"Topsail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carryin' on very heavy, 'cause she were headin' west-nor'west, which were a good course, till eight bells in the arternoon watch, when the sea gittin' up so tremendiously we had to furl the reefed mainsail and mizzen topsail and close reef the fore ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... few minutes the hurricane struck us. We had bared the brig down to the close-reefed main-topsail; yet, though we were dead before the outfly, its first blow rent the fragment of sail as if it were formed of smoke, and in an instant it disappeared, flashing over the bows like a scattering of torn ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... that great, big water, that was so blue and that danced and sparkled in the sunshine. For it was a beautiful afternoon and there was just a gentle wind blowing, so that the Industry had every bit of sail set that could be set: mainsail and foresail and spanker, main-topsail, and fore-topsail, main-topgallantsail and fore-topgallantsail and main-royal and fore-royal and main-skysail and fore-skysail and staysails and all her jibs and a studdingsail on every yard, out on its boom. ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... may be considered by some as objectionable, (an old argument against double-topsail yards). The spar used for the reef may be about one-half the diameter of the yard on which it is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... and at once the eight or ten seamen who composed the crew, sprang to their respective stations at the spanker brails and outhaul, topsail sheets and halyards, the jib downhaul, and the topsail clewlines and buntlines. The young sailor gave a look to see that his orders were promptly and accurately obeyed, and then turned ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the topsail dipped over the watery sky before breakers begin to thunder on the sand reefs. Air and earth lash to fury. Sails are torn from the ship of the marquis. His {24} masts go overboard, and the vessel is driven, helpless as a chip in a maelstrom, clear ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... brought the two of us to an inn on the West Coast, and all its windows opened on a wide harbour, hill-enclosed. Only small coasting craft were there, mostly ketches; but we had topsail schooners also and barquantines, those ascending and aerial rigs that would be flamboyant but for the transverse spars of the foremast, giving one who scans them the proper ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... with a heavy swell, a strong gale, and a mist so thick that land, sea, and sky were confounded in one general obscurity. The rain and the heavy spray raised by the storm, and the coming on of night, made it necessary to put the Uranie under a close-reefed topsail and jib, under which pressure of sail she behaved splendidly. The only available course was to run before the wind, and the travellers had just begun to feel thankful for their good fortune in being driven by the storm far away from the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... for which none are ready, dashes in, and with it tumble ashore, in one great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, stout hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail down, forestay-sail in tatters, keel up, everything gone to pieces in the swash ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... not yet returned, she was surprised to see the supposed vessel here. To add to her perplexity, she could not be positive, now that it came to a real nautical query, whether the craft of Neigh's friends had one mast or two, for she had caught but a fragmentary view of the topsail over the apple-trees. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of surprise, that the rigging and sails of the Resolution should be essentially damaged, and even worn out, and yet, in all this great run, which had been made in every latitude between nine and seventy-one, she did not spring either lowmast, topmast, lower or topsail yard; nor did she so much as break a lower or topmast shroud. These happy circumstances were owing to the good properties of the vessel, and the singular care ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... take a raking position under the stern of the "Hope," and to board her without a shot being fired. But as Mugford, at the head of the boarders, clambered over the taffrail, he heard the captain of the "Hope" order the men to cut the topsail halliards and ties, with the intention of so crippling the ship that the British squadron ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... called propriety. It was all she could do to restrain herself from dancing on the little deck half swept by the tiller. The boat of a schooner which lay at the quay towed them out of the harbour. Then the creature spread her wings like a bird —mainsail and gaff topsail, staysail and jib—leaped away to leeward, and seemed actually to bound over the waves. Malcolm sat at the tiller, and Blue ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... a well-defined, narrow, lake-like watercourse, which was entered not long after I debouched from Alligator Lake. Stump Inlet having closed up eighteen months before my visit, the sound and its tributaries received tidal water from New Topsail Inlet. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... this immediate region, save the hundred or more on Sullivan's Island and the one or two exotics in the streets of Charleston. In the middle of the Ashley, which is here more than a quarter of a mile wide, lies anchored a topsail schooner, the nursery of the South Carolina navy. I never saw it sail anywhere; but then my opportunities of observation were limited. Quite a number of boys are on board of it, studying maritime matters; and I can bear witness that they are sufficiently advanced to row themselves ashore. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... that some of the older and more experienced hands, though now borne down by the general feeling of insubordination, would side with us if only we could show a strong hand. If so, there would not be seamanship enough in the rest to set a topsail or read a chart; and every moment the breeze was freshening and ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Used aboard yachts for bending on the gaff topsail halliards. It consists of two turns around a spar or ring, then a half hitch around the standing part and through the turns on the spar, and another half hitch above it ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... the young of every race. Wild winds carried away some clothes and cooking-dishes from the ship; there was a birth and a death, and occasional illness, besides the dire seasickness. John Howland, "the lustie young man," fell overboard but he caught hold of the topsail halyard which hung extended and so held on "though he was sundry fathoms under water," until he was pulled up by a rope and rescued by a boat-hook. [Footnote: Bradford's History of Plymouth ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... you talking about? Yes.... [To MOZGOVOY] Yes, if there's a head-wind you must... let's see... you must hoist your foretop halyards and topsail halyards! The order is: "On the cross-trees to the foretop halyards and topsail halyards" and at the same time, as the sails get loose, you take hold underneath of the foresail and fore-topsail halyards, stays ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... blew a twelve-knot breeze, and, like the Skylark, she was expected to carry all sail in anything short of a full gale. But she was provided with an abundance of "kites," including an immense gaff-topsail, which extended on poles far above the topmast head, and far beyond the peak, a balloon-jib, a jib-topsail, and a three-cornered studding-sail. The balloon-jib, or the jib-topsail, was bent on with snap-hooks ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... sailor men soon acquired the habit of the sea, growing accustomed to meeting fair and foul weather with an equally good face, rejoicing with us sailor men at a fair wind and full sail and standing by top-gallant and topsail halyards when the prospects were more leaden coloured and the barometer falling. We numbered about forty now, which meant heaps of beef to haul on ropes and plenty of trimmers to shift the coal from the hold to the bunkers. One or ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... soothed into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have been heard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... gaining the shelter of the river; but the Palmetto was compelled to anchor outside and await a higher tide. The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf. We felt the most serious apprehensions for the safety of the unfortunate bark; but as the water would not permit her to cross ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... spent several days under a close-reefed main-topsail and a reefed fore-sail; but at length reached an anchorage on the eastern shore of Flinders Island within the north-east side of a granitic lump called Babel Islet. The flood tide came from the north-east at this anchorage, which can only ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... drew up the Strait from the southward, and blew strong for twenty-four hours from that quarter. In the course of the night, and while lying-to under the storm-sails, an iceberg was discovered, by its white appearance, under our lee. The main-topsail being thrown aback we were enabled to drop clear of this immense body, which would have been a dangerous neighbour in a heavy seaway. The wind moderated on the 11th, but on the following day another gale came on, which for nine or ten hours blew in most tremendous gusts from the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... received a wound through his body about an hour after the action commenced, when standing at the gangway. The enemy had then suffered much, having lost the yard-arms of both his lower yards, and had no sails drawing but his foresail, main-top-gallant-sail, and mizen-topsail, the others flying about. We had engaged her to leeward, which, from the heel his ship had, prevented him from making our rigging and sails the objects of his fire; though I am well convinced he had laid his guns down as much as possible. When I assumed the command, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... ship was la Surveillante, which means the watchful maid; She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade. Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail. On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... buttoned straight down. This great coat had two pockets on each side, into which its owner's hands were deeply inserted, and so close did his arms lie to his sides, that they appeared nothing more than as would battens nailed to a topsail yard. The only deviation from the perpendicular was from the insertion of a speaking-trumpet under his left arm, at right angles with his body. It had evidently seen much service, was battered, and the clack Japan worn ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... how matters stood, ordered the Major to come aboard his own ship, while he put his lieutenant, Richards, to command Bonnet's vessel. The poor Major was most depressed by this undignified change in his affairs, until Blackbeard lost his ship in Topsail Inlet, and finding himself at a disadvantage, promptly surrendered to the King's proclamation and allowed Bonnet to reassume command of his own sloop. But Major Bonnet had been suffering from qualms of conscience latterly, so he sailed to Bath Town in North Carolina, where he, too, surrendered ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... have shown no more than a single close-reefed sail; but as we were going before it, we could carry on. Accordingly, hands were sent aloft and a reef shaken out of the topsails, and the reefed foresail set. When we came to masthead the topsail yards, with all hands at the halyards, we struck up, "Cheerly, men," with a chorus which might have been heard ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... charge and puffed with us down the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... away when he might, and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any help other than his own, and without any resources save those which his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in the thirties, not so very long before my time, that a Captain Rous, of the British navy, achieved renown—I ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... 