"Starboard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very sedate, Yet fond of amusement, too; And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch, While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad, For he sat on the after rail, And fired salutes with the captain's boots, In the teeth ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... farthest bound, As I beheld the bird of Jove descending Pounce on the tree, and, as he rush'd, the rind, Disparting crush beneath him, buds much more And leaflets. On the car with all his might He struck, whence, staggering like a ship, it reel'd, At random driv'n, to starboard now, o'ercome, And now to larboard, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... displayed in the captain's cabin, and they knew that they were headed south. Although that gave them little or no clew to their ultimate destination, they felt some comfort in the knowledge that the shore of America lay to the starboard, and away off somewhere beyond the dreary horizon was the country they all loved, and where their anxious friends and families were awaiting ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... flagons, comforting them with the finest exotic fruit. Occasionally the huge square sail gave an idle flap. "Get that lead out, 'Orace," commanded a grim voice from the wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over the starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and threw it from him. "Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three." Another splash. "Two-half." Another splash. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Dextrality. — N. dextrality[obs3]; right, right hand; dexter, offside, starboard. Adj. dextral, right-handed; dexter, dextrorsal[obs3], dextrorse[obs3]; ambidextral[obs3], ambidextrous; dextro-. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... make and produce have the appearance of the action of the waves upon rocks. An officer of the navy informed me, that after sunset, when near the equator, he was not a little alarmed and surprised (because quite unexpected) at the cry of "rocks on the starboard bow:" looking forward through the dubious light (if the expression may be admitted,) he indistinctly saw objects which he and all on board took to be the pinnacles of several rocks of a black and white colour: in a short time, however he discovered this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... way up the starboard shrouds, while Harry, throwing off his coat, mounted those to port, closely followed by Bertie. Five minutes' hard work, and the Para ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... within 20,000 yards of the rear ship, the battle cruisers manoeuvred to keep on a line of bearing so that guns would bear, and Lion fired a single shot, which fell short. The enemy at this time were in single line ahead, with light cruisers ahead and a large number of destroyers on their starboard beam. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I judged it highly dangerous to run any longer before it, and therefore brought the ships to, with their heads to the southward, under the foresails and mizen-stay-sails. At this time the Resolution sprung a leak, which, at first, alarmed us not a little. It was found to be under the starboard buttock; where, from the bread-room, we could both hear and see the water rush in; and, as we then thought, two feet under water. But in this we were happily mistaken; for it was afterward found to be even with the water-line, if not above it, when the ship was upright. It was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... sun, it looked like a crescent moon; and when it was only about twenty times the size of the moon they calculated they must have come nearly two hundred thousand miles. The moon was now on what a sailor would call the starboard bow—i. e., to the right and ahead. Being a little more than three quarters full, and only about fifty thousand miles off, it presented a splendid sight, brilliant as polished silver, and about twenty-five ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... cold mist clung to his flesh and he drew his coat closer about him. The soft breathing of the heavy-duty motor became more pronounced, more labored. The clutch was in. They were backing out into the stream. He glanced above him at the stay where the starboard side-lamp hung. But the grayness was unbroken by a ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... disaster. I remember remarking to the ship's purser, as my things were being carried to my state-room, that I had never in all my travels entered upon any voyage with so little premonition of accident. "Very good, Mr. Borus," he answered. "You will find your state-room in the starboard aisle on the right." I distinctly recall remarking to the Captain that I had never, in any of my numerous seafarings, seen the sea of a more limpid blue. He agreed with me so entirely, as I recollect it, that he did not ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... the wreck could be seen very plainly, as its distance from the ship was rapidly reduced. By this time the entire crew had rushed to the deck, and were waiting for orders on the forecastle. Mr. Boulong, with his boat's crew, had gone to the starboard quarter, where the first cutter was swung in on her davits. The boat pulled six oars, and the cockswain made ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... two seamen and made them make two ropes fast to the wrists of my arms, and reeved the ropes through two blocks in the mizen shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up aloft, and made the ropes fast to the gunwale of the ship, and I hung some time. Then the jester called the ship's company to behold, and bear him witness, that he made the Quaker hale the king's ropes; so veering the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... carved more than six thousand years ago shows an Egyptian boat being paddled by fourteen men and steered with paddles by three more on the right-hand side of the stern as you look toward the bow. Thus the "steer-board" (or steering side) was no new thing when its present name of "starboard" was used by our Norse ancestors a good many hundred years ago. The Egyptians, steering on the right-hand side, probably took in cargo on the left side or "larboard", that is, the "load" or "lading" side, now called the "port" side, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... I struck my knife into him, I called out in English to put the helm hard down, for I saw that the schooner was very near the reef on the starboard hand. Franka, who was at the wheel, at once obeyed and was fooled, for the schooner, which was now leaping and singing to the strong night wind from the mountains smote suddenly upon the coral reef with a noise ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... whistle code that morning: one blast for starboard, two for port, four short blasts for danger and three for going astern. Joe, who had applied oil to every part of the engine that he could reach, supplied the added information that a sailboat under way on the starboard tack had the right of way ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... composed himself and ventured timidly across the portal, steering a tortuous course toward his friends; but in these unaccustomed waters his bulk became unmanageable and his way beset with perils. Deeming himself in danger of being run down by a waiter, he sheered to starboard, and collided with a table at which there was a theatre party. Endeavoring to apologize, he backed into a great pottery vase, which rocked at the impact and threatened ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... hundred men killed. The Victory then swung off and left the doomed Bucentaure to be captured by the Conqueror, and Villeneuve was taken prisoner. After clearing the Bucentaure, the Victory fouled the Redoubtable, and proceeded to demolish her hull with the starboard guns, and with her port guns she battered the Santissima Trinidad, until she was a mass of wreckage, and the Africa and Neptune forced her to surrender. Meanwhile, the Victory kept hammering with her starboard guns at the Redoubtable until her lower deck cannon were put out of action. