"Close-hauled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... identical powers of attention, an identical psycho-physical organism. We all perceive that there is a rhythm in a racing crew, in a perfectly timed stroke of golf, in a fisherman's fly- casting, in a violinist's bow, in a close-hauled sailboat fighting with the wind. But we appropriate and organize these objective ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... nice little breeze, and the Fawn, close-hauled rippled merrily through the water. Still Paul slept on, unconscious of the progress she was making, while John was jubilant over the success of his trick. He was obliged to tack so as to go ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... to-day was fine, though we had occasional squalls of wind and rain. We were close-hauled, and the motion of the vessel was violent and disagreeable. I was very sea-sick, and was consoled to find that several of the men were so too. A head sea—or nearly so—is quite a novel experience for us of late, and we none ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... of the thick weather rolling up away over Bovisand they spied now a Service cutter bearing across close-hauled, leaning under her big tops'l and knocking up the water like ginger-beer with the stress of it. When first sighted she couldn't have been much more than a mile distant, and, pull as they did with the remains of their strength, she crossed their bows a good half-mile ahead, taking in tops'l as she ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The rest were sick. Grenville, who had sworn he would cut down the first man who touched a rope while there still seemed a chance to escape, now refused the Spanish summons to surrender and prepared to fight to the last. Trimming his sails as carefully as if for a yacht race he ran down close-hauled on the starboard tack, right between the two divisions of the Spanish fleet, till the flagship, three times the size of the Revenge, ranged up on his weather side, thus blanketing his canvas and stealing the wind. As the Revenge lost way the ships she had passed on the other side began ranging ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... when the first part of the port watch went on duty, the wind had shifted from west to north; the studding-sails had been taken in, the spanker, main spencer, and all the staysails had been set, and the ship, close-hauled, was barely laying her course. The wind was fresh, and she was heeled over on the starboard side, so that her decks formed a pretty steep inclined plane. Under these circumstances, it required a great deal of skill and watchfulness on the part of the wheelmen to keep the sails full, and ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... caught and held him. A heavy surf thundered and burst over an outjutting rock; lowering storm-clouds covered the sky; and, outside the line of surf, a pilot-schooner, close-hauled, heeled over till every detail of her deck was visible, was surging along against a stormy sunset sky. There was beauty, and it drew him irresistibly. He forgot his awkward walk and came closer to the painting, very close. The beauty faded out of the canvas. His ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... anything but this—that I want to put to the clumsy hand of a rough old tar, with a heart as soft as the pitch that makes his hand hard—to trim your sails a bit, sir, and help you to lie a point closer to the wind. You're not just close-hauled, sir." ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... to yourselves, picture it to yourselves, you who have ever lost a brother; and you who have not, thank God that you know nothing of his agony. Full of impossible projects, he strode and staggered up and down, as the ship thrashed close-hauled through the rolling seas. He would go back and burn the villa. He would take Guayra, and have the life of every man in it in return for his brother's. "We can do it, lads!" he shouted. "If Drake took Nombre de Dios, we can take La Guayra." And every ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... stationed at the helm, and the vessel left entirely in my charge. Sometimes, on arousing myself from my slumbers, I found the rebellious little vessel running along four or five points off her course. In more than one instance, when the orders were to keep close-hauled, the schooner gradually fell off until she got before the wind, when the sails gibed, all standing, making a terrible clatter, and awakening not only myself, but the captain also, who, on coming on deck, must have divined the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... true and apparent course being relative to the way on the vessel, the hooker seemed to lie closer to the wind than she did in reality. The breeze was not a-beam, nor was the hooker close-hauled; but one cannot ascertain the true course made, except when the wind is abaft. When you perceive long streaks of clouds meeting in a point on the horizon, you may be sure that the wind is in that quarter; but this evening ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... act of hostility against the pelicans was unsuccessful. The sea-breeze was blowing strong, and we had to beat out against it close-hauled; just as we made the last board, and were bearing down upon the enemy, the huge, heavy birds, awakening from the siesta "with a start," raised their heads and looked about them. Then the foremost began to flap his long wings, and lift himself on tip-toe, whilst the others followed his example; ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... require slackening and the aft sails pulled in more than when sailing with the wind in the direction C. A still lighter rudder can be used as the course gets near to beating windward, and the yacht is said to be close-hauled on the starboard tack. ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... that, accepting you, for a day and a half he held on his course, close-hauled. Is that so? But he was suspicious, as deaf men are. He took a notion that you—you, keeping mum as a cat, having to pass for somebody else and avoid questions—were just lying low, meaning to slip cable at Valparaiso and hurry in with a prior claim. I ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... after the rain, but there was very little wind. At noon we had come 66 miles under steam, and 62 miles under sail. I have felt wretchedly ill for the last few days, and seem to have lost both sleep and appetite. The motion, I have no doubt, has something to do with my indisposition, for we are going close-hauled to a wind from one quarter, and there is a heavy swell on the other, so that we roll and tumble about a great deal without making much progress. Every scrap of the Macassar ice has melted in these three days, instead of lasting three ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the middle watch that night, and of course I was on deck from midnight until four in the morning. It proved misty most of the watch, and for quite an hour we had a light drizzling rain. The ship, the whole time, was close-hauled, carrying royals. As everybody seemed to have made up his mind to a quiet night, one without any reefing or furling, most of the watch were sleeping about the decks, or wherever they could get good quarters, and be least in the way. I do not know what kept me awake, for lads of my age ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... our canoe close to the rocky coast of Hiva-oa. As is their custom, instead of making a beeline for our destination or sailing to it close-hauled as the winds permitted, the Marquesans had steered for the nearest shore, following along it to port. This method is attended with danger, for off the threatening cliffs a heavy sea was running, great waves dashing on the rocks, and we were perforce in the trough as ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... of the Texel—fought on July 31 in the same year, we have the statement of Hoste's informant, who was present as a spectator, that at the opening of the action the English, but not the Dutch, were formed in a single line close-hauled. 'Le 7 Aoust' [i.e. N.S.], the French gentleman says, 'je decouvris l'armee de l'amiral composee de plus de cent vaisseaux de guerre. Elle etait rangee en trois escadrons et elle faisoit vent-arriere pour aller tomber sur les Anglois, qu'elle rencontra le meme jour a ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... during the middle watch, the captain came on deck, and took to walking up and down with the second mate. The night was clear, though dark. The Chrysolite was close-hauled on the starboard tack, and was making good headway under a clinking breeze. She was an old-fashioned, frigate-built, full-rigged ship, such as one seldom happens on now, her quarter-galleries, chain-plates, to' gallant bulwarks, and single topsail-yards ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... nearness to losing lives didn't seem to be worrying anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked up. There was one time in the water when I thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the skipper. It was a black night and breezing all the time and I wanted to see how the vessel behaved. The Johnnie was close-hauled at this time and swashing under, and I knew without asking further that the skipper intended to ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... a beautiful model and most varmint rig, now begin to thicken on the track, working up, close-hauled, into the eye of the wind, or going, right before it, with the foresail guy'd out on one side and mainsail on the other, showing an uncommon spread of canvass. Here and there, too, the masts of tall ships rise, as more gravely they seek their port, or win their way to the yet ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... round when she had stretched out on the one tack a couple of miles, and standing in again close-hauled found the ice thicker than ever. Then she came round once more, and until the early dusk fell Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward shrouds. Then he ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was visible. She appeared to be a ship of size, close-hauled, heading to the southward and eastward: by steering on our proper course, or certainly by diverging a little to the northward, it would be an easy matter to speak her. As I could plainly see she was not a ship of war, my plan was formed in a moment. On communicating ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner of some hundred tons had luffed about the sentinel, and was standing up the bay, close-hauled. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sea lay as smooth as within the harbour. The wind blew steadily off the shore, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or down Channel with equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and the man noted with surprise that the girl's ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to me that the most dangerous point of sailing in a small open boat in a high combing sea is running dead before the wind. When you are sailing close-hauled, you can luff up into a squall, if necessary, or meet a steep, dangerous sea bow on; but when you are scudding you are almost helpless. You can neither luff, nor spill the wind out of the sail by slackening ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Seymour, R.N. The time was three in the afternoon. In spite of the haziness it was intermittent, and an hour earlier he had been able to fix his position by St. Anthony, which then bore N. by W. distant six or seven miles. He was then sailing by the wind close-hauled lying S.S.E.1/2E., in other words, standing away from the land out into mid-channel, the breeze being steady. By three o'clock the Fisgard had only travelled about another six or seven miles, so that she was now about 12-1/2 miles from ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... came on with a sweet wind off the land for a time. Suddenly, when in the neighbourhood of Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very squally, with rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put the boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-reefed the sails, keeping as near the wind as possible, with the hope of weathering the rocky point at the western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses. By that time there was a heavy sea ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... permit, I headed the skiff to the bank, and gave it a smart push, which drove it far enough upon the beach to hold it, just as the owner of it came to receive it. Trimming the sails, I went down the lake close-hauled. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... enemies had descried him, and were acting in concert to cut him off. The ship on his weather bow was a frigate, riding the waves in gallant style, with the wind upon her beam, and travelling two feet for every one the close-hauled schooner could accomplish. If the latter continued her present course, in another half-league she would be under ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... only wanting an audience. But the storm inside House burst as suddenly as the blizzard without. Nobody knew that the Commodore was close-hauled, and meant business. Few present to witness the perturbed scene on the Treasury Bench:—OLD MORALITY huddled up against GEORGIE HAMILTON, who was nervously tearing sheet of paper into measured strips; JOKIM shaking in every limb, and white to the lips; Prince ARTHUR most successful of the group ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... were spread only on the two that were forward. The third mast was stepped on the taffrail; it was small, and carried a little sail, that, in English, is termed a jigger, its principal use being to press the bows of the craft up to the wind, when close-hauled, and render her what is termed weatherly. On the present occasion, there could scarcely be said to be anything deserving the name of wind, though Ghita felt her cheek, which was warmed with the rich blood of her country, fanned by an air so gentle that occasionally it blew aside tresses ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper |
