"Hawser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still speculating as to who his anonymous friend might be, he stood, smoking, upon the balcony. On the quay below him a negro policeman dozed against a hawser-post. A group of cargadores, stretched at length upon stacks of hides, chattered in drowsy undertones. In the moonlight the lamps on the fishing-boats and on the bridge, now locked against the outside world, burned mistily, and ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... day the Brutus passed a steel hawser to the Southern Cross and the two vessels proceeded out of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Salvation Army was holding a midnight service. Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship for the night: ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of the wheel covered against dew and frost. The boy found the slack of a stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail—a circular fort into which he crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the harbour. On—on it went, rising and falling. . ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on the Servian bank crossed over the same night in ferry-boats to the Hungarian side with their severed hawser, spreading everywhere the news that the tow-rope had parted of itself at the dangerous Perigrada Island, and the ship had gone down with every soul on board. In the morning there was no longer a sign of the "St. Barbara" in the harbor of Orsova. If by chance the commandant ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a most tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo. We tumbles up mighty sharp, and well we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board with us, and another foulin' our hawser. Their grapnels came whizzin' aboard; but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped downstream. That gave us a chance to be ready for the other. She got a grip of us and held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But pistols and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the small towboat was in the harbor. At the coming of flood tide this towing craft had a hawser made fast to the gunboat. With the help of some of the naval machinists aboard the "Hudson," both submarine craft were also manned and hawsers made fast. Two cables were passed ashore to winches to which power was supplied by the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... mode of communicating with a stranded vessel is by firing rockets with a line attached to them, by which means a hawser may be drawn from the ship and fastened to the shore. Mortars are likewise used for the same purpose; the latter plan having been invented by Sergeant Bell, and first tried in 1792. Bell's plan was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... pilot, and crew was on edge with the effort to tie up and get away first. Up in the pilot-house the great man of the wheel took shrewd advantage of every eddy and back current; out on the guards the humblest roustabout stood ready for a life-risking leap to get the hawser to the dock at the earliest instant. All the operations of the boat had been reduced to an exact science, so that when the crack packets were pitted against each other in a long race, their maneuvers ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... as we got the anchor on board; and by the time O.P. and I had done sluicing the hawser clean of the mud it brought up, we were working down the Hamoaze with a light and baffling wind, but carrying a strong tide under us. Evening fell with a warm yellow haze: the banks slipping past us grew dim and dimmer: here and there a light shone among the long-shore houses. I felt more ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and as she drew to her anchorage ground, a quarter-boat a was lowered from the davits, while the chain cable rang its loud report as it ran out at the hawser hole, and the ship swung gradually with the set of the current, leaving her stern towards the shore. But a few moments elapsed before Capt. Ratlin and his two passengers, with such articles as they had brought on board, were skimming over the short space between the ship and the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... the outer harbor of Provincetown, Mass. It is ten o'clock at night. Dense fog shrouds the barge on all sides, and she floats motionless on a calm. A lantern set up on an immense coil of thick hawser sheds a dull, filtering light on objects near it—the heavy steel bits for making fast the tow lines, etc. In the rear is the cabin, its misty windows glowing wanly with the light of a lamp inside. The chimney of the cabin stove rises a few feet above the roof. ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... some hanging gear, the Sachem got under way, and was anchored alongside and to the southward of the Clifton just before dusk. She let go both her heavy anchors, to prevent any dragging from the great strain that must naturally result from an effort to haul off the grounded steamer. A nine-inch hawser was sent to her, one end of the hawser being made fast to the Sachem. The tide had begun to rise by this time, and fortunately at the first strain on the hawser the Clifton floated, and was quickly drawn alongside of the Sachem. There was no time to spare, as the shell and shot from the fort ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... new coat o' paint all over,' said he, with a wink. 'Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now, were I about to sling my hawser over a little scow, and take ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... untying the last one, Graham, with an arm like a leg, stripped for it and went to it. And he did it, although the pounding he got on the sand broke his bad arm and staved in three ribs. But he made the line fast before he quit. In order to haul the hawser ashore, six more volunteered to go in on Evan's line to the beach. Four of them arrived. And only one woman of the forty was lost—she died ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... punt to it, they tied one end of their rope to the small buoy that they had in the punt, and sent it adrift towards the vessel. We on board observing this threw out boat-hooks and leads fastened to lines, in order to catch the buoy: at last we caught it, and fastened a hawser to the end of the small rope; we then gave them a sign to pull, and they pulled the hawser to them, and fastened it to the buoy: which being done we hauled for our lives; and, through the mercy of God, we got again from the shoals into deep water, and the punt got safe to the vessel. ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the Prospector, "I'll tell you what. I want six men to go down to the port for a ship's hawser, a thick 'un, a long 'un. I want those men to bring that there hawser, and meet me in front of the Police Station; an' we'll see if I can show you the way to manage ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... The grapnel caught on the bottom, surely and firmly; but the moment there came any strain on the seemingly stout hawser that held it, the latter parted like a thread, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... had wellnigh come back again to the Katherine, he saw there a tall ship, which he had scarce noted before, a ship all-boun, which had her boats out, and men sitting to the oars thereof ready to tow her outwards when the hawser should be cast off, and by seeming her mariners were but abiding for some one ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... think, sir," the first lieutenant shouted, "that if we lash a hawser to all this hamper, and hang to it, it will act as a floating anchor, and bring her head ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... and stem to the dock, to make it cut its way through the water a little, and in this fashion it is now being brought to Cuba; but the gravest doubts are entertained as to the possibility of its ever reaching its destination. It is feared that in case of a severe storm the hawser, or strong rope by which it is towed, will part, and the costly floating dock be left drifting about the ocean, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... curved ships. Now the vessels were bound within the hollow harbour each hard by other, for no wave ever swelled within it, great or small, but there was a bright calm all around. But I alone moored my dark ship without the harbour, at the uttermost point thereof, and made fast the hawser to a rock. And I went up a craggy hill, a place of out-look, and stood thereon: thence there was no sign of the labour of men or oxen, only we saw the smoke curling upward from the land. Then I sent forth certain of my company to go and search ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... There were occasional stretches of swift, broken water, almost rapids, in the river; everywhere the current was swift, and our progress was slow. The prancha was towed at the end of a hawser, and her crew poled. Even thus we only just made the riffle in more than one case. Two or three times cormorants and snake-birds, perched on snags in the river or on trees alongside it, permitted the boat to come within ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... few minutes he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still—what was the odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight of it to contend with the first, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... whether or not they would permit Yankee prizes to be condemned and sold in that port. The first intimation the brig's crew had that Captain Semmes was about to cast off his tow was a warning whistle from the Sumter. This was followed by a sudden slackening of the hawser, and a few minutes later the Sumter's black hulk showed itself on the starboard bow. She ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... upward, and saw for the first time that the main topmast had broken off and been cut clear, probably hours ago when he was in the cabin searching for Clara. The top still remained, however, and twisted through its openings was one end of a hawser, the other end floating off to leeward two hundred yards in advance of the wreck. Fastened to the hawser by a large loop was a sling of cordage, from which a long halyard trailed shoreward, while another connected it with the top. All this had been done behind his back and without his ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... and resold at the destination, usually Nishny-Novgorod, at a fair profit, the capstan boat carrying fodder and provender for the attendants. The capstan is accompanied by a steam launch which carries the anchor and hawser forward in advance of the capstan. The latter has a diameter of as much as 5 in., and is two to three miles in length. The anchor is dropped by the tug and the hawser carried back to the capstan, where it is attached to one of the rope drums, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... and accustomed to perilous emergencies, he was not long in making up his mind. Suddenly starting from his immobility, he seized the end of the halter, and, to the horror of the gipsy, whose eyes were fixed upon him, began pulling furiously at it, hand over hand, like a sailor tugging at a hawser. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various |