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... not lift. But we were fairly out of the bay; the Mesa was lessening in the distance, and as we drifted slowly southward the red-roofed buildings on its level rim grew to look like toy-houses, and we heard the dull moan of the ebb-tide on Duxbury Reef on our starboard bow. The sea grew dead calm and the wind fell quite away, but still we drifted southward, passing Rocky Point and peering curiously into Pilot Boat Cove, which looked so strangely unfamiliar to me from the sea, though ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... herself at liberty and bolt, as she would be sure to do, the Mexican was to lasso her and hang on; Napoleon Bonaparte de Neville and George Washington Marlborough were to lay hold of her horns to 'port and starboard,' as the captain insisted, while the Michigan man—who was over six feet tall, and leggy—was to fasten with a good grip on to her tail, that he might serve not only as a 'drag,' as our commander phrased it, but as a pilot as well, 'if she should get to yawing or be suddenly ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on—an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety—she will give them, I dare say, "Little Tafflin". Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, 'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the desolate ridges blew A Lapland wind. The main affair Was a good two hours' steady fight Between our gun-boats and the Fort. The Louisville's wheel was smashed outright. A hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound ball Came planet-like through a starboard port, Killing three men, and wounding all The rest of that gun's crew, (The captain of the gun was cut in two); Then splintering and ripping went— Nothing could be its continent. In the narrow stream the Louisville, ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... to give as wedding presents!—but at the Hoftheatre there is a vessel of special design, hexagonal in cross section and unusually graceful in general aspect. On top, a pewter lid, ground to an optical fit and highly polished—by Sophie, Rosa et al., poor girls! To starboard, a stout handle, apparently of reinforced onyx. Above the handle, and attached to the lid, a metal flange or thumbpiece. Grasp the handle, press your thumb on the thumbpiece—and presto, the lid heaves up. And then, to the tune of a Strauss waltz, played passionately by tone artists in oleaginous ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... shoals, owing to some negligence in our lookout. This was not found out until we were hemmed in between two, one lying not more than fifty fathoms from our larboard quarter, and the other about three times the distance on the starboard beam. I went up to the mast-head, and distinctly saw the rocks, not more than two or three feet under water on the larboard side. We fortunately passed through this danger without accident; and, directly we cleared it, found bottom at twenty-five fathoms, coarse ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... encouraged by the eagerness of the bystanders, that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of his misfortune. It was but scraps that reached me: how he "filled her on the starboard tack," and how "it came up sudden out of the nor'nor'west," and "there she was, high and dry." Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men—"That was how it was, Jack?"—and the man would reply, "That was the way of it, Captain Trent." ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... win the race," said Bess. "But what Cora means is that the boat isn't properly balanced. There is too much weight on the starboard side." ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... everything was ready for getting the brigantine under way. Her fore-topsail—or foretawsail as Spike called it—was loose, the fasts were singled, and a spring had been carried to a post in the wharf, that was well forward of the starboard bow, and the brig's head turned to the southwest, or down the stream, and consequently facing the young flood. Nothing seemed to connect the vessel with the land but a broad gangway plank, to which Mulford had attached life-lines, with more care than it is usual to meet with on board ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the starboard or second mate's watch, had the opportunity of keeping the first watch at sea. Stimson, a young man making, like myself, his first voyage, was in the same watch, and as he was the son of a professional man, and had been in a merchant's ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... leaning with my back against the gunwale on the starboard side, he came out of the only private cabin that the vessel boasted, and taking up a position opposite to me, with his legs well apart and a big cigar between his thick lips, stood coolly regarding ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... clear, no danger need be apprehended. Having passed through the channel, should night be approaching, it would be advisable for a stranger to keep the main land aboard, leaving another Island (Smith's Island), on the starboard hand, and bring up in Memory Cove, a perfectly safe anchorage, in about five fathoms, and wait for day-light. Proceeding then along shore to the northward, he will arrive at Taylor's Island, which may be passed on either side; after which he may run along shore at a distance ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... quiet uneventful day; colder than yesterday in the Atlantic. I find that all along we have sailed with only two lights showing, both faint, one on either end of the bridge, red to port and green to starboard. In the last twenty-four hours we covered 286 miles, and going east fast, the clock being now advanced twenty-three minutes daily. We left Avonmouth with 1500 tons of coal on board, and we use sixty-five tons daily. We carry a poultry yard ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... nose. "Get aft, an' lively!" A hard shove sent the boy spinning to the foot of the ladder. He climbed dizzily and stumbled on deck, looking about him, uncertain where to go. It must have been past noon, for the sun was on the starboard bow. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... here mainly in the words of the chief engineer of a certain steamship which, after bunkering, left Lerwick, bound for Iceland. The weather was cold, the sea pretty rough, with a stiff head wind. All went well till next day, about 1.30 p.m., then the captain sighted a suspicious object far away to starboard. Speed was increased at once to close in with the Faroes and good lookouts were set fore and aft. Nothing further was seen of the suspicious object, but about half- past three without any warning the ship was struck amidships ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... I, with languid interest, yet glad nevertheless to learn that there was to be at least one individual of agreeable personality on board. Then, as we drew up toward the accommodation ladder, I continued: "Back your starboard oar; pull port; way enough! Lay in your oars and look out for the line that they are ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... "across country" on many an occasion, it was not long before he became satisfied with the saddle of a maherry. The rocking, and jolting, and "pitching," as our adventurers termed it, from larboard to starboard, fore and aft, and alow and aloft, soon caused Terence to sing out "enough"; and he descended into the soft sand with a much greater desire for walking than the moment before he had had ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... grass, which grow wild. The mast is stepped about two-thirds of the length of the ship nearer the prow, in order that the ship may pitch forward. The foremast is not stationary, being moved to port or starboard, according to the weather or other requirements. The sheets are worked in the same way. The compass is divided for fewer directions than ours. They also use stern-masts as mizzen-masts, which, like that at the bow, are changed from one side ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... his head he looked about him, and he saw two or three figures bundled together at the mainmast— woodsmen who had celebrated victory too sincerely. He looked for the watch, but could not see him. Then he drew himself carefully up, and on his hands and knees passed to the starboard side and moved aft. Doing so he saw the watch start up from the capstan where he had been resting, and walk towards him. He did not quicken his pace. He trusted to his ruse— he would impersonate Iberville, possessed as he was of the hat and cloak. He moved to the bulwarks ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... time forth no man saw her nor woman, either, except perhaps her maid, and maids are dark and discreet persons on occasion. If this particular one kept her own counsel when she saw a trim but tremulous figure drop lightly over the starboard rail of the Polly far forward, pick up a small traveling-bag from the pier, step behind the opportune screen of a load of coffee on a flat car, and reappear to view only as a momentary swish of skirt far away at the shore end; ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... speaking, the starboard motor emitted a groaning cough and stopped. The port engine might run for another five minutes or it might give out within the ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... the binnacle, there isn't a living writer—unless it be Clark Russell, and he appeals more to the adult—who can hold a candle, or shall we say a starboard light, to Gordon Stables as a narrator of sea stories for boys. This one is worthy of the high traditions of ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... down by the stern; gun out of action—mounting smashed; the sergeant hit, piece of his starboard leg carried away; and five men ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... to hold her breath, as did the captain and pilots—and then she began to fall away to starboard ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the evening, the captain, who was attended by the captain of the Alfred, came on board; Rodney immediately ran to him, and informed him that Green had made an assault upon her. The captain, without any inquiry, beat him severely, and ordered his hands to be made fast to some bolts on the starboard side of the ship and under the half deck, and then flogged him himself, using the lashes of the cat-of-nine-tails upon his back at one time, and the double walled knot at the end of it upon his head at another; and stopping to rest at intervals, and using ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... the whole, the conversation of his friends did not tend to edification, Miles left them and went to one of the starboard gangways, from which he could take a contemplative view of Nature in her beautiful robe of night. Curiously enough, Marion chanced to saunter towards the same gangway, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Here's the linstock that you're to fire with." He took up a long stick which had a slow match twisted round it. He lit the slow match by a pocket flint and steel after moving his powder away from him. "Now then," he cried, "are you ready? Stand clear of the breech. Starboard battery. Fire!" ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... slipped her moorings, and slid slowly down the stream. After a few miles the hue of the water became less turbid, the engines worked more rapidly and regularly. Liverpool was now a smoky mass off our starboard quarter. It sank and dwindled, till the smoke alone was left; the blue channel spread around us; we were at sea, and home lay yonder, across three thousand miles of tumbling waves. But my father still leaned on the rail, and looked ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... another threw up the water close to her stern. The four guns of the Tarifa had been brought over to the side on which the enemy was approaching, and these were now discharged. One of the shots carried away some oars on the starboard side of the galley, another struck her in the bow. There was a slight confusion on board; two or three oars were shifted over from the port to the starboard side, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... to the weather, or annoyance to their neighbors, enjoy the weed of old Virginia in perfection. This smoking-room is the principal prospect of the man at the helm, who, however, has to steer according to his signals. Before him is a painted intimation that one bell means "port," and two bells mean "starboard;" a like intimation appears on the large bell in the bow of the ship; and according to the striking of the bell, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... that Chippy threw his skiff's nose over to port, for he was bearing straight for the Three Spires as she lay end on, and port or starboard was all one in point of distance as regarded sculling round her. But he threw his bow over to port, and thereby made a striking discovery. For beside the great bulk lay a small bulk, and the latter was a boat swinging to the shattered taffrail ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... of the Sirio sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on our starboard quarter stretched the green-clad slopes of Istria, with the white villas of Abbazia peeping coyly out from amid the groves of pine and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown peaks of the Dinaric Alps rose, savage, mysterious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer sky. Perhaps ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... considerably. But the British vessels, through their preponderance in gunfire, suffered little damage. Their 12-inch guns hit their marks constantly, while 8.2-inch guns of the Scharnhorst were accurate, but ineffective. She veered to starboard at about 3.30, to bring into play her starboard batteries. Both her masts and three of her four funnels were shot away. At length the German flagship began to settle down rapidly in the waters. It was about a quarter past four. There was a swirl of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... "My starboard leg seems to be unshipped. I'd like about one hundred yards of line; I think I'm falling to pieces." Then he added: "I want to see Mr. Barstow or Mr. Goodman. My name is Clemens, and I've come to write for ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Ned Rector and Walter Perkins, had been lounging against the starboard rail of the "Corsair," observing Tad and the Captain as they talked. A few paces forward sat Professor Zepplin, their traveling companion, wholly absorbed in a scientific discussion with an engineer who was on his way to an Alaskan mine, of which the latter ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... coincidence," growled the mate. "I saw them during the calm yesterday morning, pointing to the land over our starboard quarter. They knew well enough that that was the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... looked out over the stern, toward the land; he fixed his eyes on the foaming wake; he gazed into the water to starboard and to port. Then ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... was lit by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the ship's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones, winked on the butterfly clamps of burnished brass and small rods from which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the place put out brisk and leapt on 15 board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they; "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 20 And with flow ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... these preparations impassively; then, taking off his boots, climbed on a settee and stood there in his big bare feet, with folded hands, facing, as he thought, toward Mecca. The boat was headed southwest, and he looked to starboard, so that he faced, as a matter of fact, nearly due west. He had knelt and touched his forehead twice to the bench, and was going on with the Mussulman prayer when the captain, a rather elegant young man who had served ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... the evening on horseback. Now as you know I have ridden pretty much everything from a broom stick to a camel, but for absolute novelty of motion commend me to a Japanese horse. There is a lurch to larboard, then a lurch to starboard, with a sort of "shiver-my-timbers" interlude. A coolie walks at the head of each horse, and reasons softly with him when he misbehaves. We rode for thirteen miles to the foot of the volcano, then at one o'clock we left the horses with one of the men and began to climb. Each climber ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... them that was goin', in ten minutes from the time I saw the ship. You know the Roarin' Bull, as sticks his horns out o' water just to windward of us? the cruelest rock on the coast, he is, and the treacherousest: and the ship struck him full and fair on the starboard quarter, and in ten minutes she was kindlin' wood, as ye may say. The Lord rest their souls as went down ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... was setting above the pine-clad ridge as our sail flapped and partly filled, and I cast off, and began a long tack, east by south, to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... obtain; and if Allah deign preserve us and keep for us the livelihood He vouchsafed to us we will bestow upon thee a portion thereof." After this they ceased not sailing until a tempest assailed them and blew their vessel to starboard and larboard and she lost her course and went astray at sea. Hereat the pilot cried aloud, saying, "Ho ye company aboard, take your leave one of other for we be driven into unknown depths of ocean, nor may we keep our course, because the wind bloweth full in our ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... buried her starboard rail at times and fairly hissed through the water, Frank did not take a reef in a single sail, for there were no squalls, and, "corinthian" though he was, he was gaining confidence in his ability to handle ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... But, drinking more slowly, he was altogether more thoughtful. "If we get there on time," was his one worry. "If we'd had that ten thousand of yours we'd never have sailed in this antedeluvian raft with a list to starboard like the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... eighty-four, while his open, bluff, and manly countenance at once proclaimed him to be the true man-of-war's man, and tar of old England. Jack's story is soon told:—besides being a King George's man, he had been a bold smuggler, and had his starboard leg carried away in an affray ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... faint outline of a vessel appeared against the sky. She was some miles inshore of us, and as the day brightened we made her out to be a brigantine (an uncommon rig in those days), standing across our bows, with all studding sails set on the starboard side, indeed everything that could pull, including water sails and save-all. We were on the same tack heading to the northward. We set everything that would draw, and kept off two points, bringing the wind abeam so as to head ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... other. My brain, acted upon by two forces, was compelled to take the hypothenuse, and I think the concussion was considerably diminished thereby. The vessel was forever trembling upon the verge of immense watery chasms that opened now under her port bow, now under her starboard, and that almost made one catch his breath as he looked into them; yet the noble ship had a way of skirting them or striding across them that was quite wonderful. Only five days was, I compelled to ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... about a hundred yards from the vessel, Shiny Bill began to descend from his post. He slipped down unobserved by any one, and the first notice we had of his intentions was from perceiving him run across the deck to the starboard bow, whence he threw himself, without hesitation, into the sea, and began to swim lustily after his captive friends. Our shouts — for, remembering the abundance of sharks, we were very much alarmed for the poor fellow ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... p. m. is divided into two "dog watches" called "first dog watch" and "last dog watch," so as to change the watches daily; otherwise starboard or port watch would be on deck the same hours ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... believe me, they are not over-rated. I have seen just as bad, perhaps, but not from the deck of a destroyer. And while I am frantically calculating whether I shall have enough fuel to make port or not, there is a wild yell from the bridge that the rudder is jammed at hard-a-starboard and can't be moved. She, of course, at once fell off into the trough of the sea, and the big green combers swept clear over her at every roll, raising merry hob. All the boats were smashed to kindling-wood; chests, and everything on deck not riveted down, went over the side. In that sea you ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... on the next margin of destruction, steaming desperately to their moorings, dashed helplessly together. The Calliope was the nearest in; she had the Vandalia close on her port side and a little ahead, the Olga close a-starboard, the reef under her heel; and steaming and veering on her cables, the unhappy ship fenced with her three dangers. About a quarter to nine she carried away the Vandalia's quarter gallery with her jib-boom; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... approached it from the starboard and slightly abaft the beam. From that angle, in particular, ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... how impossible it was that he should be supported, and how certainly the AGAMEMNON must be severely cut up if her masts were disabled, he altered his plan according to the occasion. As soon, therefore, as he was within a hundred yards of her stern, he ordered the helm to be put a-starboard, and the driver and after-sails to be brailed up and shivered; and, as the ship fell off, gave the enemy her whole broadside. They instantly braced up the after-yards, put the helm a-port, and stood after her again. This manoeuvre he practised for two ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... he said, with flaming aspect, "that the common term, 'Port your helm,' implies aught but what a man, not otherwise foolish, would gather from the word. Port means port, and starboard is starboard, and all the d——d sea-captains in the world cannot move me from that." With that the Doctor beat his fist upon the table until the glasses rattled again and glared into ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... gradually improved their position. They were nearly matched, in point of sailing; and their captains were evidently making a race of it, hoisting every stitch of canvas they were able to show. By the afternoon they were fully two miles ahead of the ship, which was half a mile on the starboard bow of the brig. ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... tug veered to starboard to round Governor's Island the tow-line slued to port and thence quickly to starboard. The rowboat was snapped over on her gunwales and the water poured in like a mill-race. A roar of an oath escaped Captain Barney's ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... watch!" when the main royal worked loose from the gaskets, and blew directly out to leeward, flapping and shaking the mast like a wand. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must come in or be cut adrift, or the mast would be snapped short off. All the light hands in the starboard watch were sent up one after another, but they could do nothing with it. At length John, the tall Frenchman, the head of the starboard watch (and a better sailor never stepped upon a deck), sprang aloft, and by the help ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Lightship, Lister climbed to the bridge and for a few minutes looked about. The plunging red hull to starboard was the last of the Mersey marks, for the North-West ship was hidden by low clouds. Ahead the angry gray water was broken by streaks of foam. Terrier rolled and quivered when her bows smashed a sea, and showers of spray beat like hail against the ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... Spanish line, and pouring in its fire as it went from a distance of forty-five hundred yards, the American squadron swept round in a long ellipse and sailed back, now bringing its starboard batteries into play. Six times it passed over this course, the last two at the distance of two thousand yards. From the great cannon, and from the batteries of smaller rapid-fire guns, a steady ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... was chasing the enemy's almiranta, overtook it, and after he had fired two or three volleys of his artillery, musketry, and arquebuses, he grappled it on its stern-quarter on the starboard side. Our men immediately boarded the enemy, the said admiral being among the first. The enemy defended themselves well, serving their artillery and thrice setting a fire purposely with some powder cartridges, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... half-frightened, but wildly excited and determined to see out, what a landsman has but seldom a chance of seeing, a great gale of wind at sea, I clung tight to the starboard bulwarks of Mr. Richard Green's new clipper, Sultan, Captain Sneezer, about an hour after dark, as she was rounding the Horn, watching much such a scene as I have attempted to give you a notion of above. And as I held on there, wishing that the directors ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the strength of the sailors. They were received at the side of the vessel by a shout of triumph. The Duke of Norfolk, a handsome young man, from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age, advanced to meet them. De Guiche and Bragelonne lightly mounted the ladder on the starboard side, and conducted by the Duke of Norfolk, who resumed his place near them, they approached to offer their homage to the princesses. Respect, and yet more, a certain apprehension, for which he could not account, had hitherto restrained the Comte ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have no recollection. I knew vaguely that the ship rolled and had a serious list to starboard, that orders were being hoarsely shouted from the bridge, that the moon was shining fitfully, that the sea was black and choppy; I also seemed to catch the singing of a hymn somewhere on the forward deck. I suppose I knew that I existed. But that was all. I had no ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... hope from the earth. There was a great commotion in the bush; the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply—then silence, in which the languid beat of the stern-wheel came plainly to my ears. I put the helm hard a-starboard at the moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway. 'The manager sends me—' he began in an official tone, and stopped short. 'Good God!' he said, glaring at ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... additional labour at the pump, nothing was thought of it. At eight, the leak did not seem to increase. At twelve it began to blow very hard in squalls, which caused the vessel to lie down very much, whereby it was apprehended she wanted more ballast. Thereupon the captain came on deck, being the starboard watch, and close reefed ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... over him and speaking angrily but quite low. I fancy he was asking him why the devil he didn't go and stop the engines, instead of making a row about it on deck. I heard him say, "Get up! Run! fly!" He swore also. The engineer slid down the starboard ladder and bolted round the skylight to the engine-room companion which was on the port side. He moaned as ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Amyas. "Keep her closer still. Let no one fire till we are about. Man the starboard guns; to starboard, and wait, all small-arm men. Pass the order down to the gunner, and bid all fire high, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... still when she heard the roll of another chair-bed coming down the hall, its passage enlivened with cries of "Starboard! Port! Easy now! Pull away!" from Ralph and Frank, as they steered the recumbent Columbus on his first ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... of the sea, So hard-a-port upon your lee! A ship on starboard tack! She's bound upon a private cruise— (This is the kind of spice I use ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... starboard watch were soon on deck, half-dressed, and snuffing the morning air very discontentedly. We of the larboard division went below ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... little closer all about her face to hide it, through some sort of instinct (the first-cabin folk, above, all through the voyage, had been wont to gaze down on the steerage passengers as if they were a sort of interesting animals), and made her way across the slowly heaving planks to starboard. Glancing quickly upward as she went, she colored gloriously, for looking down straight at her from behind the rail which edged the elevated platform of the prosperous, stood the youth who had picked up her father's bag as they had come ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... Thorfinn and his wife, Gudrid, set out with a fleet of three ships and 160 persons, of whom seven were women, to go to Vinland, and in two days' sail beyond Markland they came to the ship's nose set upon the shore, and, keeping that upon the starboard, they sailed along a sandy shore, which they called Wunderstrandir, and also Furderstrandir. One of the captains, evidently satisfied that they were not in the region visited by Leif and Thorwald, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... while now the great "San Philip" hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... got into his mizzen rigging. The ships were made fast by the men on the upper deck. At first I could not bring a gun to bear, the enemy was so far ahead of me. But as soon as we anchored, our ship forged ahead a little,—and by bringing the hind axle-trucks well aft, I made both my starboard guns bear on his bows. Fired right into his forward ports. I do not think there was a man or a gun there. In the second battery, forward of me, they had to blow our own ports open, because the enemy lay so close. Stopped firing three ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to the sweeps. But I had been ready for this. I luffed suddenly. Putting the tiller hard down, and holding it down with my body, I brought the main-sheet in, hand over hand, on the run, so as to retain all possible striking force. The two starboard sweeps of the junk were crumpled up, and then the two boats came together with a crash. The Reindeer's bowsprit, like a monstrous hand, reached over and ripped out the junk's ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... thank you for all your kind trouble in the matter of The Sea Cook, but I am not unmindful. My health is still poorly, and I have added intercostal rheumatism—a new attraction—which sewed me up nearly double for two days, and still gives me a list to starboard—let us ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... assured us the dominion of the unstable air and left its inventor penniless and half-blind. It is calculated to Castelli's "gullwing" curve. Raise a few feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch and she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control again. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward—a touch on the wheel will suffice—and she sweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and she presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... the "Saga" tells how in the centre of the fleet the "Long Serpent" lay, with the "Crane" and the "Short Serpent" to port and starboard. The sterns of the three ships were in line, and so the bow of the "Long Serpent" projected far in front of the rest. As the sailors secured the ships in position, Ulf the Red-haired, who commanded on the forecastle of the "Long Serpent," went aft and called out to the King ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... hundred other cries of terror filled the air, for the wind seemed to have died down, though the sea still ran high, and sounds were now more audible. Off to the starboard side of the ship the boys perceived a mighty towering form, which they knew must be the iceberg they had encountered. The crew ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... abreast of Littlehampton, and about eight miles off the shore, the Aurora went about once more, and stood over towards France, close-hauled on the starboard tack. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... fearful gale from the east and northeast to north- west. They were hove-to for three days, everything battened down; port boat and davits carried away by a sea; after a while the starboard boat dashed to pieces. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spars cutting the skyline above and beyond the smokestacks; far down the Bay a steam schooner, loaded until her main-deck was almost flush with the water, was putting out to sea, and Shirley heard the faint echo of her siren as she whistled her intention to pass to starboard of a wind-jammer inward bound in tow of a ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... tubes occupy the centre of the boat, leaving two narrow passages, one each side. In the port passage is the wireless cabinet and signal flag lockers, with store rooms underneath. In the starboard passage are one or two ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... Indiana shore. Both men violated the rules of signals. Remlin should not have blown any signal until he heard from the up-stream boat, and Jenkins, not hearing any signal from the States, should have stopped his boat. Jenkins was standing on the starboard side, that placing him behind the chimney, and he did not see the States until she came out across ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... passengers, after the bustle of lunch and arranging their staterooms; had settled into their deck chairs and were telling each other how much they loved the ocean. Captain Scottie had taken his afternoon constitutional on his private strip of starboard deck just aft the bridge, and was sitting in his comfortable cabin expecting a cup of tea. He was a fine old sea-dog: squat, grizzled, severe, with wiry eyebrows, a short coarse beard, and watchful quick eyes. A characteristic ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... diamonds in two small canvas bags. They were among the largest I had and (as I subsequently found) worth fifty thousand pounds. After we had thrown the body overboard, I ordered Yawl to put the sloop on the starboard tack, and myself taking the helm changed the course to due north. Then I asked him who he and Kidd were, whence they came, and why they had so shamefully deceived me as to ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... go out with a foul wind. We were surrounded with vessels of war, most of the Channel Fleet being at anchor around us. This made a gay scene, and we had plenty of music, and plenty of saluting. One day all hands turned-to together, and fired starboard and larboard, until we could see nothing but a few mast-heads. What it all meant I never heard, but it made a famous smoke, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... layer 30 centimetres thick, of hard tramped snow or ice, which in no inconsiderable degree contributed to increase the resistance of the deck to cold, and for the same purpose snowdrifts were thrown up along the vessel's sides. A stately ice stair was carried up from the ice to the starboard gunwale. A large tent made for the purpose at Karlskrona was pitched from the bridge to the fore, so that only the poop was open. Aft the tent was quite open, the blast and drifting snow having also free entrance from the sides and from an incompletely closed opening in the fore. The protection ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... continually, that the between-decks were full of water, and as the hatches were kept down, the heat was most oppressive. When it was not my watch I remained below, and looked out for another berth to sleep in. Before the cabin bulkheads on the starboard side, the captain had fitted up a sort of sail-room to contain the spare sails in case we should require them. It was about eight feet square, and the sails were piled up in it, so as to reach within two feet of the deck overhead; though the lower ones were ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... Nombre de Dios." His answer set the Spaniards cursing and damning him for a heretic English buccaneer. "We gave no heed to their words," says the narrative, but hooked on to the chains and ports, on the starboard bow, starboard quarter, and port beam, and laid her aboard without further talk. It was something of a task to get on board, for the ship stood high in the water, being of 240 tons, (and as far as we can judge) in ballast. Having gained the ship's waist they tossed the gratings and hatch ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... the engines, which had been stopped, commenced to work again, and her head swung round in a wide circle, pointing to the land. Evidently they had passed over the rock and were once more in deep water, through which they travelled at a good speed but with a heavy list to starboard. The pumps got to work also with a monotonous, clanging beat, throwing out great columns of foaming water on to the oily sea. Men began to cut the covers off the boats, and to swing some of them outboard. Such were the things that went on ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... on the one 4.7; aft we looked up to the other. On bow and beam and quarter we looked out to the enemy's fleet. Deserted Pepworth's was on the port-bow, Gun Hill, under Lombard's Kop, on the starboard, Bulwan abeam, Middle Hill astern, Surprise ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... Sluys), he saw "so great a number of vessels that of masts there seemed to he verily a forest." He made his arrangements forthwith, "placing his strongest ships in front, and manoeuvring so as to have the wind on the starboard quarter, and the sun astern. The Normans marvelled to see the English thus twisting about, and said, 'They are turning tail; they are not men enough to fight us.'" But the Genoese buccaneer was not misled. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... over, we set fore-sail and main-sail, and brought the ship to. Then we set the mizen, main-top-sail, and the fore-top-sail. Our course was east-north-east, the wind was at south-west. We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our weather-braces and lifts; we set in the lee-braces, and hauled forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them tight, and belayed them, and hauled over the mizen tack to windward, and kept her full and by as ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... cried the lookout, in the long echoing call of the old-time whaler, and stretching out his hand, he pointed to a spot in the ocean about three points off the starboard bow. Colin's glance followed the direction, and almost immediately he saw the faint cloud of vapor which showed that a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a great warship out of the East under a press of canvas. What event is this? See! she clews up her light sails and fires an eleven-inch gun! One of those guns of Mobile Bay. Then swarms out the starboard watch, one hundred and sixty strong, and a fleet of boats brings ashore these pale astronomers with those useless tubes that they point at the sky every night. But there are useful things too; cooking-stoves, and ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... wheel this way and that—his eyes were of the blue that only the sea can give—in obedience to, or rather in accord with, the curt, mystic, seaman-like orders of the young officer of the watch. "Hard a-port! Midships! Hard a-starboard! Port 20! Steady as she goes!" And ceaselessly the engine-room telegraph tinkled, and the handy little craft, with death and terror written in her workmanlike lines for the seaman, for all her slim insignificance to the landlubber on the towering decks of the great liner, swung ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30' and longitude 72 degrees 15', ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts of these waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and 400-horsepower steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots. Without the high quality of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Suddenly her search-light, sweeping the black waters with a broad arc of silver, disclosed a shadowy bulk moving swiftly at right angles to the course they were taking, and heading for a beacon blaze that had sprung up on the starboard or ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... was the Mary of the Tower, and she had a frightful list to starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned over completely. Many days ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Barradas was for'ard, and Rawlings was pacing the poop, the ear-ringed Greek came along with some of the hands to spread the after awning. As the seamen carried the heavy canvas up the starboard poop ladder the Greek walked up near to Captain Rawlings, who was on the port side, and said quickly, as he pretended to busy himself ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... There may have been others as anxious to look on the green slopes of Mount Edgecumbe as the man with the mahogany-coloured face who stood ever smoking—smoking—always at the forward starboard corner of the hurricane deck. His story had not leaked out, because only two men on board knew it—men with no conversational leaks whatever. He had made no other friends. But many watched him half interestedly, and perhaps a few divined the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... like a teetotum, and stumps back again; and the sweet night passes in splendour, until all save one or two home-sick lingerers are happy. It never occurs to any of these passengers to glance forward and see whether a streak of green fire seems to strike out from the starboard—the right-hand side of the vessel—or whether a shaft of red shoots from the other side. As a matter of fact, the vessel is going on like a dark cloud over the flying furrows of the sea; but there is very little of the cloud about her great hull, for she would knock a house down if she ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... pivotal point for Jefferson, America and the world; for Jefferson gave the rudder of the Ship of State such a turn to starboard that there was never again danger of her drifting on to aristocratic shoals, an easy victim to the rapacity of Great Britain. Hamilton's distrust of the people found no echo ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... lights. About the lantern on the mast a yellow motionless spot had formed; devoid of lustre, it hung in the fog over the steamer, illuminating nothing save the gray mist. The red starboard light looked like a huge eye crushed out by some one's cruel fist, blinded, overflowing with blood. Pale rays of light fell from the steamer's windows into the fog, and only tinted its cold, cheerless dominion over the vessel, which was pressed on all sides by the motionless ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... knob of his right-hand front paw,' says he. 'Dicky Bird,' says I, 'that is no way to describe the anatomy of a horse after all the teaching I've given you.' 'I am so forgetful and horsey terms are so confusing,' he moans. 'Oh, I recollect now—his starboard ankle!' The dear babe!" ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... the Windward Passage, with the Mole of St. Nicholas on the starboard bow. They slowed down for a wash and a bite of breakfast, and then the preacher, with a manner which showed it to be ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... he turned from time to time to the steersman with a sharp "Put her to starboard," or ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... six, the Nymphe reached the starboard quarter of the Cleopatra, when Captain Pellew, whose hat was still in his hand, raised it to his head, the preconcerted signal for the Nymphe to open her fire. Both frigates immediately commenced a furious cannonade, which they maintained without intermission ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... will please him—but I'm going to sell the Bulletin. I have an offer for it at an excellent profit. I'm going to intrust the management of the electric plant to my good friend Biff, here, with Chalmers and Johnson as starboard and larboard bulwarks, until the stock is quoted at a high enough rating to be a profitable sale; then I'm going to turn it into money, and add it to the original fund. I think I shall be busy enough just looking ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... was moored with a long sweep from both cables, and one of the buoys of the anchor was far away on the starboard quarter, where it rose and fell with the lazy swells of the waves. Toward this buoy the two lads made their way, young Fairbanks taking the lead; but, when they were within about twenty or thirty fathoms of the buoy, Wallace shot ahead and promised ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... once more, saying,—"I have heard as how you came by your lame foot, by having your upper decks over-stowed with liquor, whereby you became crank, and rolled, d'ye see, in such a manner, that by a pitch of the ship your starboard heel was jammed in one of the scuppers; and as for the matter of your eye, that was knocked out by your own crew when the Lightning was paid off: there's poor Pipes, who was beaten into all the colours of the rainbow for taking your part, and giving you time to sheer off; and I don't ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... days of good Queen Bess,— Or p'raps a bit before,— And now these here three sailors bold Went cruising on the shore. A lurch to starboard, one to port, Now forrard, boys, go we, With a haul and a "Ho!" and a "That's your sort!" To find ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... and starboard lights, Miss Jane. One o' these nights with the tide settin' she'll run up ag'in somethin' solid in a fog, and then—God help her! If Bart had lived he might have come home and done the decent thing, and then we could ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... glanced over the sea the truck lights died responsively. Then the green and red starboard and port lamps and lights in wardroom and galley went out and men hurried along the deck placing tarpaulins over the engine room gratings. Only the binnacle lights remained and these were muffled with just a crack for ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... steward—oh, poor old Sir John! What would have happened if the ice had slid down his neck? Thoroughly comforted by this gleeful hypothesis, Miss Deane seized a favorable opportunity to dart across to the starboard side and see if Captain Ross's "heavy bank of cloud in the north-west" had ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... sailed again with a good westerly wind, which would also have taken us to Corfu; but after we had gone two or three hours, the captain pointed out to me a brigantine, evidently a pirate, for she was shaping her course so as to get to windward of us. I told him to change the course, and to go by starboard, to see if the brigantine would follow us, but she immediately imitated our manoeuvre. I could not go back to Otranto, and I had no wish to go to Africa, so I ordered the men to shape our course, so as to land on the coast of Calabria, by hard rowing and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... way to Bjarkey; and Jon, with his son Vidkun, fled from thence. Thorer and his men robbed all the movable goods, and burnt the house, and a good long-ship that belonged to Vidkun. While the hull was burning the vessel keeled to one side, and Thorer called out, "Hard to starboard, Vidkun!" Some verses were made about this burning ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... the sun had gone to rest. The first shadows of dusk were closing in, betokened by a thickening of the smoke-fog into which the Waterbug slowly plowed. To port a dimming shore line; to starboard, aft, and dead ahead, water and air merged in two boat lengths. Barlow leaned through the pilot-house window, one hand on the wheel, straining his eyes on their course. Suddenly he threw out the clutch, shut down his throttle control with one hand, and yanked with the other at the cord ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... by the boat's changing lights that her bow, which had been headed up-stream, when she lay at the bank, was swinging slowly out into the stream, and they expected shortly to see her starboard lights as she headed downward. But she seemed to pause, with her furnace fires and pilot ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... ship, went down. I found myself next day looked upon as no better than a heathen by all the women, because I had been cool, and declined to get up and make a noise. Presently the officers came and told me that a big ship had borne down on us—we were on the starboard tack, and all right—carried off our flying jib-boom and whisker (the sort of yard to the bowsprit). The captain says he was never in such imminent danger in his life, as she threatened to swing round and to crush into our waist, which would have been certain destruction. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... the garboard strakes, my lads, And reef the starboard screw— For it sticks like tar, that sandy bar, To the ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... splendid burst! Away I went with my heart in my mouth and my feet in the water tryin' to steady myself, but as ill luck would have it, just as I had got my ship on an even keel an' was beginnin' to dip my oar with great caution, a squall came down the lake, caught me on the starboard quarter, and threw me on my beam-ends. Of coorse I went sowse into the water, and had only time to give out one awful yell when the water shut me up. Fortnitly my father heard me; jumped in and pulled me out, but instead of kicking me or blowin' me up, he told me that I should have kept my weather-eye ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... having taken on the health officers, the great vessel was in motion again, standing majestically up through the Narrows. To starboard, Bay Ridge basked in golden light. Forward, over the starboard bow, beyond leagues of stained water quick with the life of two-score types of harbour and seagoing craft, New York reared its ragged ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... the prow, and with him Skallagrim, and called aloud to a great man who stood upon the ship to starboard, wearing a black helm with ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... not idle. We had gone outside twice—once at target practice and once on steam tactics. The "Armide," French flag-ship, had left for Europe, and her relief, the "Themis," had arrived on the station, losing several sheets of copper off her starboard bow on the passage up ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... minutes, swept the boat off without having received a hole in her bottom, otherwise we must probably have perished. Shortly after we were jammed between a great shallow whirlpool and a large boat on our starboard beam. This boat was dashed by the current against ours, and menaced to shove her into the whirlpool. The long lateen yards of the two boats got entangled, and I was prepared to leap into the other boat, ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... among the currant bushes in the garden. Mr. Ball, longing for conversation with his kind, went out to the gate and stood looking up at him, blinking in the bright sunlight. "Young feller," he said, "I reckon that starboard hoss is my old ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed |
