"Unseaworthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I know his complete fearlessness, and his blind faith in a people who are unworthy of it. He does not realize the gravity of the situation. They are his own people. A sailor never believes that his own ship is unseaworthy." ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... certainly a most unpromising spot. There were a few palm-trees to be seen here and there at a distance, but of a stunted growth, as if there was but little soil to nourish their roots, while all around was sand and rock. On hauling up the boats they were both discovered to be unseaworthy; their stock of provisions was much reduced; and what was worst, most of their powder was spoilt, and the boats' guns rendered useless, a very important loss in the neighbourhood of so numerous and vindictive ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... sent out 300 men and a pompom in pursuit of Hertzog's fugitives, and the force had just returned with quite a haul of prisoners. They had come across the rearmost of them as they were in the act of crossing the river in a rickety punt, which vessel had been scientifically rendered unseaworthy by a well-directed belt of pompom-shells. Examination of the bushes on the near bank of the river showed that dozens of Boers had literally gone to earth. The river approach was full of rain-fissures and water-cracks, and the men spent the whole morning actually bolting burghers ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... were finally mastered by Phips, and compelled to obey his orders. It would have been dangerous, however, to continue much longer at sea with such a crew of mutinous sailors; and, besides, the Rose Algier was leaky and unseaworthy. So Captain Phips judged it ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... were of two classes. The first class consisted of good, new, well found and manned ships, with valuable cargoes on board which were anxiously watched and longed for; the second class comprised those which were old, worn-out, and unseaworthy, and which, being insured beyond their value, might go to the ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... hold; he was worried lest the continuous firing he had directed upon the vessel had made her unseaworthy. But apparently the holes were all well above the water line, for there did not seem to be ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... remembered an old patient whom he liked to go to see now and then, perhaps more from the courtesy and friendliness of the thing than from any hope of giving professional assistance. The old sailor, Captain Finch, had long before been condemned as unseaworthy, having suffered for many years from the effects of a bad fall on shipboard. He was a cheerful and wise person, and the doctor was much attached to him, besides knowing that he had borne his imprisonment with great patience, for his life on one of the most secluded farms ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... they should come back in the spring; they sailed for England on the 31st of August. All wished him to return in the Golden Hind as a much larger and safer vessel; the Squirrel, besides its smallness, being encumbered on the deck with guns, ammunition, and nettings, making it unseaworthy. But when he was begged to remove into the larger vessel, he said, "I will not forsake my little company going homeward with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." One reason for this was, ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a gesture at the First and Second Mates, "will probably sign your names to it, and so will I, and perhaps one of your A.B.s. Then when we get home they'll print a report of it in the newspapers, and people will talk about the unseaworthy ships. Maybe some of the experts will talk rot about rivets and defective plates and ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... considerable portion of the cargo was often broached and pilfered before it reached the shore, claims for which had to be paid by the ship. Another point was that many of these lighters were old sailing-vessels or steamers, and, in the unseaworthy and leaky state they were in, often arrived with their cargo considerably damaged. On the completion of the South Basin on 28th January, 1889, passengers were able to embark or disembark with a little more comfort, and cargoes were landed on the quays. Docks ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... wind, they returned to the house. Ted, having ascertained that there was no further service he could render, suggested that he had better go back and help his father stop a leak in the roof of Fisherman's Luck, which had suddenly proved unseaworthy. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... about recalling Ocampo, for it was too late to reach him. They discovered, also, another way to prevent Las Casas from going on. They found a ship master, engaged in the slave trade, who was only too glad to help them by declaring the clerico's vessel unseaworthy; and he was not allowed to use it. So there he was, helpless and at his wits' end to ...
— Las Casas - 'The Apostle of the Indies' • Alice J. Knight
... equipped under my law, and no trierarch ever laid the suppliants' branch[n] before you in token of grievance, nor took sanctuary at Munychia; none was imprisoned by the Admiralty Board; no warship was abandoned at sea and lost to the State, or left behind here as unseaworthy. Under the former laws all these things used to happen; {108} and the reason was that the obligation rested upon the poor, and in consequence there were many cases of inability to discharge it. I transferred the duties of the trierarchy from the poor to the rich; and therefore every ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... vengeance, but unluckily there was no ship in the harbour that was ready to set sail. The terror of the princes was at its height; but Louis, trusting in his luck, started with the brave Acciajuoli in an unseaworthy boat, and ordering four sailors to row with all their might, in a few minutes disappeared, leaving his family in a great state of anxiety till they learned that he had reached Pisa, whither he had gone to join the queen in Provence. Charles of Durazzo and Robert ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the dog, thus marooned, struck pretty frantically for the high ground. Lost dogs—and lost children, for that matter— always make up hill, dark or daylight. I suppose it's the primitive instinct to search for a view. . . . But anyway, here's a boat. She's unseaworthy, as she lies: but her timbers look sound enough if we can staunch her, and the first thing is to get her down to the water and see how fast she fills. We've a baler, to cope with the leak . . . and when we have her more or less staunch, here's the way around ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this time left him, and after cruising together for some time, they, too, parted. In 1688 Davis cleared Cape Horn and arrived in the West Indies, while Swan's ship, the "Cygnet," was abandoned as unseaworthy, after sailing as far as Madagascar. Townley had hardly joined the French buccaneers remaining in the South Sea ere he died, and the Frenchmen with their companions crossed New Spain to the West Indies. And thus the Pacific, ravaged so long by this powerful and mysterious ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... weather at sea,—all for the sake of the high insurance. These are the so-called "coffin-ships," not unknown in Germany, either. The steamer "Braunschweig," for instance, that sank in 1881 near Helgoland, and belonged to the firm Rocholl & Co., of Bremen, proved to have been put to sea in a wholly unseaworthy condition. The same fate befell, in 1889, the steamer "Leda" of the same firm; hardly out at sea, she went to the bottom. The boat was insured with the Russian Lloyd for 55,000 rubles; the prospect of 8,500 ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Fathers had started from Delfshaven, in Holland, in July, and after coming to Southampton, started their voyage in the Mayflower and Speedwell. The Speedwell, however, proved unseaworthy, and both ships were obliged to put into Dartmouth, where the Speedwell underwent repairs. When they started again, however, it became evident that the Speedwell would not be able to stand the long Atlantic voyage, so once more the Puritans put back to the shelter ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... path. Though the season was late, the weather was extraordinarily stormy. Sixty-one days the passage lasted, the tubby old fur ships lying water-logged, rolling to the angry sea. MacDonell was furious that colonists had been risked on such unseaworthy craft, but those old fur-ship captains, with fifty years ice battling to their credit, probably knew their business better than MacDonell. The fur ships had not been built for speed and comfort, but for cargoes and safety, and when storms came they simply lowered sails, turned tails to the wind, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... of a Derelict' is a remarkably able story of a man's reclamation. I believe Maurice Drake won a publisher's prize with it as a first novel some years ago. It was a winner among the apprentices, I remember. 'The Grain Carriers' is a grim story of greedy owners and an unseaworthy ship by an ex-master mariner whose 'Chains,' while not a sea story, is tinged with the glamour of South American shipping, and is obviously a work written under the influence of Joseph Conrad. 'Marooned' and 'Typhoon' balance (only you mustn't be too critical) ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... little boat tied to a stump, suggested to Flora a new whim. Instead of going round the pond, which I now began to like doing, I must weary myself with rowing her across. I was ready enough to do it, however, had not Miss Etty quietly observed that the pond was muddy, and the boat unseaworthy. Flora would not have yielded to twenty feet of water,—but mud! She sighed, and resumed my arm. I, offering the other to Miss Etty in so determined a way, that she could not waive accepting it, marched forward ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... should have selected the finest season of the year for his descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least, a ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... the bows of the Starlight, and shown how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's assistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now, and they wished to get farther ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... go there. Again we hoisted sail and in our ships, now all unseaworthy, crept again in a bad wind along the coast of gold,—Costa Rico. At last we saw many smokes from the land. That would be a large Indian village. We beat toward it, found a river mouth and entered. But Veragua must have heard of us from a swift land traveler. When a boat from each ship would approach ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... itself like the oak, or the wild vine shoot to heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possible that, under good guidance and in favourable circumstances, such a man might have slipped through life without discredit. But the unseaworthy craft, which even in still water would have been in danger of going down from its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean, amidst a storm in which a whole armada of gallant ships was cast away. The weakest and most servile of human beings found himself on a sudden an actor ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... than by seeking for a ship that had lain beneath the waves full half a century. They broke out in open mutiny, but were finally mastered by Phips, and compelled to obey his orders. It would have been dangerous to continue much longer at sea with such a crew of mutinous sailors; and the ship was unseaworthy. So Phips judged it best to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and the worthy master of the John, the better to conceal their iniquities from the lynx-eyed satellites of the law, agreed to make an exchange of vessels, both having been officially condemned as unseaworthy. For an equivalent, the schooner was to be laden with a cargo, principally of molasses, and properly furnished with stores, provisions, and water, for a passage to the United States by the way of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... we found in port the Russian brig Poorga and the Prussian brig Danzig, the latter having an American captain, crew, hull, masts, and rigging. Two old hulks were rotting in the mud, and an unseaworthy schooner lay on the beach with one side turned upward as if in agony. "There be land rats and water rats," according to Shakspeare. Some of the latter dwelt in this bluff-bowed schooner and peered curiously from the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were notoriously clumsy and unseaworthy. With short keel and towering poop and forecastle they were an easy prey for the long, low, close-sailing sloops and barques of the buccaneers. But this was not their only weakness. Although the king expressly prohibited the loading of merchandise on ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... proof of the power of steam. In 1838, in company with Haliburton, he was on his way to England on the Tyrian, one of the old ten-gun brigs which carried the mails, slow and uncomfortable at the best, unseaworthy death-traps in a storm. As she lay rolling in a flat calm with flapping sails, a few hundred miles from England, a smear appeared on the western horizon. The smear grew to a smudge, the smudge to a shape, and soon there steamed ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... Rosario with the despatches concerning Napoleon's death, he was sent to escort the body of Queen Caroline to Cuxhaven. He was then told off for revenue duty in the Channel, and had some smart cruising for smugglers until the Rosario was pronounced unseaworthy and paid off on the 22nd of February 1822. As a result of this experience he wrote a long despatch to the Admiralty, in which he freely criticised the working of the preventive service, and made some practical suggestions for ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the bold step of destroying the ships without the knowledge of his army. Accordingly, he marched the whole army to Cempoalla, and when he arrived there he told his plan to a few of his devoted adherents, who entirely approved of it. Through them he persuaded the pilots to declare the ships unseaworthy, and then ordered nine of them to be sunk, having first brought on shore their sails, masts, iron, and all movable fittings. When the news of this proceeding reached Cempoalla, it caused the deepest consternation among the Spaniards, who felt themselves betrayed and abandoned, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... was sunk to fifteen or twenty old galleys, battered, dismantled, unseaworthy, and a few armed ships for convoying the East and West Indiamen to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... impossible. The poor emigrants who were compelled through stress and poverty to leave their homes for a foreign country feared not toil in a new land, but they feared the long voyage with its attending horrors and dangers. Dangerous it was, for most of the sailing vessels were unseaworthy and when a storm swept the waters, they were as children's toys, at the mercy of wind and wave. When the passenger stepped on board he always had the dread of a watery grave ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing |
