"Luff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the day, old Uncle Tommy Luff, just in from the fishing grounds off the Mull, where he had been jigging for stray cod all day long, had moored his punt to the stage-head, and he was now coming up the path with his sail over his shoulder, his back to the wide, flaring ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... before, had been secretly perplexed as to the best course. He had decided to run for the island; but he was not easy under his own decision; and, at night, he got more and more discontented with it. Finally, at nine o'clock P.M., he suddenly gave the order to luff, and tack; and by daybreak he was very near the place where the Proserpine went down, whereas the cutter, having run before the wind all night, was, at least, a hundred miles to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... and took the wind so far on the beam that she buried her scuppers deep in the waves. The order to "touch her up," or luff her up into the wind, so as partially to spill the sail, was given to ease off the tremendous pressure. The Josephine minded her helm, and luffed so ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... no restriction in the diet such as is required in gouty patients, so long as the digestion is not impaired. Benefit is also derived from the administration of cod-liver oil, and of tonics, such as strychnin, arsenic, and iron, and in some cases of iodide of potassium. Luff recommends the administration over long periods of guaiacol carbonate, in cachets beginning with doses of 5-10 grs. and increased to 15-20 grs. thrice daily. A course of treatment at one of the reputed spas—Aix, Bath, Buxton, Gastein, Harrogate, Strathpeffer, Wiesbaden, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... own," said Griffith, rousing again; "though we had better anchor. Luff, fellow, luff—you ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to weather of the bark, where we'd have had room to luff, if I'd expected that burst of wind," he explained. "Did you hurt yourself ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... would offer to the wind. It has been calculated that the resistance of perpendicular seams, in a sail of this size, is equal to that of a plank 10 inches broad and 60 feet long, placed on end broadside to the wind; the luff of the sail is 66 feet; the foot, 93; the head, 50; the head and foot of the sail are laced to battens under gaff and on boom; the luff is brought to the mast by a contrivance as original as it is perfect; two ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Our pursuers were on the opposite tack and fast approaching; a reef intervened, and when abeam, distant about half a mile, they opened fire both with their small arms and boat-gun. The second shot from the latter was well directed; it grazed our mast and carried away the luff of the mainsail. Several Minie balls struck on our sides without penetrating; we did not reply, and kept under cover. When abreast of a break in the reef, we up helm, and again went off before the wind. The schooner was now satisfied that she could not overhaul us, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Archie and tells him to heave the tins of opium into the quarter-boat, and he did, and 'Now get into her,' I says, 'and pull for the beach.' And they did, me staying aboard the Hattie to luff her for them to get away. And then I cut the stays'l free and gave the Hattie her wheel again, and when she was going full-tilt I jibed her over, and she had everything on, and it was blowing ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... approaching, Medina Sidonia ordered his whole fleet to luff to the wind, and prepare for action. The wind shifting a few points, was now at W.N.W., so that the English had both the weather-gage and the tide in their favour. A general combat began at about ten, and it was soon obvious to the Spaniards that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... early, and Fernando slept soundly. It was Terrence who awoke them and said it would not do to be late. He had engaged a sailor called Luff Williams to take them in his boat to the spot, a long sandy beach behind a high promontory some five or six miles from the city. The spot was quite secluded, and Terrence declared it a love of a place for ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... easy enough. Fitzroy and the first luff are the others. We kept it to a small circle, don't you know. Thought ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... luff!" he added, to the steersman, who, with both hands on the wheel, was exerting all his strength to keep ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... refused to "luff dem alone," and when he had placed them on the handkerchief, he ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... it.—You'll find a bit of seizing and a marling-spike in the locker abaft." The sloop scuddled before the gale, and in less than two hours was close to the headland pointed out by the master. "Now, Newton, we must hug the point or we shall not fetch—clap on the main sheet here, all of us. Luff, you may, handsomely.—That's all right; we are past the Sand-head and shall be in smooth water in a jiffy.—Steady, so-o.—Now for a drop of swizzle," cried Thompson, who considered that he had kept ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... hunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionary among the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed a beautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, on a high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening," says the missionary, "having come home with some cattle which I had been seeking, I heard some one wailing; and, looking in the direction from whence I proceeded, I found it to be from the grave near our house. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... belonged to Mrs. Luff while living at Fox-Ghyll. The wren was one that haunted for many years the Summer-house between the two terraces at Rydal Mount. [In pencil on opposite page—Addressed ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... all the bayonet practice come to me quite natural like, and, as you know, I give point from the guard, and he jumped right on it, and I held him down after as you would a savage kind of tiger thing, and felt quite pleased like at having saved the first luff's life. After you'd gone all the lads got talking about it, and I felt as proud as a peacock with ten tails. And I got wondering, too, about what Mr Reardon would do, for he said he would see me again. It was all very well then, but that night when I turned in I felt quite sick, and ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... early amongst Friends, and too early took upon him the ministerial office; and being, though little in person, yet great in opinion of himself, nothing less would serve him than to go and convert the Pope; in order whereunto, he having a better man than himself, John Luff, to accompany him, travelled to Rome, where they had not been long ere they were taken up and clapped into prison. Luff, as I remember, was put in the Inquisition, and Perrot in their ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... good to eat. Ve liffed in a house de English manager gif us. Dere's a Chile meat gompany owns de island, und grows sheep. Aboud a gouple of hundred kanakas chase de sheep. Ve vas dreaded vell mit de vimmen makin' luff und the kanakas glad mit it. Dere vas noding else to do. De manager he say no ship come for six months, und he vanted us to blant bodadoes, und ve had no tobacco. He say de bodadoes get ripe in eight months, und I dink if I shtay dere eight months I go grazy. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Martin said, is the first order. The Mate signs to me to luff her up, and when the sail shakes the tack is hove hard down. Then sheets and halyards are sweated up, ropes coiled, and a boy sent aloft to stop up the gear. At the main they have the usual morning wrestle with the weather topsail sheet—a clew that never did fit. Macallison's ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... "Luff! Luff!" cried the keen-eyed French mariner, and the Francois drew away as the red flames curled upward with ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... that I had little left for him. My mother loved him still, and so did my sister; but they left off talking to him about his drunkenness. It was of no use; they prayed for him instead.—Steady, Jacob; luff a bit, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... ripplingly, comes the wind to play, and would try to pass, but you catch it in your white wings—catch it and hold it, leaning over to its fleeing passage, and press the trembling tiller-pulse, now throbbing with life, and luff as the boat darts forward in joy of possession of the wind, but she passes, gently, gently up again with the tiller till she leaves the sails with the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... Sicily, which we both liked. I would look out for two houses. Wordsworth and his family would take the one, and I the other, and then you might have a home either with me, or if you thought of Mr. and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your own; and in either case you would have neighbours, and so return to England when the home sickness pressed heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated, and the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would have abroad in a genial ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... wait, I will luff," he cried, in great distress. And he ran to the helm and turned the rudder. But the boat scarcely obeyed it, being impeded by the net which kept it from going forward, and prevented also by the force of the tide and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... for they merely replied by the word "Viva," but made no answer to the captain's repeated inquiry as to the brig's name, and the position of the British fleet. As the Juno passed under the stern of this treacherous little craft, a voice called out, "Luff! luff!" which naturally induced Captain Hood to put his helm down, from an idea that shoal water lay close to leeward of him. Nothing could have been more adroitly managed, for before the frigate came head to wind, she stuck fast upon the shoal, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... was bent on the upper leach. The boom was got in under cover of the hurricane-house, and of the bundle of the sail; the out-hauler was bent, the boom, replaced, the sail being hoisted with a little and a hurried lacing, to the luff. This was not effected without a good deal of hazard, though the nearness of the bows of the vessel to the rocks prevented most of the Arabs from perceiving what passed so far aft. Still, others nearer to the shore caught glimpses of the actors, and several ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 lump ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... leaning back with one eye shut and the other fixed on the luff of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... space, thirty-eight ice islands, great and small, were seen, besides loose ice in abundance, so that we were obliged to luff for one piece, and bear up for another, and as we continued to advance to the south, it increased in such a manner, that at three quarters past six o'clock, being then in the latitude of 67 deg. 15' S., we could proceed no farther; the ice being ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the master said to me in a shy mumble, "She wouldn't luff up in time, somehow. What's the matter with her?" And ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... not probable, Mrs. Weldon," replied Captain Hull. "Our approach would be already known, and they would make some signals to us. But we shall make sure of it.—Luff a little, Bolton, luff," cried Captain Hull, while indicating with his hand what course ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... and sheets!" &c.; "luff now, and keep her close to the wind!"—the same monotonous words of command all through the night every time they lay over upon a new tack, while at the same time they would generally ship a heavy sea, and the vessel would shake ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... himself to a certain part in life—who had ceased to grow, in a word—was named a character; while one remaining in a state of development—a skilful navigator on life's river, who did not sail with close-tied sheets, but knew when to fall off before the wind and when to luff again—was called lacking in character. And he was called so in a depreciatory sense, of course, because he was so hard to catch, to classify, and to keep track of. This middle-class notion about the immobility of the soul was transplanted to the stage, where the middle-class ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... quietly. "It was in my mind that when a sail was bent to the yard it was bent with the luff to the ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... Ghost, and they resolutely began the windward beat. It was slow work in the heavy sea that was running. At any moment they were liable to be overwhelmed by the hissing combers. Time and again and countless times we watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... (Tracy) John Marshe John Luff Henry Traske William Moudey Robert Sever Thomas Avery Henry Travers Thomas Sweete John Woodbridge Thomas West Thomas Savery Christopher Osgood Phillip Fowler Richard Jacob Daniel Ladd Robert Kingsman John Bartlett Robert Coker William Savery John Anthoney (left behind) Stephen Jurden John ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... the yards," shouted Crow foot; "that's it steady—luff, my man;" and the danger was so imminent that even the studding—sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the booms snapped off like carrots, as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott |
