"Capstan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greasy ladder, tore open the furnace doors and commenced shovelling in coal with a recklessness that bordered on insanity. When the indicator showed eighty pounds of steam he came up on deck and discovered Mr. Gibney walking solemnly round and round the little capstan up forward. It was creaking and groaning dismally. Captain Scraggs thrust his engine room torch above his head to light the scene and gazed upon his ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... father, who took longer to dress, and then they walked over the dewy plain and through the wood filled with the sweet song of the birds, down to Yport, where they found the vicomte and old Lastique sitting on the capstan of their ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... reply the Nilghai lifted up his voice with a shout that shook the windows, in 'The Men of the Sea,' that begins, as all know, 'The sea is a wicked old woman,' and after rading through eight lines whose imagery is truthful, ends in a refrain, slow as the clacking of a capstan when the boat comes unwillingly up to the bars where the men sweat and ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... a capstan; the great beam rose, became horizontal, reared itself almost vertically, and being overweighted at the end, bent like a huge reed. The soldiers, who were crowded together, were hidden up to their chins; only their helmet-plumes could ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... first. Accordingly, an anchor was carried forward to a spot some forty yards off, where the water was deeper; the greater part of the passengers were made to jump overboard, without even going through the formality of walking the plank; while the remainder manned the capstan-bars. The chain-cable tightened, the capstan creaked, and the paddles dashed round; but we did not stir an inch till the natives, who had been so unceremoniously turned overboard, began to apply the pressure from without, when, amidst shouts and yells, and curses in a dozen ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... is working wonders here as elsewhere. For instance, a particular portion of the breech mechanism of a gun used to take one hour and twenty minutes to make. On the Dilution plan it is done on a capstan, and takes six minutes. Where 500 women were employed before the war, there are now close on 9,000, and there will be thousands more, requiring one skilled man as tool-setter to about nine or ten women. In a great gun-carriage shop, "what ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and one dull afternoon a very discouraged Raven was perched on a capstan at the edge of Quay Flat. Chippy had tramped the town end to end and street by street in search of those cards marked 'Boy Wanted,' and had found none, or had failed to get the place. There was so small a number of them, too. He was reflecting ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... frame we finally went to the fore part of the ship, where we found the crew assembled, and where, standing at the capstan, the captain read the Church of England service, the responses being effectively rendered by the stalwart crew. In regard to this service I will only remark that I observed the introduction of a prayer which was entirely new to me, namely, that for the blessing of God on the ship, ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... morning—a week after the death of my poor dog—I was loitering about the quays in the port, when I was attracted towards a little crowd that had gathered round an old capstan. The crowd consisted of several sailors and fishermen, with a sprinkling of townsfolk, who were evidently much interested in something that was going ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... we didn't. The fifth night after he was missing we heard a fearful noise right in a cage wot had a lion in it. We run to the place with shootin' irons an' spears and capstan bars, thinkin' the lion was loose. When we got there we found the orang-outang had twisted one o' the bars o' the cage loose an' got inside and disturbed Mr. Lion's best nap. Mr. Lion didn't like it, an' he gets ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... almost to the futtock shrouds, the figure of a man was revealed: he was blazing away in the direction of the poop with a revolver. On the deck, near the mainmast, the second mate was laying about him with a capstan bar, and a dozen men seemed boiling over each other in efforts to close with him. Other figures lay motionless ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Puddinghead; till at last we might be called friends. During many a night-watch, when I have sneaked away for a snooze among the hen-coops, has Tom saved me from detection, and the consequent pleasant occupation of carrying about a bucket of water on the end of a capstan bar. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... came on board, but avoided the helmsman. To Gray he said, "Put out the flying-jib so as to be prepared in case the jib does not hold, and get ready to cast the anchor." The sailors took their places at the capstan and made ready to lower the anchor. Meantime the night had settled down quickly, for in the tropics night follows the going down of the sun without any twilight. There was a rainbow but thick banks of clouds driven ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... satisfaction, as attested by such men as Thos. B. Wales, Jr., of Iowa City, and Daniel H. Wheeler, Secretary of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. The apparatus is upon the old principle of the mole ditcher requiring the same capstan power. One team is sufficient to run it. The apparatus is composed of a beam or sill, horizontal in position, and a coulter seven feet long at the rear end of the beam, and perpendicular to it a spirit level attached to the beam, aids in regulating. The coulter can be run ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... single figure upon the deck that did not seem mad with terror. A huge fellow he was who stood leaning against the capstan watching the wild antics of his fellows with a certain wondering expression of incredulity, the while a contemptuous smile curled his lips. As Barbara Harding chanced to look in his direction he also chanced to turn his eyes toward the wheelhouse. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... boy, singing in a shrill treble the sea chantey which seamen sing the wide world over when they man the capstan bars and break the anchors out for "Frisco" port. It was only a little boy who had never seen the sea, but two hundred feet beneath him rolled the Sacramento. "Young" Jerry he was called, after "Old" ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... be seen forward appearing on the forecastle head, one by one in unsafe attitudes; hanging on to the rails, clambering over the anchors; embracing the cross-head of the windlass or hugging the fore-capstan. They were restless with strange exertions, waved their arms, knelt, lay flat down, staggered up, seemed to strive their hardest to go overboard. Suddenly a small white piece of canvas fluttered amongst them, grew larger, beating. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... "After capstan here! Get a strain on the line, Mr. Rolfe!" And while the dripping rope crawled in through the fair-lead, cracking and twanging to the strain of the ship's arrested drift, he stood at the rail, rifle in ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... bills, first, to find "whether in April 1643 Ingle, being then at Mattapanian,[15] St. Clement's hundred, said 'that Prince Rupert was Prince Traitor & Prince rogue and if he had him aboard his ship he would whip him at the capstan.'" This bill met the fate of the others, but the second charging him with saying "that the king (meaning o^r Gover L. K. Charles) was no king neither would be no king, nor could be no king unless he did ioine with the Parlam^t," caused the ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... ter do it, so wot does I do but gits a rope; then I jumped overboard right in ther midst o' them crocodiles. Afore yer could count ten I made a slipnoose fast about ther necks o' forty o' them animiles, got back aboard the frigate an' tied ther other and o' ther line ter the capstan. Then I took a spear an' cllmbin' out on ther bowsprit I began ter jab 'em an' away they went, pullin' ther frigate along ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... board Virginia started immediately for her father's cabin. As she crossed the deck she noticed that the ship was ready to sail, and even as she descended the companionway she heard the rattle of the anchor chain about the capstan. She wondered if von Horn could be on board too. It seemed remarkable that all should have reached the Ithaca so quickly, and equally strange that none of her own people were on deck to welcome her, or ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... looked at him angrily, but uncertainly. He heard the laughter and the cheers of the bystanders on the quay and in the embowered street. He looked down at the deck, and he caught sight of a capstan-bar, which he gazed at longingly. Any blow would send him to prison, but why not for a sheep instead of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... been attached to the floe-berg at the stern had become entangled with the propeller. It was a time for lightning thought and action; but by attaching a heavier cable to the parted one and taking a hitch round the steam capstan, we finally ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... by such noble and enthusiastic feelings, no necessity to fear an infringement of their dignity. The etiquette of the quarter-deck was thrown on one side for the good of the common cause; and on every side, whether at the capstan, at the track-line, hauling, heaving, or cutting, the officer worked as hard as the seamen,—each was proud of the other, and discipline suffered nought, indeed improved: for here Jack had ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... with rowers and fighting-men, entered the strait. Seeing, as he supposed, but two harmless merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm, I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm; I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... don't mind jumping off these breakwaters—and it really is rather a lark—you may tramp along the sea front quite near up to where the fishing-luggers lie, each with a capstan all to itself, under the little extra old town the red-tanned fishing-nets live in, in houses that are like sailless windmill-tops whose plank walls have almost merged their outlines in innumerable coats of tar, laid by long generations back of the forefathers ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... just when he was to be made an engineer, when he thought he had smooth sailing, suddenly and provokingly found himself fast aground, with no spar or capstan by which he might help himself off, with no friendly craft alongside to throw him a hawser and ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... was with him. Coming a little to windward of our buoy, we clewed up the light sails, backed our main topsail, and lowered a boat, which pulled off, and made fast a spare hawser to the buoy on the end of the slip-rope. We brought the other end to the capstan, and hove in upon it until we came to the slip-rope, which we took to the windlass, and walked her up to her chain, occasionally helping her by backing and filling the sails. The chain is then passed through the hawse-hole and round the windlass, and bitted, the slip-rope taken round outside and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the outside, they are then carried to the right and left of the drum on the axle-tree, and are tied there so as to stay fast. Then another rope is wound round the drum and carried to a capstan, and when that is turned, it turns the drum and the axle-tree, the ropes get taut as they wind round regularly, and thus they raise the loads smoothly and with no danger. But if a larger drum is placed either in the middle or at one side, without any capstan, men can tread ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... most heavily armed for a vessel of that period. On her main deck she carried no less than 30 twenty-four pounders, while on her upper deck she had 24 thirty-two pounders, and two eighteens. In addition to this, for a frigate, unusually heavy armament, there was a piece mounted, under her capstan, resembling seven musket barrels, fixed together with iron bands, the odd concern being discharged by a lock—each barrel threw twenty-five balls, within a few seconds of each other, making 145 from the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... depth of twenty-one feet and a half, the upper extremities being left standing about five feet above the surface of the sands. For the purpose of fixing the screws, a stage or raft of timber, thirty feet square, was floated over the spot, with a capstan in the centre, which was made to fit on the top of the iron shaft, and firmly keyed to it. A power of about thirty men was employed for driving the screws, and their labours were continued until their united force could scarcely turn the capstan. This stage ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... could even look round, and survey this guard drawn up to receive him, a tap over the head with a capstan bar efficiently handled by Hagthorpe put him to ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... destination, destitute, substitute, superstition, desist, persist, resist, insist, assist, exist, consistent, stead, rest, restore, restaurant, contrast; (2) stature, statute, stadium, stability, instable, static, statistics, ecstasy, stamen, stamina, standard, stanza, stanchion, capstan, extant, constabulary, apostate, transubstantiation, status quo, armistice, solstice, interstice, institute, restitution, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... by the boats as they advanced, the Dauphin struck on a rock and damaged her forepart. The usual measures in such a case were taken immediately, but outside the chain of madreporic rocks no depth could be sounded. It was consequently impossible to cast anchor, or to use the capstan. What course had best be pursued in this critical situation? The vessel beat violently against the rocks, and a host of pirogues waited in expectation of a shipwreck, eager to clutch their prey. Fortunately at the end of an hour a favourable breeze rising, disengaged ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Bolderhead, do you?" quoth Tom to me, one day when we were lounging together forward of the capstan, and ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... rowed to the reef, one on either side. The anchors were firmly fixed into the rock and, one being taken from the head and the other from the stern, the crews set to work at the capstan, and speedily had the vessel safely moored, broadside on, across the entrance to ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... innocence, as though she proclaimed her entire blamelessness for any havoc wrought by storm. And in the full radiance of that silvery splendour Aubrey Leigh, leaning against the sea-weed covered capstan of the quay, round which coils of wet rope glistened like the body of a sleeping serpent, told to an audience of human hearers for the first time the story of his life, and adventures, and the varied experiences he had gone through in order to arrive at some straight and clear comprehension of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... The ironwood capstan bars clanked to that seaman's music of running sailors. A clattering of the pawls—the anchor came away. The St. Pierre shook out her bellying sails and the white sheets drew to a full beam wind. Long foam lines ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... on the deck a few yards away, his back against a capstan. He looked supremely uncomfortable trying to read a ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the capstan, he addressed them briefly, and not without influence. Such was the power of his simple and manly bearing over these distracted souls, that even the wildest ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... in mechanics, The axis in peritrochio. A hard name, which might well be spared, as the word windlass or capstan would convey a more distinct idea to ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... punished, and for that purpose I sent Miguel, our jurebasso, on board along with them. He did so, and pointed out Williams as the culprit, who stoutly denied the accusation with many oaths, but the affair was too notorious, and the master ordered him to be seized to the capstan in presence of the complainants, upon which even they entreated for his pardon, knowing that he was drunk. But the fellow was so unruly, that he took up an iron crow to strike the Japanese in the master's presence, and even abused the master in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... inspection we discover these are ship houses. Under each of the roofs is accommodated the long slim hull of a trireme, kept safe from sea and weather until the time of need, when a few minutes' work at a tackle and capstan will send it down into harbor, ready to tow beside a wharf ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... paneled monkey-rail; the belaying-pins in the plank-shear are of lignum-vitae and mahogany, and upon them the rigging is laid up in accurate and graceful coils. The balustrade around the cabin companion-way and sky-light is made of polished brass, the wheel is inlaid with brass, and the capstan-head, the gangway-stanchions, and bucket-hoops are of the same glittering metal. Forward of the main hatchway the long-boat stands in its chocks, covered over with a roof, and a good-natured looking cow, whose stable is thus contrived, protrudes her head from a window, chews her cud with as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... having discharged cargo, dropped down with the stream on the 15th, leaving us to reflect in undisturbed solitude on the dreary prospects before us. The clank of the capstan, while the operation of weighing was being executed, echoing from the surrounding hills, suggested the question, "When shall that sound be heard again?" From the melancholy reverie which this idea suggested I was roused by the voice ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... sat upon the capstan, and, in the shadow of the cypress forest, where the vessel lay moored for a change of wind, told in a patois difficult, but not impossible, to understand, the story of a man who chose rather to be hunted like a wild beast among those awful labyrinths, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... to try kedging his ship along, sending a boat half a mile ahead with a light anchor and all the spare rope on board. The crew walked the capstan round and hauled the ship up to the anchor, which they then lifted, carried ahead, and dropped again. The Constitution kept two kedges going all through that summer day, but the Shannon was playing ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... oars and the sail of his boat and two or three killicks and painters, not to forget a heap of worn-out oars and sails in one corner and a sailor's hammock slung across the beam overhead, and there were some sailor's chests and the capstan of a ship and innumerable boxes which all seemed to be stuffed full, besides no end of things lying on the floor and packed away on shelves and hanging to rusty big-headed nails in the wall. I saw some great lumps of coral, and large, rough shells, a great hornet's nest, and a monstrous ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sailor, now first observing that there were other men in the room. "'Tis that there's things for everything—there's the capstan for hawlin' up the anchor, and there's the woman for nussin'. They was ordained to it—not men—never, no—not men. Look at my hand." The sailor extended his arm across the table. "It's shakin' like a guitar-string when ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... furthering of the work at the ledge. On the tug's forward deck, hat off and jacket swinging loose, stood Captain Joe Bell in charge of the submarine work at the site, glorious old Captain Joe, with the body of a capstan, legs stiff as wharf posts, arms and hands tough as cant hooks and heart twice as big as all of them ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the corbie loves; Surf-swimming between rollers, catching breath Between the advancing grave and breaking death, Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth; And days of labour also, loading, hauling; Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling; The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting, And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting. Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice, And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice; ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... all sides. The deep-toned chorus of the sailor, the creaking of the capstan, and the clanking of the iron cogs; the "heave-ho!" at the windlass, and the grating of the huge anchor-chain, as link after link rasped through the rusty ring—sounds that warned us to make ready for ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... these seas they do, but not down there—it's too far off. We condemn the vessels ourselves, and share the money on the capstan-head." ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... are tastefully polished or painted where necessary, and are so exactly fitted in every part as to baffle the detection of any conspicuous fault whatever. It is fully manned with a crew of little wooden men, and officers in uniform, and completely equipped with boats, capstan, blocks, hawsers, cables, davits, cat-heads, bars, bolts, buckets, chocks, compasses, and even three brass cannons; in short with everything that may be seen in a large ship. She bears the significant name of "The Star of the Sea." Had he been able to exhibit it, as he intended, at ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... shocked to hear that the service was speedily, although decorously closed; but Captain M—- was aware from the fidgeting of the ship's company, upon the capstan bars, on which they were seated, that it would be impossible to regain their attention to the service, even if he had felt inclined to proceed: and he well knew, that any worship of God in which the mind ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... yoke. An experienced and expert stockman enters the enclosure carrying in his hand a pine sapling, 12 or 15 feet in length, at the end of which is a running noose of raw hide or strong hemp rope, attached to a strong rope which is passed round a capstan outside the stockyard and near to a corner post. With considerable dexterity, not infrequently accompanied by personal danger, the man slips the noose over the horns of the beast he wishes to secure, when he immediately jumps over the rails, and with the assistance of the men ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... crowned with a resplendent tin basin and wrapped royally in a table-cloth mottled with grease-spots and coffee stains, and bearing a sceptre that looked strangely like a belaying-pin, walked upon a dilapidated carpet and perched himself on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his tarred and weather-beaten Chamberlains, Dukes and Lord High Admirals surrounded him, arrayed in all the pomp that spare tarpaulins and remnants of old sails could furnish. Then the visiting "watch below," transformed into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... way. It's the privilege of your rank, but for me a little looser motions and a heavier armament," and I picks up what looks like a baseball bat, but a little longer and a little thicker and a good deal heavier than any baseball bat. A capstan-bar it was. And if y'ever handled one you know what a great little persuader a capstan-bar is. I could tell you a hundred stories o' capstan-bars. Many a good fight used to be settled in th' old sailin'-ship days ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... on the deck-boards, and wormed his way slowly and ludicrously aft. He did not bring those uncouth vermiculations to a stop until he was well back in the shelter of a rusty capstan, cut off from the light by a lifeboat swinging on its davits. As he clambered to his feet again he saw this light suddenly go out and then reappear. As it did so he could make out a patrol-boat, gray and low-bodied, slinking forward through the gloom. He could see that boat crowded with ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... aspect had given way to one of scowling displeasure and menace. The situation was serious. McKay suggested that the ship be got under way at once. The captain for the first time agreed with him. Orders were given to man the capstan, and five of the seamen were sent aloft to loose sail. The wind was strong, and happened to be blowing in the right direction. With singular fatuity none of the officers or seamen were armed, although the ship was well provided ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... men. Their answer was, that she certainly was not. He then gave these orders,—"Veer the ship, and lay her head to the westward: let some of the best men be employed in refitting the rigging, and the carpenter in getting crows and capstan-bars to prevent our wounded spars from coming down: and get the wine up for the people, with some bread, for it may be half an hour good before we are again in action." But when the French came up, their comrade made ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... old Squire Trelawney, (the real Tre. purged of literature and sin to suit the infant mind,) and a doctor and another doctor and a sea cook with one leg and and a sea song with a chorus, "Yo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Rum," (at the third "ho" you heave at the capstan bars,) which is a real buccaneer's song, only known to the crew of the late Capt. Flint, who died of rum at Key West ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... he used to say in summer-time; "thistles full of seed within a biscuit-heave of my front door, and other things—I forget their names—with heads like the head of a capstan bursting, all as full of seeds as a ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... still carefully observed the conduct of the seamen. The clumsiness, and the intentional blunders of certain of the crew seemed to indicate that there was a conspiracy to defeat the purposes of the commander. First, Howe tumbled down while the hands were walking round the capstan; Spencer stumbled over him, and a dozen boys were thrown in a pile upon them. Then Richmond and Merrick dropped their handspikes overboard, through an open port, when the order was given to restore these articles ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... Ready, putting his quadrant on the capstan: "now, Juno, give me the child, and go down first; - backwards, you stupid girl! how often do I tell you that? Some day or another you will come ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... both sides. Nearly every individual of the crew, who was not occupied at the sail or steering-board, was employed in propelling. A few only were provided with oars; others wielded handspikes, capstan-bars, or pieces of split plank,—in short, anything that would assist in the "pulling," if only to the value ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... everywhere recognized by the African who knows Europeans as "marimba." Thus Owen tells us (p. 308) "that at the mouth of the Zambesi it is called 'Tabbelah,'" evidently the Arabic "Tablah" Another favourite instrument is a clapper, made of two bamboos some five feet long, and thick as capstan bars,—it is truly the castanet ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the good ship 'Gyacutus,' All in the China seas; With the wind a lee, and the capstan free, To ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... two-cylinder engine of the same power, fitted with reversing gear, placed in the middle of the foremost iron girder, raises and lowers the bucket ladder by the interposition of a strongly framed capstan, as shown on Fig. 5. The gearing throughout is of friction pulleys and worm and wormwheel. It ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... bow of some hapless schooner it may be, wrenched from its hull, and sent whirling shoreward; the shattered mast and crosstrees of a stranded ship beaten to death in the breakers; or some battered capstan carried in the white teeth of the surf-dogs and dropped beyond the froth-line. To these with the help of the south wind, the tides extend their mercy, burying them deep with successive blankets of sand, hiding their bruised bodies, covering their nakedness and the marks of their sufferings. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the fragment of dialogue which passed pretty often. Then the skipper inquired, "Do you want any cinder ashes?" The ashes were spread on the treacherous deck; the bars were fixed in the capstan, and the crew tramped on their chill round. Men often fell asleep at their dreary work, and walked on mechanically; sometimes the struggle lasted for an hour or two, until strong fellows were ready to lie down, and over the straining gang the icy wind roared and ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... a rotten and mossgrown block or two, only the hardwood sheaves of which have resisted the destroying influences of the climate; a boat anchor, and farther towards the creek, the mouldering remains of a capstan, from the drumhead holes of which long grey-green pendants of moss droop down upon the weather-worn, decaying barrel, like the scanty ragged beard that falls on the chest of some old man worn out with poverty ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... We would spend whole days on the wharves, all bustle and excitement, sometimes seated on the capstan of the Sprightly Bess or perched in the nettings of the Oriole, of which ship old Stanwix was now captain. He had grown gray in Mr. Carvel's service, and good Mrs. Stanwix was long since dead. Often ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in my life, Hump," he said, as I guided him to his room. "Nor did I ever have a headache except the time my head was healing after having been laid open for six inches by a capstan-bar." ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... flags hung listlessly from the main truck and spanker gaff. The water of the harbor was unstirred except for the swirls at the oar blades of an incoming quarter boat and the warp paying out at her stern. The voice of the mate, the chantey of the crew heaving at the capstan bars, came to ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the clank of the capstan was heard and, going on deck, Harry found Lieutenant Hardy preparing to sail. As soon as the vessel was under way he came aft, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... remarked The Crew, as he passed by; so the travellers rushed to the capstan and got hold of the spikes. Out went ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... thing's feet must have been arched like a croquet wicket. And It's heels were not rounded; they were perfectly round—absolute circles they were, about the diameter of the smallest sized cans in which Capstan tobacco is sold. If ever a wooden idol had stopped squatting and gone out for a stroll on a beach, it would have left just such a track. Only it might not have felt that it had to take such ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... we were endeavouring to weigh the ship's anchors; but they were together with the cables so imbedded in the bottom, which must have been a quicksand, that this proved impossible. Had the ship been fitted with Captain Charles Phillips', R.N., capstan, there would have been a better chance of succeeding. As it was, after heaving down the ship nineteen inches by the head, and splitting the hawse pipes, we were ultimately obliged to leave both behind, and thirty fathoms of cable with one ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... after this, and all hands began overhauling gear to get a mattress upon the hole. Lines were rove and passed under the ship's bilge and keel. These were made fast on deck to the stump of the mizzen mast, and their ends brought to the capstan through snatch blocks. Planks were then strapped loosely on the lines and allowed to run along them freely, being weighted sufficiently to cause them to sink. After they were slung clear of the ship, they ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... be her child,—Hermione's son, his son, born to the lot of a free man of Athens or a slave of Xerxes according as his elders played their part this day. Only a glimpse,—the throng of strangers opened to disclose them closed again; Glaucon leaned on a capstan. All the strength for the moment was ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... thus we learnt that they in the ship were busy at staying the stump of the mizzen-mast, this being the one to which they proposed to attach the big rope, taking it through a great iron-bound snatch-block, secured to the head of the stump, and then down to the mizzen-capstan, by which, and a strong tackle, they would be able to heave the line so taut as ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... men ran down, the old capstan-bars were taken from the corners, and two men on each side inserted them into the holes, and waited for the order to tighten the chains round ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... the sails,' and quite sure she was a French boat, broken from her moorings at Algiers, close by. Ropes were next hove (hang this sea-talk!) round her stanchions, and after a quarter of an hour's pushing at the capstan, the vessel righted suddenly, one dead body floating out; five more were in the forecastle, and had probably been there a month under a blazing African sun—don't imagine the wretched state of things. They were, these six, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was taken down into the gloomy fore-hold of a three-masted lake schooner, harnessed securely between two long capstan bars, and set to walking in an aimless circle while a creaking cable was wound about a drum. At the other end of the cable were fastened, from time to time, squared pine-logs weighing half a ton each. It was the business of Blue Blazes ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... which almost forced her on shore before we were aware, so that we had to drop anchor in the open sea, broke our cable and lost our anchor, and had to let fell another, in weighing which afterwards our men were sore distressed; for, owing to the heaving of the ship with the sea, the capstan ran round with so much violence as to throw the men from the bars, dashed out the brains of one man, broke the leg of another, and severely hurt several more. At length we hove up our anchor, and ran to a place called Tanay. where we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Elevation. — N. elevation; raising &c. v.; erection, lift; sublevation[obs3], upheaval; sublimation, exaltation; prominence &c. (convexity) 250. lever &c. 633; crane, derrick, windlass, capstan, winch; dredge, dredger, dredging machine. dumbwaiter, elevator, escalator, lift. V. heighten, elevate, raise, lift, erect; set up, stick up, perch up, perk up, tilt up; rear, hoist, heave; uplift, upraise, uprear, upbear[obs3], upcast[obs3], uphoist[obs3], upheave; buoy, weigh mount, give ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to business, seriously. Mr. Bunting, I would have the signal for sailing shown. Let each ship fire a recall-gun for her boats. Half an hour later, show the bunting to unmoor; and send my boat ashore as soon as you begin to heave on the capstan. So, good-morning, my fine fellow, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dance, let joy be unconfined!" For the captain is on the bridge, the engineer is beneath; we have stout walls, and a ceaseless sentry-go. In the intervals of the dance wine passes, and idle things are said beside the draped and cushioned capstan or in the friendly gloom of a boat, which, in the name of safety, hangs taut between its davits. Let this imitation Cleopatra use the Cleopatra's arts; this mellow Romeo (sometime an Irish landlord) vow to this coy Juliet; this Helen of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... On this particular occasion, as stated, we—self, foreman and one boy—actually had to go through this tedious and dangerous performance three times in succession! To pull out the piping great power is needed, and we at first used a capstan made on the ranch and worked by hand. But it was slow work, very slow, and very hard work too; afterwards we used a stout, steady team of horses, with double tackle, and found it to work much more ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... the boat out of hearing, and Hardenberg sat down on the capstan head, turning his back to his comrades. There was a long ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... door, loosed, was blown wide open, flinging Miss Wilson and Agatha back, and admitting a whirlwind that tore round the hall, snatched at the women's draperies, and blew out the lights. Agatha, by a hash of lightning, saw for an instant two men straining at the door like sailors at a capstan. Then she knew by the cessation of the whirlwind that they had shut it. Matches were struck, the candles relighted, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... men had hurried through their dinner, for they knew that the time allowed them would be short, and began casting off hawsers, coiling down ropes, and preparing for a start. The bell was ringing, and the friends of the passengers were saying good-bye. The capstan was manned, and the vessel moved ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... me not aboard to help shorten sail or take a trick at the wheel. And it might have made me ugly toward the old woman. And I wouldn't have had that at all, at all.... But she's finished the voyage, poor cummer.... And it's a high ship and a capstan shanty for me again ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old landlord, with half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, droned out some long sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and snow-storms, and revenue- cruisers going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French prisons, which ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... gave no heed to the order; several of them sprang into the chains, and Luerson among the rest. A fierce, though unequal struggle, at once commenced. The captain, armed with a weapon which he wielded with both hands, and which I took to be a capstan-bar, struck right and left among the boarders as they attempted to gain the deck, and one, at least of them, fell back with a heavy plunge into the water. But the captain seemed to be almost unsupported; and the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... of old integrity; taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests as if all the money expended were to come out of his own pocket. This quality was displayed in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the Columbus seventy-four, of which ship ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adequate idea of the truth. The strain we constantly had occasion to heave on the hawsers, as springs to force the ships through the ice, was such as perhaps no ships ever before attempted; and by means of Phillips’s invaluable capstan, we often separated floes of such magnitude as must otherwise have baffled every effort. In doing this, it was next to impossible to avoid exposing the men to very great risk from the frequent breaking of the hawsers. On one occasion, three of the Hecla’s seamen ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... vibrating through the ship, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on her elevated poop. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged, she could not sink if she ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... many difficulties, when my ropes and cables, made of withes and the bark of the habin tree, were finished and adjusted to the capstan manufactured of hollow stones and trunks of trees; and I had placed the ponderous statue of Chaacmol on rollers, already in position to drag it up the inclined plane made from the surface of the ground to a few feet above the bottom of the excavation; my men, actuated by their ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... paving others with flagstones brought from the ruins of Nineveh. In a succeeding article I shall describe how I, a few years ago, moved an ammunition stone house, weighing 50 tons, to a distance of 35 meters without any other machine than a capstan actuated by two men.—A. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... Windlass, Cogwheels. In the old-fashioned windlass used in farming districts, the large wheel is replaced by a handle which, when turned, describes a circle. Such an arrangement is equivalent to wheel and axle (Fig. 112); the capstan used on shipboard for raising the anchor has the same principle. The kitchen coffee grinder and the meat ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... Earl Eirik's son, came rowing into the sound with a manned ship; and as they thought these were but two merchant-vessels that were lying in the sound, they rowed between them. Then Olaf and his men draw the cable up right under Hakon's ship's keel and wind it up with the capstan. As soon as the vessel's course was stopped her stern was lifted up, and her bow plunged down; so that the water came in at her fore-end and over both sides, and she upset. King Olaf's people took Earl Hakon and all his men ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... change was at hand. Since he was so exposed to the weather on the reef, Hazel had never been free from pain; but he had done his best to work it off. He had collected all the valuables from the wreck, made a new mast, set up a rude capstan to draw the boat ashore, and cut a little dock for her at low water, and clayed it in the full heat of the sun; and, having accomplished this drudgery, he got at last to his labor of love; he opened a quantity of pearl oysters, fed Tommy and the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... that he heard a gun, and other's didn't. Of course the sound did not come to them under the shelter of the cliff as it did to me. Then came the sound of another gun, and then three or four close together; then orders were given sharply, the capstan was manned and the anchor run up, and they were not a minute getting her sails set. But under the shelter of the cliff there was not enough wind to fill them, and so the boats were manned, and she went gliding away until I could no longer ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... the value of a thing depends upon the trouble taken to manufacture it. And now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle- cutting, shoulder-bruising, toe-smashing manner, and a comparatively easy ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Telegraph Creek in canoes, the steamers not being able to overcome the rapids except during high water. Even then they had usually to line two of the rapids—that is, take a line ashore, make it fast to a tree on the bank, and pull up on the capstan. The freight canoes carried about three or four tons, for which fifteen dollars per ton was charged. Slow progress was made by poling along the bank out of the swiftest part of the current. In the rapids a tow line was taken ashore, ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... peep of morning over the round shoulder of the Calf, the little city awoke. There were the clicks of the capstan, and the shouts of the men as the nets came back to the boats, heavy and white with fish. All being aboard, the men went down on the deck, according to their wont, every man on his knee with his face in his cap, and then leapt up with a shout (perhaps an oath), swung to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... after-deck entirely deserted, and there was no one visible on the bridge. Two or three sailors—the anchor watch—were forward, engaged in some service about the capstan, and a fellow was swabbing the deck amidship. I heard Broussard's voice at a distance, but could not locate him. However, no one paid the slightest attention to me, as I stood smoking, and gazing curiously around. Everything appeared peaceful enough. We were lying in a small harbor, within ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... the present time we have multiple plows, making five or six furrows at a time, these and cultivators also, driven by steam, commonly from two engines on the head lands, the plow being in between, and worked by a rope from each engine, or if by one engine, a capstan on the other head land, with a return rope working the plow backward and forward; or by what is known as the roundabout system, where the engine is fixed and the rope carried round about the field; or else plows and cultivators are worked by ropes from two capstans placed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... of replacing the chain stay by two heavy blocks, the lower of which was hooked on to the lug which secured the end of the stay, and the upper to the bowsprit. The running ropes connecting the blocks were tightened up by winding the hauling line round the capstan. When the boatswain and two sailors had finished the wet and chilly task of getting the tackle into position, the rest put their weight on to the capstan bars and the strain on the bowsprit was relieved. The fo'c'sle, plunging and swaying in the great waves, was encased in frozen spray, and along ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the rowboat stage of the journey, awoke on the deck of the Isis and gazed wonderingly about. In her ears was the sound of anchor chains upon the capstan. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... than half of them would support their officers. Sir Edward professed to discredit the information, and, apparently, took no steps in consequence. But when the ship was to be got under weigh, the lieutenant complained to him that the men were sulky, and would not go round with the capstan. He then came forward, and declaring his knowledge of their intentions, drew his sword, and ordered the officers to follow his example. "You can never die so well," he said, "as on your own deck quelling a mutiny; ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... anchor, and then began to turn the capstan to loosen the moorings of the net. They loosened them at length and disengaged the imprisoned arm, in its bloody ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... built by Messrs. Fox and Henderson, the foundations being laid in 1850. The machinery constituting "the swing-bridge or open ship canal (fifty feet wide) at the Strood end is very beautiful; the entire weight to be moved is two hundred tons, yet the bridge is readily swung by two men at a capstan." So says one of the Guide Books, but as a matter of fact we find that it is not now used! The other two bridges (useful, but certainly not ornamental) belong to the respective railway companies which have systems through Rochester, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... together now," was the surly second mate, who seemed to take the loss of his vessel so much to heart that he hadn't said a word to anybody since the prize crew was put aboard of her. But Jack Gray was there with an object. When the end of the hawser had been wound around the capstan, and the bars were shipped, he took pains to place himself next to a couple of Green Mountain boys, whose courage had been proved in more than ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... worked with the warps. Nooses were dropped over the upright ends of the logs at the foot of the jam, and the whole gang was set to pull on them. Later in the day, a heavy capstan was rigged. The hawsers broke like twine. It was impossible to start a log, so tremendous was the weight of water and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... discrepancies. The tractors were designed for work in mud flats and the haulers had the narrow wheels used on rocky ground. Nothing seemed quite as it should be. He spotted a big generator working busily—and then saw a gang of about fifty men, or mandrakes, turning a big capstan that kept it going. Here and there were neat racks of miscellaneous tools. Some were museum pieces. There was even a gandy cart, though no rails for ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... were very poor. We had nothing to sit on but the great gun-rammers and capstan-bars, placed horizontally upon shot-boxes. These seats were exceedingly uncomfortable, wearing out our trowsers and our tempers, and, no doubt, impeded the con-version ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... capstan. He could smell the sea, and through the open window of the cabin could distinguish the light in the chaplain's house on the hill. The trampling ceased, the vessel began to move slowly—the Commandant's boat appeared below him for an instant, making ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... white kid gloves, and pails, And candlesticks, and potted quails, And capstan-bars, and scales and weights, ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... printed on it,—it would have done the whole firm good, to have heard it. After I had ceased ringing, and slowly tolled the bell for a few minutes, so that I might make it seem as if I were going to meeting in Roxbury, I sat down on the capstan to think matters over. Nothing had happened yet that excited me like this. Jumping through the earth, and then getting stuck in the centre; being blown through the axis, and lighting on an iceberg at the north pole, and ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... masonry above which is overgrown with ivy in large clusters and straggling creeping plants. We soon come upon a deep recess to the right, wherein stands a unique cumbersome screw-press, needing ten or a dozen men to work the unwieldy capstan which sets the juice flowing from the crushed grapes into the adjacent shallow trough. On our left hand are a couple of ancient reservoirs, formed out of huge blocks of stone, with the entrance to a long vaulted cellar filled with wine ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... eye spied a capstan bar which he snatched up as a cudgel. Chivalry had taught him that a man should never reckon the odds when a woman appealed for succor. With a headlong rush he crossed the wharf and swung the hickory bar. The pirate dodged the blow and whipped out his ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... it—right into his side! For the fiend above had appended a shark-hook to the end of the line—which was his notion of humour. But this was no time for crimination and recrimination. I laid hold of Sam's legs, the end of the rope was passed about the capstan, and as soon as the men on board had had a little grog, we were hauled up. I can assure you that it was no fine experience to go up in that way, close to the smooth vertical front of water, with the whales tumbling out ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside, The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan; Evening—me in my room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... visited by the health officer; and when we again weighed anchor to go to the quarantine ground, the boatswain's mate came to tell us that it was the captain's order that we should tumble up and assist at the capstan. Accordingly three or four went to assist; but one of our veteran tars bid him go and tell his captain that hunger and labour were not friends, and never would go together; and that prisoners who subsisted three days in a week on pea-water, could only give him pea-water assistance. This speech ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... railing ran round the quarter-deck. The helmsman stood in a sheltered place which rose only two feet above the deck. The captain stood by the companion-way, looking south at the storm; the mate was near the capstan, and all were intent and absorbed in their expectation ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... sounded the death-knell of the shanty. Aboard the steamer there were practically no sails to be manipulated; the donkey-engine and steam winch supplanted the hand-worked windlass and capstan. By the end of the seventies steam had driven the sailing ship from the seas. A number of sailing vessels lingered on through the eighties, but they retained little of the corporate pride and splendour that was once theirs. The old spirit was gone ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... the boat with the captain some hours while he had it. But do you suppose he could hand a letter to a seaman? No, indeed; not even to an ordinary seaman. When we got to the ship he gave it to the first mate; the first mate gave it to the second mate, and he laid it, michingly, on the capstan-head, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... within an hour of setting, and if the adventurers desired to reach the open sea again before nightfall—as they most assuredly did—it was time to bestir themselves. George, therefore, issued his orders, and while one party of his now pretty well exhausted crew manned the capstan and proceeded to get the Nonsuch's anchor, a second were set to work to pass a towing hawser aboard the prize and make it fast; after which the ships got under way, the Santa Maria being in tow of the Nonsuch, and safely ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... the same time also helped to hoist his own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, Aye, aye, hearty! ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right pitch, began in a really fine manly voice ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... something like a panic in the Armada. The admiral signalled to weigh anchor and make sail, but few of the ships waited for the tedious operation of getting the heavy anchors up to the cat-heads by slow hand labour on windlass or capstan. In most of the galleons the carpenter's broad axe hacked through the cables and left the anchors deep in Channel mud. Sails were hurriedly shaken out, and like a startled flock of sheep the crowd of ships hurried away to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale |