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 ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... steam out of hospitable Sinafir at 6:30 a.m. on the auspicious Wednesday, February 13. The appearance of the Mukhbir must have been originale enough: her canvas had been fished out of the hold, but in the place of a mainsail she had hoisted a topsail. We passed as close as possible to the islet-line of Secondary formation, beginning with Shu'shu', the wedge bluff-faced to south: the Palinurus anchored here in a small bight on the north-east side, between two reefs, and narrowly escaped being wrecked by a northerly ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... his superstitions, and even the young apprentice boys soon discovered his weakness, and terrorised him whenever they got the chance. One awful morning in November, 1864, the vessel was hove-to under close-reefed main topsail. All hands had been on deck during the whole night, which was one of raging storm and disaster. The decks had been swept, and the galley carried away in the general destruction, so that no food could be cooked on deck. The captain ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... that remote highway towards the North Pole; but this was not a whit more novel than to hear the pianoforte, and played, too, with both taste and skill. While another 'lion' of those parts that met our view was a topsail schooner lying in the river at the lower fort, which made occasional trips into Great Lake Winnepeg of the North, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... little brig was close hauled upon the wind, and lying over, as it then seemed to me, nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head sea was beating against her bows with the noise and force almost of a sledge-hammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsail halyards had been let go, and the great sails filling out and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... danger was visible ahead on the allotted course. But time was precious. Delay would lose us. As I felt confident of my opinion, I turned abruptly from the disobedient mariners, and letting go the main brace, brought the vessel to with the topsail aback. Quickly, then, I ordered the watch as it rushed aft, to clew up the mainsail;—but alas! no one would obey; and, in the fracas, the captain, who rushed on deck ignorant of the facts or danger, ordered me back to my state-room with curses ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of the wheel as at the brows of tall and beetling cliffs. The gale was white with snow, and dark with the blinding fall of it too, when I came on deck at noon. I was in the chief mate's, or port watch, as it is called. The ship was running under a double-reefed topsail—in those days we carried single sails,—reefed foresail, close-reefed foretopsail, and maintopmast staysail. The snow made a London fog of the atmosphere; forward of the galley the ship was out of sight at times when it came thundering ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... a matter o' three years ago. I was bo'sun on the Swallow, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to Calcutta. There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an' square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon to the Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what should I do but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the Swallow was in a manner of speakin' on the wing. Not but what it sarved me right, for what ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... has "nine sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... direct your fore lights to her trim; every rope just where it should be, and not a line too much; and when she fills well with a stiff breeze, not a wrinkle in all her canvas from the gib to the gaff topsail. Then observe how she dips in the bows, and what a breadth she 151has; why she's fit for any seas; and if the Arrow ever shoots past her, I'll forfeit every shot in my lockers." "Avast there! master Horace," said our master at the helm, who was an old Cowes ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... your aim; our only chance is to wing him." The men—with cutlasses buckled round their waists, and many with nothing but their trousers on—instinctively cheered. Blaze went our cannonades and long gun in succession, and down came the fore-topsail; the head of the topmast had been shot away. "That will do; now knock off, my boys, and let us run for it. Make ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... in Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope. Sailed again on the 7th of May, and fell in with a favourable wind; and too much of it. For six days we were scudding before it under a close-reefed main-topsail and fore-staysail. On the 10th we lost one of the best men in the ship, the sailmaker, Charles Downing, who fell overboard; the ship was rounded to, the life-buoy let go, but we saw nothing of him. June 7th saw Christmas Islands, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat |
