"Topmast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... At that, as may be imagined, we were very greatly excited, and stood upon the thwarts that we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was upon our larboard side, gave me some sight of her hull, but not much, because of the weed in which she was deeply ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... Annibal, 74, got within range at 5 P.M., when a distant cannonade began, which lasted till past midnight, and was resumed on the following morning. From it the Janus was the chief sufferer, losing her mizzen topmast and foretopgallant mast. It falling nearly calm, the Bristol and Lion got out their boats and were towed by them to her support. The two other French ships of the line got up during the forenoon of the 21st, so that the action that afternoon, though desultory, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... than a torpedo-boat. When Judson was appointed to take charge of the thing on her little trip of six or seven thousand miles southward, his first remark as he went to look her over in dock was, "Bai Jove, that topmast wants staying forward!" The topmast was a stick about as thick as a clothes-prop, but the flat-iron was Judson's first command, and he would not have exchanged his position for second post on the "Anson" or the "Howe". He navigated her, under convoy, tenderly and lovingly to the Cape (the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... to sit still and wish for what was not to be had; and this extremity roused my application. We had several spare yards, and two or three large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two in the ship; I resolved to fall to work with these, and I flung as many of them overboard as I could manage for their weight, tying every one with a rope, that they might not drive away. When this was done I went down the ship's side, and pulling them to me, I tied ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... lockers, where it would not be found. Altogether, it took me about twenty minutes to make everything ready, by which time the little accident on deck had been forgotten, except by those who had to do the work of sending up a new topmast; a job which kept all hands busy all night. The ship was making a steady three knots. under her reduced sail when I helped Aurelia across to her new room. There was no more ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... myself very comfortable up here for a while," replied Dory, as he placed his feet on the foresail gaff, and passed his arm around the topmast. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... the Bell Rock was divested of many of its terrors, and had it been possible to have got the boats hoisted out and manned, it might have even been found practicable to land. At six it blew so hard that it was found necessary to strike the topmast and take in a third reef of the mainsail, and under this low canvas we soon reached St. Andrews Bay, and got again under the lee of the land for the night. The artificers, being sea-hardy, were quite reconciled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... new topgallant-mast. A few hours afterwards the Tudor came in and dropped her anchor close to the frigate. She had evidently suffered severely in the gale. Her fore-topsail-yard was so badly sprung that sail could not be carried on it. Her mizen-topmast was gone, her starboard bulwarks forward stove in, one of her boats carried away; besides which she had received other damages. The sea which had injured her bulwarks had swept along her deck, but everything had been secured, without doing further harm, and fortunately ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... in hull and rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her boilers. Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been surprised to see it fall at any moment. Loose ropes were trailing in all directions; and the tattered ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... plan she would work out nearer a hundred and forty); and Phoby a St. Ives ketch, the Nonesuch, of about the same size. But which was the Black Joke and which the Nonesuch you never could be sure, for the lugger carried fids, topmast, crosstrees, and a spare suit of sails to turn her into a ketch at twenty minutes' notice; and likewise the ketch could ship topmast, shift her rigging, and hoist a spare suit of lug-sails in no longer time. The pair of them, too, had false quarter-pieces to ship and ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... vivid forked lightning momentarily appeared, were rolling rapidly towards us, and made us fear a repetition of last night's storm; the stream-anchor, the only resource we had, was therefore dropped; and, with the topmast struck, we awaited the bursting of the storm with much anxiety, and just cause of alarm for the safety of the vessel: the clouds continued to roll towards us, but just as the storm was on the point of bursting, the clouds suddenly dispersed and in half an hour ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... remember when the raging sea contended with my gallant vessel—when her keel cracked and the wind split her topmast. Yet Andreas Doria then slept soundly. Who sends ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... She is a good-sized, decked vessel, generally between five-and-twenty and a hundred tons, with good beam and full bows, narrow at the stern and rather high out of water unless very heavily laden. She has one stout mast, cross-trees, and a light topmast. She has an enormous yard, much longer than herself, on which is bent the high peaked mainsail. She carries a gaff-top-sail, fore-staysail, jib and flying-jib, and can rig out all sorts of light sails when she is before the wind. She is a good sea boat, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... the N.W. It moderated so much on the 20th as to enable them to get their top-gallant masts and yards aloft. After dark it again began to blow strong, but the ships had been prepared for a gale, and therefore Nelson's mind was easy. Shortly after midnight, however, his main-topmast went over the side, and the mizentopmast soon afterward. The night was so tempestuous that it was impossible for any signal either to be seen or heard; and Nelson determined, as soon as it should be daybreak, to wear, and scud before the gale; ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... fighting. The Bellerophon got to windward of the enemy by passing in front of the French Terrible (110), and put in some excellent gunnery practice. She sailed so close to the French ship to starboard as almost to touch her, and brought down the enemy's topmast and lower yards with a broadside, whilst at the same time she raked the Terrible with her larboard guns.* (* There is an interesting engraving of the Bellerophon passing through the French line and firing both her broadsides in the Naval Chronicle Volume 1, and a plan of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... mere agony. Alas! the mizen-sail's split, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, the maintop-masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are almost all broke, and blown away. Alas! alas! where is our main course? Al is verlooren, by Godt! our topmast is run adrift. Alas! who shall have this wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales. Your lantern is fallen, my lads. Alas! do not let go the main-tack nor the bowline. I hear the block crack; is it broke? For the Lord's sake, let us have the hull, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... On the opposite bank of the vast liquid plate, so wide that you did not see the ends of it, one vanishing in the Rhone, and the other in the Bourget, rose the high mountain, jagged like a crest up to the topmast peak of the "Cats's Tooth." On either side of the road, vines, trailing from tree to tree, choked under their leaves their slender supporting branches, and they extended in garlands through the fields, green, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... the first rank shall bear a flag of St. George's cross upon the fore topmast for the space of the fight, which upon the king's determination shall be on Monday, the 10th ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... foresail!" the captain shouted. "Quick, men! and lash a spare spar to the yard. They are busy cutting away their topmast, but we shall be off again before they are ready to move. They have lost nearly half a mile; we shall soon be out of range. Be sharp with that ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... should be able to weigh with the coming down of the ebb. He asked Bramble whether he thought it would blow hard. Bramble could not say, but it would be better that the men should not turn in, as they might be wanted; and that if the fore-topmast staysail was hoisted, she would lie better at her anchor, and in case of parting, he would be able to manage her till sail was set. This advice was followed, and all the men sat up in the cabin drinking, those who had the watch occasionally coming ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... expressly for the commodore's own use, he was unexpectedly surprised by the return of the old commander on board; and in making his escape through the cabin window into a boat he had in waiting, unfortunately left his time-piece and topmast behind. This circumstance is said to have put the commodore out of conceit with his little frigate, who has since been paid off', and is now chartered for general purposes." At this little episode of a well-known Bath story, the captain laughed heartily, and Transit ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and crash were dreadful. Their decks were deserted. Three pistol-shots were the unequal return. With confidence I say that the frigate would have been lost to France, had not the unequal collision torn away our fore-topmast, jib-boom, fore and maintop-sails, spritsail-yards, bumpkin, cathead, chainplates, fore-rigging, foresail, and bower anchor, with which last I intended to hook on; but all proved insufficient. She would yet have been lost to France, had not the French admiral, seeing his frigate's ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... a soft step behind him and a shadow from the doorway. He turned. A graceful stripling in turban and caftan of cloth of gold salaamed to him from the topmast step. And as he came upright and the light of the lanterns fell full upon his face the astonishingly white fairness of it was revealed—a woman's face it might have been, so softly rounded was it ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini |
