain would have confessed his doubt to the pilot, or the pilot to the captain, and that was where the real danger lay. If they could only have permitted themselves to speak of their possible ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Government sloop-of-war, Jocasta, had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed diplomatist and his family; for whose uses let a sufficient vindication be found in the exercise he affords our crews in the science of seamanship. She entered our noble river somewhat early on a fine July morning. Early as it was, two young people, who had nothing to do with the trimming or guiding of the vessel, stood on deck, and watched the double-shore, beginning to embrace them more and more closely as they sailed onward. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a great misfortune, and owing to the lack of foresight on the part of the master, who was obstinate, but little acquainted with seamanship, and trusting only his own head. He was a good carpenter, skilful in building vessels, and careful in provisioning them with all necessaries, but in no wise adapted to ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... he been learning his soldier's trade in silence. He will take a lesson in seamanship next. The court may come in time: for by now the poor squire's younger son must have discovered—perhaps even too fully—that he is not as other men are; that he can speak, and watch, and dare, and endure, as none around him can do. However, there are 'good ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... never get a ship, for his seamanship, like all other things that were his, was hopelessly superannuated. He was not fit to be trusted with a ship—no owner would dream of it, no ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... dirty work to go on with till one learns seamanship," I thought, and the thought was an ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... middle provinces, and the Virginias, sailing to the West Indies with their cargoes of salt fish, grain, and tobacco. Trading became almost as dangerous as privateering, and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... faith was tried, if ever faith was tried. But as surely their faith failed not, for—if I may so say—they dared not let it fail. If they ceased to trust God, what had they to trust in? Not in their own skill in seamanship, though it was great: they knew how weak it was, on which to lean. Not in the so-called laws of nature; the treacherous sea, the wild wind, the uncertain shoals of fish, the chances and changes of a long foreign voyage. Without trust in God, their lives ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... here they'd think they'd got back again into Eden. It's more beautifuller than the blue ocean, by a long chalk, an' if you wants a feller that's handy at a'most anything after a fashion—a jack of all trades and master of none (except seamanship, which aint o' no use here)—Jo ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... communicated his sister's plans for him to Lord Ipsden, and affected to doubt their prudence. The bait took; Lord Ipsden wrote to his man of business, and an unexpected blow fell upon the ingenious Flucker. He was sent to school; there to learn a little astronomy, a little navigation, a little seamanship, a little manners, etc.; in the mysteries of reading and writing his sister had already perfected him by dint of "the taws." This school was a blow; but Flucker was no fool; he saw there was no way of getting from school to sea without working. So he literally worked out to ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing? And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... handed down. Scholars, guessing from isolated passages in classic writers, or arguing on general principles, had held that the "Indies'' could be reached by sailing due west. But the venture was beyond the resources of the ships and the seamanship of the time. The opinions of scholars, and the fantasies of poets, became an enthusiastic belief in the mind of Columbus. After many disappointments he persuaded the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to furnish him with a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... well the dangers of the situation, but he had been long accustomed to face all the dangers peculiar to his calling on the deep without flinching—strong in the confidence of his well-tried courage and seamanship, and stronger still in his trust in Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand. Many a time had he been becalmed in fog on the North Sea. He knew what to do, kept the fog-horn blowing, and took all the steps for safety that ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... greenhorns and landsmen, who know nothing about a ship; and they seem to think, that an able seaman is a great man; at least a much greater man than a little boy. And the able seamen in the Highlander had such grand notions about their seamanship, that I almost thought that able seamen received diplomas, like those given at colleges; and were made a sort A.M.S, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... said he, jocosely. 'Only first-class certificates in gunnery, seamanship, and mathematics; then, to finish up with, the unhappy youth has to look forward to an interview or two with the hydrographer, who isn't at all a gentleman to be made ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... the Endeavour anchored, 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, at length, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... were shot away, its jib-boom hung a tangled wreck over its bows, its bulwarks were shattered, half its guns were dismounted, and nearly every third man in its crew struck down. But still it hung, with quenchless and obstinate courage, on the Belle Poule's quarter, and by its perfect seamanship and the quickness and the deadly precision with which its lighter guns worked, reduced its towering foe to a condition of wreck almost as complete as its own. The terrier, in fact, was proving ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... (Fig. 57). The sailor's knot par excellence, however, is the "Bow-line" (Fig. 58), and wherever we find sailors, or seamen, we will find this knot in one or another of its various forms. When you can readily and surely tie this knot every time, you may feel yourself on the road to "Marline-spike Seamanship," for it is a true sailor's knot and never slips, jams, or fails; is easily and quickly untied, and is useful in a hundred places around boats or in fact in any walk of life. The knot in its various stages is well shown ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... themselves to the starboard rail, and they were struggling, as I had struggled, to get up to the horizontal side of the vessel. They succeeded, but at the time I had no use for them. Sailors will obey orders, if they understand the orders, but this was an exigency outside the realm of mere seamanship. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... queer lot, if that's what you mean, and they haven't got enough seamanship amongst them to run a washing tub. Is there anything else ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... though you know well enough that I have no turn for mathematics, yet this kind of thing is rendered so easy nowadays by the tables that are constructed for nautical purposes, that I do not think I should feel afraid of navigating a ship at all. The "seamanship" is another thing, and that the master of the ship is responsible for.... You ask me, dear Miss Neill, where I am settled. Why, settled, I suppose I am never to be: I am a missionary, you know, not a "stationary." But, however, my home is the "Southern ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... navy was of a piece throughout. As the courtly Captain despised the Admiralty, he was in turn despised by his crew. It could not be concealed that he was inferior in Seamanship to every foremast man on board. It was idle to expect that old sailors, familiar with the hurricanes of the tropics and with the icebergs of the Arctic Circle, would pay prompt and respectful obedience to a chief who knew no more of winds and waves than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a lesser field,—to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, but hopelessly condemned by the King;—then to leave the kingdom, refusing a passport, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside;—then to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutchmen by his seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by his buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and birds and monkeys and "richly-liveried Blackamoors";—then to reorganize the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, Monk, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... children, a comfortable home, a holy trade—the same which the apostles followed. God has given you England for your country, and the West country—the best place in England for your home. God has given you a good Queen, and good magistrates and landlords. God has given you health and strength, and seamanship, and clear heads and stout hearts. And God has made you seamen and fishermen, and given you a business in which you can see God's mighty power and wisdom day and night, and feel Him taking care of you when you cannot ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... never found in their pages a cabin-boy like Rajah the Malay, strutting about with a long kris stuck in the folds of his scarlet sarong, or a mate whose truculence equalled the chronic ill-humour of Harris, who learned his seamanship as a fisherman on the Newfoundland Banks. And in all his log-books I never found another ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... by a provision requiring that the contract steamers "shall take cadets or apprentices, one American-born boy for each thousand tons gross register, and one for each majority fraction thereof, who shall be educated in the duties of seamanship, rank as petty officers, and receive such pay for their services ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... "You should have paid more attention to your course in practical seamanship," he chided. "We are sailing fairly close hauled, so our speed is added to that of the wind. And, since storms move, it'll pass us shortly." He ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... whirl till the snow lay like a great lake round the ship, and drifted over it. I let it hear my voice, that it might know what the storm has to say. Certainly I did my part towards teaching it seamanship. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... those belonging to the first and second divisions marched down to the seamanship building, there to get their first lessons in seamanship. This began at eight o'clock, lasting until 9.30. During the same period the men who belonged to the third and fourth divisions received instruction ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... sent to Newfoundland, and studying its mineral resources, he now found himself forced into flight for having defied the authorities of the island, embarked upon a doubtful trading venture into one of the wildest and least known portions of the continent, and, with but a slight knowledge of seamanship, engaged in navigating a small sailing vessel across one of its stormiest seas. What would his guardian and employer say could he know all this and see ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... prodigious mass as the Achilles can ever be held by such comparatively little anchors as those intended for her and lying near her here, is a mystery of seamanship which I will refer to the wise boy. For my own part, I should as soon have thought of tethering an elephant to a tent-peg, or the larger hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens to my shirt-pin. Yonder in the river, alongside a hulk, lie two of this ship's hollow ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... was a negligible quantity simply because I was not the fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind—for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and seamanship being now established, he soon found a sufficient number of persons willing to adventure a part of their fortunes in a privateering voyage which he proposed. He accordingly sailed from Plymouth on the 24th May, 1572, in the Pasco, a ship only of seventy tons, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Lieutenant Thomas Allen, the reviewer declares the prototype of the mysterious "Red Eagle" may clearly be recognised; and he works his case out in this way:—The "Red Eagle" calls himself captain, and is seen in the story in connection with a man-of-war, and displaying remarkable powers of seamanship during a storm among the Hebrides; Thomas Allen was a lieutenant in the navy. The "Red Eagle" passed for the son of Admiral O'Haleran; Thomas Allen for the son of Admiral Carter Allen. The "Red Eagle" married Catherine Bruce, sometime after the summer ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... with a sinking heart that he stepped into the frail skiff, which seemed scarcely more than a nutshell upon the tempestuous deep. He was on the point of asking his servant, unacquainted though he was with seamanship, to be the third man in the boat; but the latter, anticipating his intention, had made haste to betake himself away. To venture out into this roaring darkness, with no beacon to guide them, and scarcely a landmark discernible, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... sight from the decks of the boats about the starting point—and turning that, to beat back. The wind was free, but not too strong. The out-and-return course would prove the boats themselves and the seamanship of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... deftness which had made the Wolverine famous in the navy for the niceties of seamanship, the great cruiser let down her tackle as she drew skilfully alongside, and made fast, preparatory to lifting the dory gently to her broad deck. But before the order came to hoist away, one of the jackies who had gone down drew the covering back from the still figure forward, and turned it over. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of poor breed: Grimalson, big as bull's beef, had a brain rotten as a pear: Webster, a docile fellow, was strong as Hercules and surprisingly stupid. These were gone, in their order. The two A.B.'s, Jarvis and Prout—canny men, resourceful, full of seamanship—survived, and we three passengers. What kept Farrell going, and saved his reason, was a great capacity for sleep. He slept all the night and most of the day; and though by consequence he helped us little or nothing, seemed (as he declared himself ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... other country can boast of such marksmanship as our gunners display; no other country can boast of such armor plate as is to be found on our first-class battleships; not even England can successfully compete with us in seamanship and ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his mind that they ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... ten officers who messed with Scott in the small wardroom of the Discovery was Lieutenant A. B. Armitage, R.N.R. He brought with him not only an excellent practical seamanship training in sailing ships, but also valuable Polar experience; for the P. and O. Company, in which he held a position, had in 1894 granted him leave of absence to join the ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Most of the seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those early hours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailors scouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with his fellow- passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thought the trip across the "sound" to Tory Island rather a ticklish piece of business. Yet the natives make it sometimes in their little corraghs or canvas boats, which would seem to show that some of them must be capable of seamanship. Most of these islands, notably Arranmore, Father Walker thought quite incapable of supporting the people who dwell on them, without constant help from the mainland. Is it not an open question whether an age which countenances the condemnation of private property in houses ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... some reluctance. When it came to seamanship he was perfectly willing to leave the management of his craft to Dickie Lang. The girl was familiar with the coast of the two islands and had fully demonstrated her ability to handle the Richard in a storm. Still the idea of running from ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... took a fancy for yachting, and got himself diligently instructed in an art which, of all arts, must be absorbed with the mother's milk, taken with the three R's and followed with enthusiastic devotion. In Mr. Straker every qualification for seamanship was lacking save enthusiasm, but as he himself never discovered this fact, his amour propre did not suffer, and his companions were partly relieved of the burden of his entertainment. Presently he made up his mind that it was time for him to see Jimmy. His nose, trained for scenting ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... your mind to come along with your running-mate. By Jove, that's a brain throb, Peggy! How about it? Can't you persuade this girl of ours to give up the co-ed plan back yonder in Annapolis,—she knows all the seamanship and nav. that's good for her already,—and you'll need a room-mate up here at Columbia Heights School if we settle upon it," and Captain Stewart looked at Polly half longingly, half teasingly. Polly had grown very dear to the bluff, sincere man during her companionship with ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... along here all right for weeks, months—years even, if it has pleased the Almighty to take our shipmates, and we have to live here till we are taken off by some ship, or can build a boat. Your knowledge of ways and means of getting food, and living in such a place as this, is of more value than my seamanship and knowledge of navigation. Come, let us get out to the beach and take ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... world, with all his effects carried under his arm, wrapped in a cotton handkerchief. His first entry on independent life was as a deck-hand, before the mast of the schooner Liberty. In that capacity he remained two years, and then, having acquired a good knowledge of seamanship, was made mate, holding that rank two years. In 1839, he rose a step higher, and for two seasons was master ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... arduous experience of seamanship, sometimes involved in sheets of snow, and in mists so dark that a man on the forecastle could not be seen from the quarter-deck, it was astonishing that the crew of the Resolution should continue in perfect health. Nothing can redound more to the honour of Captain ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... musical, and never failed to prepossess in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said, however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship, something had occurred which had thrown ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... consciousness that ere long she would be gleefully hammering the fleets of the world, in the glorious times to follow. When that golden period arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best to stand where the splinters were flying the thickest. she was also a careful and critical student of seamanship and of manoeuvre. She knew the order in which the great line-of-battle ships moved into action, the vessels they respectively engaged, the moment when each let go its anchor, and which of them had a spring on its cable (while not understanding the phrase, she carefully noted the fact); ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... saying. That he was personally courageous, his subsequent naval services proved. He seems to have handled his ship at all times with extraordinary care, and it may have been that he had studied marine surveying with less assiduity than seamanship, for the chart that he made must be ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... couldn't but call out to him through the window and tell him, "Hard a lee there, Stevey! You'll never fetch it that tack;" when he'd shift his helm, feeling the edge of the breeze with as neat a piece of seamanship as a man could ask, and come up dead into the wind, his sails dropping back stiff on his yardarms, and the subject of matrimony speared on the end of his bowsprit; then Madame Bill would get up, and run away laughing. She seemed to enjoy ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... of the foremast sails demands much greater proficiency in seamanship. In fact, when it is necessary to set them, the sailors must climb by the rigging—it may be in the foretop, it may be on the spars of the top-gallant mast, it may be to the top of the said mast—and that, as well in letting them fly as in drawing them in to ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... education in seamanship, progressed Martin's instruction in the subtle and disquieting game of hearts. Ruth attended to this particular instruction unconsciously, perhaps, but none the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... pocket. Like Barry, he had been attracted to the Mahina by the fact of her being engaged in the island trade, and indeed had only joined her two days before Barry himself. His cheerful, ingenuous manner, combined with his smart seamanship, made the chief officer take a great liking to him, and even Barradas, gruff and surly and ever ready to deal out a blow, admitted that Velo was, next to the boatswain, the best sailorman of ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... war, had lost to a great extent its sea-going character and, because we shut it up in its ports, became less and less sea-going as hostilities continued. The war had been for us, in the words of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, 'a continuous course of victory won mainly by seamanship.' Our navy, as regards sea-experience, especially of the officers, was immensely superior to the French. This enabled the British Government to carry into execution sound strategic plans, in accordance with which the coasts of France and ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... his record seems to show he was pretty much like other boys. According to his classmates, with all of whom I find he was very popular, he stood high in the practical studies, such as seamanship, gunnery, navigation, and steam engineering, but in all else he was near the foot of the class, and in whatever escapade was risky and reckless he was always one of the leaders. To him discipline was extremely irksome. He could maintain it among others, but when ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... north, To show of constancy the worth, A curious lesson teaches man; The needle time may rust, a squall capsize the binnacle and all, Let seamanship do all it can; My love in worth shall higher rise! Nor time shall rust, nor squalls capsize, My faith and truth to ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... with the ship was simply that of a passenger like yourself. But I used to belong to the British navy; and although I left it some seven years ago, I venture to believe that my knowledge of seamanship has not yet grown quite rusty. My name is Leslie—Richard Leslie, and unless my ears deceive me you are ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... blowed clean out of the bolt-ropes, some o' the ships was dismasted, the sea—well, I don't know what I can compare it to, unless 'tis to mountains, it runned so high; and as for the poor little Judith, 'twas only by the mercy o' God and Cap'n Drake's fine seamanship that she didn't go straight to the bottom. By the time that them there hurricanes was over the ships was not much better nor wrecks, and 'twas useless to think o' makin' the v'yage home in 'em in that condition, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... the six men on the derelict, Captain Kettle had knowledge of the seaman's craft; but, for the present, thews and not seamanship were required. The vessel lay in pathetic helplessness on her side, liable to capsize in the first squall which came along, and their first effort must be to get her in proper trim whilst the calm continued. They knocked out the wedges with their heels, and got the tarpaulins off the main hatch; ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... exclaimed the stranger. "But surely you are somewhat late in following the paternal craft; you do not learn seamanship in this ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... does not batter itself to pieces on the cliffs. The watchman sings himself to sleep with a most beautiful ballad. The sky darkens, the sea boils more furiously than ever, and the phantom ship arrives. With a prodigious uproar her anchor takes ground—another evidence of Wagner's seamanship—and Vanderdecken comes ashore in his turn. His seven years are up; now he has another chance of finding the faithful maiden. The opening of this scene is as fine as anything Wagner ever wrote; the later portions are fine, too, but quite old-fashioned. The storm ceases, and Vanderdecken ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... another anchor in case the ship should drive or part her anchor. This watch is also in readiness to avoid collision in close rivers by veering cable, setting sail, using the helm, &c., which formerly involved the essence of seamanship. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... therefore, Captain Bligh's good seamanship, his strict discipline and fairness in the method of giving food and wine to those who were sick, that enabled them to land at Timor with the whole of their number alive, with the exception of the one man who was stoned to death ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... suitable commander for the mortar flotilla was less difficult, inasmuch as this little fleet was a creation of the officer who was chosen as its leader. David D. Porter, for gallantry and ingenuity, for theoretical and practical seamanship, and for general popularity among the officers of his own rank and date, has no superior in the navy, and his appointment to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... there to await an answer to the note. Henri Theriere, the second officer of the Halfmoon, in frock coat and silk hat looked every inch a nobleman and a gentleman. What his past had been only he knew, but his polished manners, his knowledge of navigation and seamanship, and his leaning toward the ways of the martinet in his dealings with the men beneath him had led Skipper Simms to assume that he had once held a commission in the French Navy, from which he doubtless ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lieutenant, first lieutenant, and finally captain of a frigate, the young man acquitted himself well, earning the reputation of a capital officer, hardworking, careful, no martinet towards his men, though by no means to be trifled with. In practical seamanship, he excels any other prince of his age, and can command any kind of naval craft from torpedo boat to battleship, and lead in ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... it carried the points for no less than three reefs in case of rough weather. Aloft and on deck everything was in place—nothing was untidy or useless. From running-gear to standing rigging, everything bore evidence of thorough order and smart seamanship. ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... out the hotel steam launch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little to leeward of the Clytie's course. The small steamer was evidently no sea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman was driving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... of the Hellenes who had been appointed to serve in the fleet were these:—the Athenians furnished a hundred and twenty-seven ships, and the Plataians moved by valour and zeal for the service, although they had had no practice in seamanship, yet joined with the Athenians in manning their ships. The Corinthians furnished forty ships, the Megarians twenty; the Chalkidians manned twenty ships with which the Athenians furnished them; 1 the Eginetans furnished eighteen ships, the Sikyonians twelve, the Lacedemonians ten, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... spent in marking my name on the clothes which constituted my kit, pumping water for the cooks' galley, helping to scrub the decks and wringing out swabs. On the Thursday, I, with other novices, was sent to the 'Impregnable' to commence my training in seamanship and gunnery. Every Thursday half a day's leave is given to the boys, and we were granted this privilege. How glad and thankful I felt! After landing, I hastened home with all possible speed. The sight of me in my uniform overcame my mother's feelings, and oh! how bitterly she wept, and ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... conflict. Norseman, Dane, and Swede were all of kindred blood. The land-locked Baltic, the deep fiords of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the straits and inlets of the archipelago that fringes its North Sea coast, were the waters on which they learned such skill in seamanship that they soon launched out upon the open sea, and made daring voyages, not only to the Orkneys and the Hebrides, and the Atlantic seaboard of Ireland, but the Faroes, and to still more distant Iceland and Greenland, and then southward to "Vineland," the mainland ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... commanded by Captain William Bainbridge. Before this, he had done some feats of seamanship, but thus far in his career he had not been fortunate. As you remember, Captain Bainbridge, through no fault of his own, lost the Philadelphia off the ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... capable of conquering a storm of this magnitude. No noise came to him from the cabin, yet he had no thought it could be deserted. Hogan would certainly retain a guard there, and probably others—with no duties of seamanship weighing on them—would seek refuge there from the wind-swept deck above. No doubt the fellows had a skipper, as neither Hogan, nor the man Mark, bore any resemblance to a lake sailor. Quite possibly the entire crew were innocent of what was ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... card in hand, to see the starts in the various matches. At sea she enjoyed the fair breezes, and took a deep interest in estimating the daily run, in which she was generally wonderfully exact. She had a great faculty for seamanship, and knew as well as anybody on board what should be done and what was being ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... heavy craft was not so obedient, and Campion's attempt to show his seamanship was disastrous. He ran right under the steamer's nose, and had just almost cleared her when her prow struck the boat, six or eight feet from the stern, sheared off her helm and steering apparatus as if cut with a knife, and struck Campion as he fell. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... a surgeon, a stock of medicines, and a quantity of comforts for the use of the sick and convalescent. These favourable circumstances may be attributed, with propriety, to the almost miraculous interposition of the Almighty, who vouchsafed to bless in an especial manner the prudence, good seamanship, and cool intrepidity of the captains and officers of the ships, and those under their care, whilst at sea: and afterwards, when on shore, the judgment, skill, and good management of Lieut.-colonel Bunbury and the military and other officers, as well as the steady discipline ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... will mutiny against the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who 'is no better than themselves.' There was the affair of the Bounty, for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown ocean—of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he was, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... times worse. What Dawkins said turned out to be literally true. Every ill-conducted, disorderly fellow who had been up the gangway once a week or so, every unreclaimed landsman of bad character and no seamanship, was sent on board of us: and in fact, except that there was scarcely any discipline and no restraint, we appeared like a floating ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Mediterranean Station, where he made his first cruise in the frigate Brandywine. Before the establishment of the Naval Academy at Annapolis the best school for training a cadet in the etiquette, spirit and, perhaps, even in the seamanship of the service, was a smart frigate of the Mediterranean Squadron. If we may trust the traditions which have been handed down to us in song and story about "the roaring lads of the Brandywine," the training on board the ship in which Tucker first served was well calculated to develop all that ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... On Onedays, through some unfailing miracle of Calaxian seamanship, old Charlie Mack sailed down in his ancient Island Queen from the township that represented colonial Terran civilization in Procynian Archipelago 147, bringing supplies and gossip to last Jeff through the following Tenday. The Queen would dock at Jeff's ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... she knew her port, and was eager to reach it. A few more days and we may be in sight of Australia. We begin almost to count the hours. In anticipation of our arrival, the usual testimonial to the captain is set on foot, all being alike ready to bear testimony to his courtesy and seamanship. On deck, the men began to holystone the planks, polish up the brasswork, and make everything shipshape for port. The middies are at work here on the poop, each "with a sharp knife and a clear conscience," cutting away pieces of tarry rope. New ratlines are being fastened ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... speed, among the best of which is given in Bowditch, Art. 403, p. 179. Another, and even easier way, is the following, which was explained to the writer by Lieutenant Commander R.P. Strough, formerly head of the Seamanship ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... courage, seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... William reigned in his stead, to the welfare of his people and the disgust of Captain Barker and Captain Runacles, who from habit were unable to regard a Dutchman otherwise than as an enemy to be knocked on the head. Moreover, they retained a warm respect for the seamanship of their ejected Sovereign, under whom they had frequently served, when as Duke of York he ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my ear, as we successfully came through the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen's seamanship, but to the performance ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... gun crew, handle heavy work, use his delicate fingers in knotting and splicing and so forth, he entered a mild protest. He was set right by a homely rebuke from one of the instructors, an old sea-dog who knew everything about seamanship from the log of Noah's Ark to the rigging of a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... evidence, not only of that desperate courage and unyielding tenacity which had marked him as among the most notable of sea officers the world has seen,—lacking nothing but opportunity to have equalled, if not surpassed a Nelson—but of consummate seamanship and great executive ability as well, had been appointed to command the ship. Before proceeding on the mission, however, an important undertaking had been allotted to him. The commissioners had sent word from France, by a fast-sailing armed packet, of the ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the hurricane and suffered even more heavily. While mourning the brave officers and men who died facing with high resolve perils greater than those of battle, it is most gratifying to state that the credit of the American Navy for seamanship, courage, and generosity was magnificently sustained in the storm-beaten ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... most afraid of sailing on a Friday, and who give way to other silly fancies which I shall not mention in this sacred place. And I appeal, too, to public experience, whether many, I may say most, of those to whom seamanship and sea-science owes most, have not ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... have doted on native Brazilian honesty as well as national seamanship and skill in canoes but my dream of a perfect paradise is now unsettled forever. I find, alas! that even here the fall of Adam is felt: Taking in some long poles to-day the negro tallyman persisted in counting ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... of that morning any watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at the business of working around the jetty, some making for one end and some for the other. There was a great trying of tacks and some plain criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... quite fresh. The vessel stood well off during the night, and the Captain hoped to make the harbour sometime the next morning, but toward daylight a fog began to settle down fast and thick. Captain Godfrey fully realized the perilous position of all on board, but having been early trained in seamanship, he had full confidence in his ability to ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... their contributions toward the infant navy. It was proposed to unite the Don and the Volga by means of a canal. A new appeal was made to the artisans and sailors of Europe. Fifty young nobles of the court were sent to Venice, England, and the Low Countries to learn seamanship and shipbuilding. But it was necessary that the Czar himself should be able to judge of the science of his subjects; he must counteract Russian indolence and prejudice by the force of a great example; and Peter, after having begun his career in the navy at the rank of "skipper," and in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... did not starve. Ten days overdue, at last the Chilian schooner appeared and anchored in the cove. She had now no white men on board but the captain and his mate, for the negroes had improved so much in seamanship that the economical captain had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... for the sea was soon observed by the keen-eyed Hawkins, and before long Drake became his apprentice, and quickly learned the ins and outs of seamanship. He rapidly made a name for himself as a brave and skilful sailor, and before long accompanied Hawkins on his trips to Guinea after negro slaves—trips in which Drake was always in the fore when any adventure of a particularly dangerous nature was undertaken. The slave trade ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... not pleased with this piece of skill in seamanship, and for coming through a crowded harbour under all sail. The "Raleigh" was ordered out for a twenty-four hours' cruise, and to come in in a shipshape way the next time. Well, she went out again, and as she came in past Green Island, she had all sail as before, ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... wind was no more than a fair breeze, but by degrees it became boisterous, and the crew, still weak and now short of three men, could barely manage the schooner. Jose and I knew nothing of seamanship, but we bore a hand here and there, straining at this rope or that as we were bidden, and encouraging the crew to ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... anchor-rope: his craft drifted onwards, leaving the fisherman grumbling at the rottenness of his tackle. He offered a short prayer of gratitude, and in a few minutes ventured cautiously to resume his oars. He heard the breaking of the waves, but seamanship on the unknown and indistinct coast was useless. Two sharp blows, striking the boat in rapid succession, told him that he had touched a submerged rock; the strong tide carried him off it, but the water poured in ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... come boldly out with the plan. Manned with care—manned as she could be and as Tom Tulk would take care to have her—the Black Eagle was the ship for the purpose; and Skipper George, with a reputation for bad seamanship, was the man for the purpose. And the thing would be easy. Tom Tulk knew it. Skipper George knew it. It could be successfully done. There was no doubt about it; and Skipper George hated to think ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... the sheet to the handle of the door instead of the one I meant, and the pull of the sail hauled the door open and pretty nigh ripped it off the hinges. I had to climb into the cockpit and straighten out the mess. I was losin' my temper; I do hate bunglin' seamanship aboard ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... good deal of travelling by sea, and though this sounds convincing as Reed writes it, there is not much depth in it. In other words you do not need a deep knowledge of rigging and seamanship to follow what is happening, as you do with, for instance, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... it had some of the bad people. The people whom circumstances had made good people were so sure of themselves. She had observed that it was from those who had never sailed stormy waters came the quickest and harshest judgments on bad seamanship ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... him, with his rule-of-thumb knowledge of mathematics, the matter seemed complex), and still more surprised when he found, presently, that I really understood the underlying principle of this simple bit of seamanship far better than he did himself. He said that I knew more than most of the captains afloat and that I ought to be a sailor; which he meant, no doubt, to be the greatest compliment that he could pay me. After that I took the sights and worked them with him ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... apart from Jeremy Pitt, who was utterly incapacitated for the present, possessed a superficial knowledge of seamanship. Hagthorpe, although he had been a fighting officer, untrained in navigation, knew how to handle a ship, and under his directions they set about ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Leicester's expedition to the Low Countries, as soldier or sutler or something, for several months or years—or whatever length of time a surmiser needs in his business—and thus became familiar with soldiership and soldier-ways and soldier-talk, and generalship and general-ways and general-talk, and seamanship ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the West Indies had been one of the most important branches of American industry. The men of New England were famous for seamanship, and better and cheaper ships could be built in the seaports of Massachusetts than anywhere in Great Britain. An oak vessel could be built at Gloucester or Salem for twenty-four dollars per ton; a ship of live-oak or American cedar cost not more than thirty-eight dollars per ton. On the other hand, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... met, fought, and conquered the English frigate Cyane and her consort the Levant. The battle occurred in the night—the moon shining brightly. For fifteen minutes the three vessels kept up an incessant cannonade, and the moon was obscured by a dense cloud of smoke. By superior seamanship as well as gunnery, Stewart vanquished both his antagonists, while the Constitution was ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and River St. Lawrence spell death to an incompetent sailor. The fogs, the numerous shoals and islands, make skillful seamanship necessary. It is a long journey from Boston to Quebec by water. For three weeks, however, all went well. On the 22d of August, Walker was out of sight of land in the Gulf where it is about seventy miles wide above the Island ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... of seamanship filled the Peloponnesians, who were advancing in disorder, with amazement and terror. On every trireme the cry of "Hold her!" [Footnote: This was done by thrusting the oars, with the blades held flat, deep into the water] was heard, and some of the vessels, losing way suddenly, ran aground on the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... virtue of discretion:' such is frequently the constitution of the poet; the natural result of it also has frequently been pointed out, and sufficiently bewailed. This man was one of the many who navigate the ocean of life with 'more sail than ballast;' his voyage contradicted every rule of seamanship, and ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... man's work at almost anything. "He has a man's appetite at least," said the farmer's wife, for he took dinner with the man he worked for. He soon proved he could do a man's work, too. This man had a pole-boat on the river, and James was given a chance to try his seamanship. He might have settled down for life as a poleman, but he saw little chance for promotion, and he wanted to work at something that would fit him for a better job. Then the worst about life on the river was that each poleman was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... ready to converse on any subject, but if left to themselves they would choose topics proper to their calling-ships and shipwrecks, maritime usages of various countries, of laws of insurance, of sea-rights, of feats of seamanship, of luck and ill luck, and here and there a little politics of the old-fashioned, elementary sort. They boasted themselves and their country not a little, and criticised everybody else, and John Bull especially, very severely often, but almost always very acutely, too. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... too fast for the half-clogged pumps to cope with. An alternative was offered to me in going faster so as to shake up the big pump on the main engines, and this I did—in spite of myself—and in defiance of the first principles of seamanship. Of course, we shipped water more and more, and only to save a clean breach of the decks did I slow down again and let the water gain. My next card was to get the watch on the hand-pumps as well, and these were ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... drawn the Fleet southward, in the first place, by means of an international "incident" in the Mediterranean, which was clearly the bait of what rumour called a death-trap. Once trapped, it was said, German seamanship and surprise ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... that he soon had her alongside the wharf. As soon as John Paul had landed Mr. Younger stepped up to the father and asked to be introduced to the son. Then the ship-owner told him how much he had admired his seamanship, and asked if he would care to sail as master's apprentice in a new vessel he owned, which was fitting out for a voyage to Virginia and the West Indies. The boy's eyes danced with delight; he begged his father to let him go, and finally Mr. Paul consented. The twelve-year-old ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... the introduction of steam shocked his faculties beyond recovery. He would say: "In the old times, sir, vessels had to turn up here. It was back, fill, and shiver-r-r all the way; but now you might as well have sets of rails laid on the water and run the ships on them. There is no seamanship needed." He never quite forgave the Commissioners for deepening the river. As he said in his trenchant manner: "There used to be some credit in bringing a ship across the bar when you were never quite sure whether she ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... New Zealand and got a German mate. He had a master's certificate, and was on the ship's papers as captain, but I was a better navigator than he, and I was really captain myself. I lost her, too, but it's no reflection on my seamanship. We were drifting four days outside there in dead calms. Then the nor'wester caught us and drove us on the lee shore. We made sail and tried to clew off, when the rotten work of the Tahiti shipwrights became manifest. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... difficult to avoid either of these two extremes, it will not do to refuse to choose at all, and leave things to chance. We drift into many of our connections with men, but the art of seamanship is tested by sailing not by drifting. The subject of the choice of friendship is not advanced much by just letting them choose us. That is to become the victim, not the master of our circumstances. And while it is true ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... got to the anchoring ground about half an hour before us, and was furling her sails when we came to it. This picking up your cables is a nice piece of work. It requires some seamanship to do it, and to come-to at your former moorings, without letting go another anchor. Captain Wilson was remarkable, among the sailors on the coast, for his skill in doing this; and our captain never let go a second anchor during all the time that I was with him. Coming a little to windward ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... The night was a bright moonlight and for such vessels to be moving in line on such a night without destroyers shows gross carelessness. Out of a crew of 800 men only 201 were saved, and the rescue of this part of the crew was due to the seamanship of Captain Pillar of the trawler Providence, who managed to take most of those ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... boats,—an exercise in which both the Tzar and the Marquess are said to have excelled. The Navy Board received directions from the Admiralty to hire two vessels, to be at the command of the Tzar, whenever he should think proper to sail on the Thames, to improve himself in seamanship. In addition to these, the King made him a present of the "Royal Transport," with orders to have such alterations and accommodations made in her, as his Tzarish Majesty might desire, and also to change ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... ships; but the crews of these had not been idle, and before their enemies could reach them they too had cut their cables, hoisted sail, and stood out to sea. For the rest of the night the Spaniards chased them, but Ribault's superior seamanship soon placed him at a safe distance from the pursuers, who at daylight gave over the chase and turned back towards the River of May, intending to make an attack upon ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... out of all measure and comparison greater: one hundred and fifty ships of the line and frigates being ready-built, most of them in a manner new, and all applicable in different ways to that service. Privateers and Moorish corsairs possess not the best seamanship, and very little discipline, and indeed can make no figure in regular service; but in desperate adventures, and animated with a lust of plunder, they are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not a prejudiced man,' continued Joseph Finsbury. 'As a young man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the book ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... indeed there be any need to remind you) that it is a flagrant landsman who is telling you this tale. Nothing know I of seamanship, save what one could not avoid picking up on the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn, never to be completed on this globe. I may be told that I have burned that devoted vessel as nothing ever burned on land or sea. I answer that I write of what I saw, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... accompanied by many men of good Devon blood, for that county was then ahead of all England in its enterprise, and its seamanship; and no captain of name or repute ever had any difficulty in getting together a band of adventurers, from the ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... Channel swarmed with men-of-war, privateers, and downright pirates. Sometimes England took a hand officially against France. But, even when England was not officially at war, many Englishmen were privateers and not a few were pirates. Never was there a better training school of fighting seamanship than in and around the Narrow Seas. It was a continual struggle for an existence in which only the fittest survived. Quickness was essential. Consequently vessels that could not increase their speed were soon cleared off ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... his own definition of politics—"the combination of individual meannesses for the general good,"—he at least had sacrificed nothing of his convictions, had not worked for his own elevation, or smirched his hands. And, unproved though he was as to administrative power and seamanship in a cyclone, there was yet a singular and intrinsic fitness in his candidacy. His recognized quality was that which is basal and dear to the common people, honesty; honesty in thought, word and act. In ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Dublin—and in her cruised the coasts of Ireland, pressing men. After thus raising as many as he could carry, he shaped his course for Liverpool, no doubt intending, on his arrival at that port, to sell his unsuspecting victims to the merchant ships in the Mersey at so much a head. Through bad seamanship, however, the vessel was run aground at Seacombe, opposite to Liverpool, and Capt. Darby, of H.M.S. Seahorse, perceiving her plight, and thinking to render assistance in return for perhaps a man or two, took boat and rowed across to her. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... character. He was a thorough English sailor;—could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated —— of Boston,—and left her, as he told her agent, "because he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the ——'s lee-rail," he said, "was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... desolate island Hveen, on which Tycho de Brahe passed the greater portion of his life, occupied with stellar observations and calculations. Now came a somewhat dangerous part, and one which called into action all the careful seamanship of the captain to bring us safely through the confined sea and the strong current,—the entrance of ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... have seen her. We should have known her to be the Alabama if we had boarded her in the midst of the ocean, with no one to introduce us to each other. Her guns alone are worth going off to see, and everything about her speaks highly for the seamanship and discipline of the commander and his officers. She has a very large crew, fine, lithe-looking fellows, the very ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... he said, in answer to Dormer Colville's question. "And it will take all Seth Clubbe's seamanship to save the tide. 'The Last Hope.' There's many a 'Hope,' built at Farlingford, and that's the last, for the yard is closed and there's no ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the civilizing influence which the arts of peace always engender would so pervade their minds in a very few years, that their habits would be changed, and the blessings of education, religion, and peace, might be expected to civilize and elevate their minds. Their energies and seamanship would then be in requisition as the navigators of all the Archipelago, and to carry in their native vessels the produce of the fertile inland districts of Mindanao, and of Northern Borneo, to the great mart which Zamboanga would become, should ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... after the completion at Malden of a ten-gun ship called the Detroit, which was to be added to his force, and he therefore put into that harbor.[1] Perry improved the delay to exercise his crews, largely made up of soldiers, in seamanship. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... seamanship of Lieut. Commander Cyril Callaghan, H.M.S. Attack, in placing his vessel alongside the Lion and subsequently the Princess Royal, enabled the transfer of flag to be made in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... certain rights due you as owner o' the Maggie. But don't you forget that accordin' to the records o' the Inspector's office, I'm master of the Maggie, an' the way I figger it, whenever there's any call to show a little real seamanship, that gentleman's agreement ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... preserved from the perils which afterwards beseiged him, until his years had made him more capable of confronting them, but also he had thus an opportunity, which he improved to the utmost, of making himself acquainted with the two separate branches of his profession—navigation and seamanship, qualifications which are not very ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... elements of Cooper's art. Mark Twain, in one of his least inspired moments, selected Cooper's novels for attack. Every grammar school teacher is ready to point out that his style is often prolix and his sentences are sometimes ungrammatical. Amateurs even criticize Cooper's seamanship, although it seemed impeccable to Admiral Mahan. No doubt one must admit the "helplessness, propriety, and incapacity" of most of Cooper's women, and the dreadfulness of his bores, particularly the Scotchmen, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... attempted to please. It related their flight from torture to the woods, and drew but a dreary picture of the life of an outlaw. It passed through the details of conviction and embarkation, and then described the dashing seamanship of the pirates in managing the bark, once destined to carry them to that place of suffering; but which bore "bold Captain Swallow" to the wide ocean and liberty. Such was the song; but the facts were different. In August, 1829, thirty-one prisoners embarked on board the Cyprus; ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... whole lot beside seamanship during those next few weeks as the schooner Sea Spell coasted Buenos Ayres Province and the vast Colonial Territory of Magellan. A stretch of nearly a thousand miles we had to sail to reach the Cape of the Virgins, behind which is the entrance to ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... from Sunderland came on board during the afternoon—men who, as Captain Cable had stated, had only one language and made singularly small use of that. Music and seamanship are two arts daily practised in harmony by men who have no common language. For a man is a seaman or a musician quite independently of speech. So the running tackle was successfully bent, and in the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... keep to what he took to be the main channel, although, as it now pursued its course amid a dense thicket of reeds, it was becoming more difficult with every succeeding mile. Oxley's seamanship, however, stood him in good stead, and although fallen logs now began to obstruct their passage, they kept doggedly on for another twenty miles. There was no diminution in the volume of the current that was now bearing them onward, and Oxley ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... cracking the solid live-oak of the floor-timbers as if they were made of willow. The captain stood aghast! For one moment despair was painfully depicted in his countenance; then he recovered his self-possession and seamanship. He gave the order to stand by to carry out to windward the stream-anchor in the launch, and to send a kedge to haul out by, in the jolly-boat. Marble answered with the usual "ay, ay, sir!" but before he sent us into the boats, he ventured to ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... facts of life, still I have been compelled to note that the world is full of evils for which I can see no remedy, and as a matter of common experience they apparently never are remedied. Good steering and careful seamanship are immensely important; but of what use are they if one is caught in a tornado or maelstrom, or wedged in among rocks, so that going to pieces is only a question of time? Good seamanship ought to keep one from such a fate, it may be said. So ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... and good seamanship, Captain Davis with his officers and crew held their own. The land parties assisted in the general work, constantly tightening up the lashings and lending "beef," a sailor's term for man-power, wherever required. For ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... thorough enjoyment of this raillery. "I'll say nothing at all of my seamanship," he said, relapsing into the faintest of brogues, "but there's no denying that the master of a ship has many unpleasant and disgusting duties to perform. He has to amuse the prominent passengers who can't amuse themselves, for one thing, and that takes tact ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... English admiral and "Sea King," born at Bridgewater; successful as a soldier under the Commonwealth, before he tried seamanship; took first to sea in pursuit of Prince Rupert and the royalist fleet, which he destroyed; beat the Dutch under Van Tromp de Ruyter and De Witt; sailed under the great guns of Tunis into the harbour, where he fired a fleet ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... new crew, and cruised along the New England coasts. In the middle of July she fell in with Broke's squadron. Perceiving his peril, Hull sought safety in flight; and then began one of the most remarkable naval retreats ever recorded, in which skillful seamanship won the race. There was almost a dead calm. Down went the boats of the Constitution, with long lines attached to them, and strong sweeps were used with desperate energy in towing her. A long cannon was placed at the stern on her spar-deck, and two others were pointed ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had barely finished his appeal when the combers began to curl up in rapid succession; the mass of water threatened to overwhelm the rushing craft, but she was manipulated with such fine seamanship that only the spray lashed over her in smothering clouds. Suddenly orders were given to stand by to lower the sail, and in another minute the helm was put down to bring the boat head to sea and wind. The sail was lowered, oars shipped, and she was manoeuvred stern on to the beach. As ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... dangerous, as it lay through regions tenanted by hostile and warlike tribes, besides being portentously long to be undertaken by a delicate young princess. The Persian envoys, accordingly, entreated the Great Khan to send with them by sea the three foreigners, of whose seamanship they undoubtedly held high opinion, especially as the young Marco had just returned from his distant and venturous voyage to the Indian Seas. With much reluctance the Khan consented, and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Coast Plundered.—Since Englishmen had settled in England they had lost the art of seamanship. The Northmen therefore were often able to plunder and sail away. They could only be attacked on land, and some time would pass before the Ealdorman who ruled the district could gather together not only his own war-band, but the fyrd, or ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner |
