"Topmast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to follow us. The French Commodore was about a gun-shot ahead of all, running from us with all speed; and about four o'clock he carried his foretopmast overboard. This caused another loud cheer with us; and a little after the topmast came close by us; but, to our great surprise, instead of coming up with her, we found she went as fast as ever, if not faster. The sea grew now much smoother; and the wind lulling, the seventy-four gun ship we had passed came again by us in the ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... before day-light, every soul must have perished. She now took a heel, and some of the guns they were endeavouring to throw over board run down to leeward, which crushed one man to death; about the same time, a spare topmast came down from the booms, and ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... he took a few large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two, that were on the deck. These he pushed overboard, tying each with a rope to keep it from drifting away. Then he went over the side of the ship, and tied all the spars together so as to make a raft, and on top he put pieces of plank across. But it was long before he could make the raft ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... likely to be so with the wind rising out of the northeast; and ere long the Petrel's topmast was sent down, and a double reef put in her mainsail. Until midnight it blew hard with a fast rising sea, and a mist as thick as a hedge. After this, it was ugly weather all the way home, and as they passed Ailsa Craig the wind changed to full north, and fetched ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... the topmast with his hand, The foremast with his knee; And he brake that gallant ship in twain, And ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... prove that the sailor knew what he was talking about. The wind blew a gale and the rain fell in torrents. Just before the storm reached them, Captain Beardsley thought it would be wise to shorten his canvas, but all he took in were the gaff-topsails and fore-topmast staysail. Shortly afterward it became necessary to reef the sails that were left, and when that had been done the captain declared that he wouldn't take in anything else, even if he knew that the wind would take the sticks out of the schooner ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... sit still and wish for what was not to be had; and this extremity roused my application. We had several spare yards, and two or three large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two in the ship: I resolved to fall tp work with these, and I flung as many of them overboard as I could manage for their weight, tying every one with a rope, that they might not drive away. When ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... land; The manners, customs, policy of all Pay contribution to the store he gleans, He sucks intelligence in every clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research At his return—a rich repast for me. He travels and I too. I tread his deck, Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes Discover countries, with a kindred heart Suffer his woes and share in his escapes; While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... order any one to help him, yet there were one or two midshipmen hastening up the fore-rigging, with the intent, I have no doubt, of trying to save him (for midshipmen don't value their lives at a quid of tobacco), so I seizes the studding sail halyards, and runs up the topmast rigging, intending to go down by the lift, and pass a bowling knot round him before he fell, when who should I meet at the cross-trees but Tom Herbert, who snatched the rope out of my hand, bawling to me through the gale, 'This is my ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... named Thanet, which was the spot chosen for the landfall of our visitors. Sure enough, I had no sooner ridden up than there was a great red ship, the first as it seems of three, coming in under full sail. The white horse, which is the ensign of these rovers, was hanging from her topmast, and she appeared to be crowded with men. The sun was shining brightly, and the great scarlet ship, with snow-white sails and a line of gleaming shields slung over her side, made as fair a picture on that blue expanse as one would ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... replied. "I'll have to stop and think, there's so many of them. Now there's Bul'ark and Gunnel—they're pretty stout; the twins, Anchor and Chain; Squall, the crybaby; Block, the fattest of all; Topmast, the tallest and thinnest; and Stern, the littlest. He came last, so we named him that, seeing it's the last part of ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... having been cleared away, sail was once more made on the frigate, and she steered towards the line-of-battle ship. As she approached every indication was observed that she had suffered fearfully in the hurricane. Her ensign was hoisted reversed. The bowsprit and fore-topmast were gone, as was the mizen topmast, while it seemed as if in an instant the main-topmast would follow the other masts. All the quarter boats seemed to have been carried away, and as the frigate drew nearer a signal was hoisted, which, ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... answered the captain: "if you are on a ship, and you are looking even from the topmast of the vessel, the line of vision from the eye strikes the surface of the water at an angle. The result is that the surface of the water acts as a reflector, exactly the same as when the line of sight strikes a pane ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... collapse into itself as though it were wrapping itself up in its own canvas. A huge loose clue of sail—the foresail's starboard leach—flew up into the air; the boom swung after it; the gaff toppled over from above; we saw the topmast dive like a lunging rapier into the sea. We had torn the foresail in two, and the shot passing on had smashed the foremast just below the cap. All her sails lay in a confused heap just forward ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... Leviathan, and there was some fighting. The Bellerophon got to windward of the enemy by passing in front of the French Terrible (110), and put in some excellent gunnery practice. She sailed so close to the French ship to starboard as almost to touch her, and brought down the enemy's topmast and lower yards with a broadside, whilst at the same time she raked the Terrible with her larboard guns.* (* There is an interesting engraving of the Bellerophon passing through the French line and firing both her broadsides in the Naval Chronicle Volume 1, and a plan ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... hull and rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her boilers. Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been surprised to see it fall at any moment. Loose ropes were trailing in all directions; and the tattered remains of sails still ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... front gate-posts were composed of the two jaw-bones of an enormous whale; the fence was of a most fanciful Chinese pattern; and directly in front of the house was erected that never-failing ornament of a sailor's dwelling, a tall flag-staff, with cap, cross-trees, and topmast, complete; the last, always being kept "housed," except upon the 4th of July, 22d of February, &c. At the foot of the flag-staff, "hushed in grim repose," was an iron six-pounder, mounted upon a ship gun-carriage, ready for service, whenever any national holyday required ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... lost, therefore, in the commencement of our operations. The whole of the masts were dismantled except the lower ones and the Hecla's main-topmast; the lower yards were lashed fore and aft amidships, to support the planks of the housing intended to be erected over the ships; and the whole of this framework was afterward roofed over with a cloth. The boats, spars, running rigging, and sails were removed on shore; and, as soon as ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... some choice loveage, a cordial kept expressly for the commodore's own use, he was unexpectedly surprised by the return of the old commander on board; and in making his escape through the cabin window into a boat he had in waiting, unfortunately left his time-piece and topmast behind. This circumstance is said to have put the commodore out of conceit with his little frigate, who has since been paid off', and is now chartered for general purposes." At this little episode of a well-known Bath story, the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... here but three days; the fourth after our departure a most dreadful storm arose, which in a few hours destroyed all our sails, splintered our bowsprit, and brought down our topmast; it fell directly upon the box that enclosed our compass, which, with the compass, was broken to pieces. Every one who has been at sea knows the consequences of such a misfortune: we now were at a loss where to steer. At length ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... dreadful. Their decks were deserted. Three pistol-shots were the unequal return. With confidence I say that the frigate would have been lost to France, had not the unequal collision torn away our fore-topmast, jib-boom, fore and maintop-sails, spritsail-yards, bumpkin, cathead, chainplates, fore-rigging, foresail, and bower anchor, with which last I intended to hook on; but all proved insufficient. She would yet have been lost to France, had not the French admiral, seeing his frigate's ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... be confined to some kinds of heath, which had stems not thicker than the finger: hence they knew not what to think of the timber with which the ships were constructed. Not being aware of its weight, two or three of them, successively, seized hold of the spare topmast, and evidently with an intention of carrying it off. The only object on board which they seemed to view with contempt, was a little terrier dog; judging, no doubt, that it was too small for drawing a sledge: but they shrunk back, in terror, from a pig, whose pricked ears, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... there," Grant exclaimed as he looked at Fred standing up against the topmast, far ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... he said; "it's springing up from the south'ard;" and, pacing the deck to and fro, he would also turn his eyes to the topmast-head every time he reached the quarter-deck of the vessel, to mark if the night-flag moved. Standing, at ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... pardon, Captain Wilson-you have not informed me whether it was your wish that I should go to the topmast, or ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... I had a close shave to coming down with it and so ending my adventures right there. The best way that I could think of to manage this piece of work—and I have not since thought of any way better—was to make fast a line to the lower end of the top-gallant mast just above the cap of the topmast and to carry this line through the top-block and so down to the deck, and there to pass it through another block to the capstan and haul it taut and stop it; and when all that was in order, and the stays cut, to get up into the cross-trees and saw through ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... or a shot went through his sails. Our hopes of success were, however, soon brought to an end, for, as we were compelled to luff up suddenly, to avoid being raked, as he was about to cross our bows, the heavy strain on our wounded mast carried it away, and with it the mizen-topmast, and there we lay a helpless wreck in the trough of the sea, at the mercy of the enemy. Still, as we could work our guns we would not give in, but hoisting our flag on the mizen-mast we continued firing as long ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... storms the flapping sail, By hanging from the topmast-head; I've served the vilest slaves in jail, And pick'd the dunghill's spoil for bread; I've made the badger's hole my bed: I've wander'd with a gipsy crew; I've dreaded all the guilty dread, And done what they would fear ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... frigate, as if in defiance, flings out a flag from each topmast. Her big guns flash, but the balls ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and farther down, The bride's ship to behold, And the topmast and the mainmast They ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... set up the topmast of the wreck, and to catch the attention of a whaler a few days later, and was taken off. Before going, however, he made a careful drawing of the place, and by studying other charts on the American whaler which took him away he was able to locate the island with such correctness ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... corroborated old Masters, the boatswain, who had come up on the bridge unnoticed. "Beg pardon, sir, but we can't carry on much longer with all that sail forrad. The fore-topmast is a- complainin' like anythink, I can tell ye, sir. Chirvell, the carpenter, and me's examinin' it and we thinks it's got sprung at ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... more just then and did not try. Sam and Tom made him as comfortable as possible and found he had suffered only from the fall of the topmast and ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... and the topmast lap, It was sic a deadly storm: And the waves cam owre the broken ship Till a' ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... line-of-battle ships commenced firing. It was then high time to be off. We each of us poured in another broadside, and then wore round for our own squadron, which was about four miles off, and rather to leeward, standing in to our assistance. As we wore round, our main-topmast, which had been badly wounded, fell over the side, and the French perceiving this, made all sail, with the hope of capturing us; but the Sea-horse remained with us, and we threw up in the wind, and raked them until they were within two cables' lengths of us. Then we stood on ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... my little friend Charley under very unusual and startling circumstances. I saw a lad about fifteen years of age clinging desperately for very life to the topmast of a sunken ship. I will tell you ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... they found all in confusion. The bowsprit of the Golden Wave was gone, and also the main topmast, while a mass of the rigging littered the forecastle. It was also announced that the rudder was broken and the vessel was pounding helplessly on the rocks, with a big hole in the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... badly hulled, and also had her rigging cut up and one of her masts damaged. Pedro Valdes's flagship, the "Rosario," was twice in collision with a consort, with disastrous results. Her bowsprit was carried away, and her foremast went over the side, the strain on the rigging bringing down the main topmast with it. When the English drew off just before sundown, Valdes was busy cutting away the wreckage. Medina-Sidonia shortened sail to enable the rearward ships to rejoin, and then held his course up Channel. Valdes sent a request to him that a ship should be detailed ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... broke and we parted company?" was the reply. "The Revenge lost her fore-topmast ere the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the captain shouted. "Quick, men! and lash a spare spar to the yard. They are busy cutting away their topmast, but we shall be off again before they are ready to move. They have lost nearly half a mile; we shall soon be out of range. Be sharp with that ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... E.S.E., and stood in for the land, having a small boat laying upon the point of the shoal, the south point of which at noon bore north, distant one mile. The pumps gain'd upon the leak this 4 hours. Light airs and clear weather. Standing off the shore in for the main. Got up the main topmast and main-yard. Having got the sail ready for fothering the ship, we put it over under the starboard fore chains, where we suspected she suffer'd most, and soon after the leak decreas'd so much as to be kept clear with one pump with ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle . . . Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi' the main course . . . Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses. Off to sea ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... spoke the English ship yawed and let fly at us with her fore-chase and mingled with their roar was the sharp crack of parting timbers and down came our main-topmast. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... wrong with that Seamew ever since she sail in the schooner?" demanded the girl. "An anchor chain breaks; a rope parts; you lost a topmast—yes? How about Tony? Has he not left and will not return aboard the schooner for a price? Do you not find calm where other schooners find ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... driven out of her course from Candia, and four seamen are lost off the lee main-yardarm. A fearful storm greatly distresses the vessel and the captain gives command "to bear away." As she passes the island of St. George, the helmsman is struck blind by lightning. Bowsprit, foremast, and main-topmast being carried away, the officers try to save themselves on the wreck of the foremast. The ship splits on the projecting verge of Cape Colonna. The captain and all his crew are lost except Arion (Falconer), who is washed ashore, and being befriended ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... myself very comfortable up here for a while," replied Dory, as he placed his feet on the foresail gaff, and passed his arm around the topmast. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... had conceived a few scruples with relation to the distributive justice of princes upon those occasions. For instance, a crew of pirates are driven by a storm they know not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the topmast; they go on shore to rob and plunder, they see a harmless people, are entertained with kindness; they give the country a new name; they take formal possession of it for their king; they set up a rotten plank, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... their rig is that they have no boom to their mainsail, which in shape somewhat resembles a barge-sail, and, like it, can in a moment be brailed completely up. They carry a lofty topmast and large topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obliged to have two reefs in the mainsail. They are capital sea-boats, fast, and very handy; and it requires a good yacht to beat a bawley with a brisk wind blowing. The men are keen sailors, ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... connected by a short stick to another spar tied to the mainsail about eighteen inches lower down. The sail was strengthened with an extra strip of cloth along the lower spar, and the tie strings were applied in the usual way. The connecting stick, or topmast we may call it, was hinged to the lower spar by means of a short piece of leather strap, which was passed round the spar in the form of a loop and its two ends nailed to the bottom of the topmast. The topmast extended above the upper spar ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... topmast staysail," said the mate; but he was willing the crew should execute the order in their own way, for he called the master's mate to him. "The biggest job is yet to be done," he ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... said. "She carried her topmast away seven years ago. At Papeete they rigged a new one. It was ten feet shorter. That ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... minute Thompson made his appearance on deck, and steadying himself by the weather topmast backstay, fixed his leaden eyes upon the land on the quarter.—"All right, younker, that's the head, sure enough;" then turning his face to the wind, which lifted up his grey curling locks, and bore ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the skipper, more than ever confused by the astonishing clearness and music of her voice and the fearless simplicity of her question. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the stump of the topmast with his right arm (for the spar whipped and sprang to the impact of every sea upon the hull), and looked at his men on the edge of the cliff. He saw that they were shouting to him, but the wind was in their teeth and so not a word of their bellowing reached him. By signals and roarings ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... the peaks of the island showed up against the morning sky. At noon the Cumberland was running along the shore, close enough to be observed, and made a signal for a pilot from the fore-topmast head. A small French schooner came out of a cove, and Flinders, wishing to speak with her to make enquiries, followed her. She ran on, and entered a port, which proved to be Baye du Cap (now Cape Bay) on the south-west coast. Flinders steered in her wake, thinking that she was ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... she seemed broad and bluff for her length. She was forty-five feet in length, with a fifteen- foot beam and seven-foot depth. She was first rigged as a lugger, but altered to the more modern "dandy" (something like a ketch but with more rake to the mizzen and with no topmast on the mainmast) before she was sold. Any one about the herring basins who has arrived at fisherman's maturity (about sixty years) will remember the Mum Tum, and, so far as she was concerned, the partnership was entirely successful, for no ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... wind, which turned to the west. They had the wind thus abaft, and he sailed thus during five hours with the foresail only, having always the troubled sea, and made at once two leagues and a half towards the northeast. He had lowered the main topmast lest a wave ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... spars and sails, and one vessel, it is recorded, was dismasted, which means, in seafaring interpretation, that all her masts were carried away; as she succeeded, however, in getting into Ajaccio, she can only have lost her royal topgallant, and possibly a topmast or two. If her lower masts had been carried away, she could not have got into refuge without assistance, and the rest of the fleet apparently had enough to do in looking after themselves, as they lost spars and sails too, and became somewhat scattered, but all appear to have got safely ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... no mistaking where the Namur came from, Senor; she's Holland from keel to topmast, but the best sailing Dutchman I ever saw. You said you were being watched on ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... sleeping ashore, and won't be down till nine in the morning. I'm alone here." He stepped to the fore-halliards. "Now I'll just hoist this up to the topmast head, and you'll see what a pretty flag it makes ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... is as good as another's. It is only when the time of trial comes,—when the volunteers are called to man the boat that is to venture through the wild seas to pick off the crew of a foundering wreck,—"when the jerking, slatting sail overhead must be got in somehow," though topmast and yard and sail may go any minute,—when the quailing mate or frightened captain dares not order men to all but certain death, and still less dares to lead,—then it is, when the lives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... stick left, and that—unsupported by backstays and the wind still pressing against the big sail—that was wabbling. Even as we looked it came down—lower and top parts—with a smash which snapped the topmast off and sent it twisting and gyrating to where, after a bound or two, it rolled down and pinned to the deck the two battling men in the stern. With it came a tangled ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... share the sailor's pains. If the Pirates catch me, save me from their chains. Meantime mark the sailor mount the topmast high, Till his trim tarpaulin almost scrapes the sky, Luffing to the starboard, tacking o'er the bay, Thus Manhattan Captains sail their ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... to the companion-way, looking as pale as a ghost, and nearly frightened to death. The mate and some men forward were trying to haul in the lower studding-sail, which had blown over the sprit-sail yard-arm and round the guys; while the topmast-studding-sail boom, after buckling up and springing out again like a piece of whalebone, broke off at the boom-iron. I sprang aloft to take in the main top-gallant studding-sail, but before I got into the top, the tack parted, and away ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... sea, the Desire and Content beat to and fro to windward off the head land of California; and that very morning one of the men in the admiral, going aloft to the topmast, espied a ship bearing in from seaward for the cape. Putting every thing in readiness for action, Candish gave chase, and coming up with her in the afternoon, gave her a broadside and a volley of small arms. This ship was the Santa ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... to all. Signals were made from ship to ship, fresh anchors were let down, and the topmast housed. By midnight it was blowing a tremendous gale, which continued for three days. Several of the transports dragged their anchors and were washed ashore, and messages arrived from different parts of the coast telling of the wreck of many of those which ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... suddenly rose from by the flagstaff, answered by a shout of defiance from the English battery, as all at once the mizzen-topmast of the Sirius with its well-filled sails bowed over as if doubled-up; but the loss did not check the firing nor her way, and the shrill cheer was silenced. For in the midst of the French elation, and as the course of the ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... canister, swept the proud Don from stem to stern, while through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls, and the still deadlier cloth-yard arrows, whistled and rushed upon their venomous errand. Down went the steersman, and every soul who manned the poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern-windows and quarter-galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... open, panting, without breath, and without voice, I too was watching! An irresistible attraction glued me to the glass! Suddenly an explosion took place. The compressed air blew up her decks, as if the magazines had caught fire. Then the unfortunate vessel sank more rapidly. Her topmast, laden with victims, now appeared; then her spars, bending under the weight of men; and, last of all, the top of her mainmast. Then the dark mass disappeared, and with it the dead crew, drawn down by the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... to fit a strap round the main-topmast head for ringtail halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards, and a marlin spike about his neck. He fell, and not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with all those things around his neck, he probably sank immediately. We pulled astern in the direction in which ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Asia was now seen to be on fire; the blaze flamed up as high as the topmast, and soon became one vast sheet of fire; in that state she continued for a short time. The crew could be easily discerned gliding about across the light; and, after a horrible suspense, she blew up, with an explosion far ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... her. Why, I've known 'em to keel over and rake bottom and bring up the weed on the topmast. I tell you now! there was one time we knowed she'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why? Because, when it cleared and we come up, there was her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... erection of the beacon, the Bell Rock was divested of many of its terrors, and had it been possible to have got the boats hoisted out and manned, it might have even been found practicable to land. At six it blew so hard that it was found necessary to strike the topmast and take in a third reef of the mainsail, and under this low canvas we soon reached St. Andrews Bay, and got again under the lee of the land for the night. The artificers, being sea-hardy, were quite reconciled to their quarters on board of the Lighthouse yacht; but it is believed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... standing out of the bay. It is my intention to pursue them as long as it shall appear beneficial so to do. This ship and the Maria de Gloria are the only two in sight of the enemy, the Carolina having been obliged to return to the Moro, in consequence of having lost a topmast, and the Nitherohy not having joined. I hope in my next to be able to give you some account of the ulterior objects the enemy have in view, which, whatever they may be, I shall ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... of waters. On the third night of their sailing, the wind became higher, and the swell from the south stronger than ever. They pitched about in the most dreadful manner, and during the night two sails were carried away, and the fore-topmast. They were now in peril; but they had the steam in reserve, and steered for their port. On the 9th of June they were in smooth water, running up between the coasts of Arabia and Africa. The weather now suddenly changed; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... The topmast studding-sail flapped and fluttered, the foresail shivered, and the jib filled as the frigate rounded to, narrowly missing the wreck, which was now under the bows, rocking so violently in the white foam of the agitated waters that it was with difficulty that Coco could, by ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... spirits, such articles being in the first place selected for putting on board as were essentially requisite for her re-equipment; for it was my full determination, could we succeed in completing this, not to wait even for rigging a topmast, or getting a lower yard up, in the event of the ice coming in, but to tow her out among the ice, and there put everything sufficiently to rights for carrying her to some place of security. At the same ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... expect we shall have a rough time of it, Watkins, but I want to get across. We don't often let ourselves be weather-bound, and I am not going to begin it to-day. We had better house the topmast at once, and get two reefs in the main-sail. We can get the other down when we get clear of the island. Get number three jib up, and the leg-of-mutton mizzen; put two ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... next day I found that the outward edge of it, which I sounded on, lies 16 leagues off shore. When it was day we steered in east-north-east with a fine brisk gale; but did not see the land till 9 in the morning, when we saw it from our topmast-head, and were distant from it about 10 leagues; having then 40 fathom water, and clean sand. About 3 hours after we saw it on our quarter-deck, being by judgment about 6 leagues off, and we had then 40 fathom, clean sand. As we ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... "Humph! Topmast heavier than the hull," replied Grandpa, accepting with gratitude, in this extremity, the sympathy ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... aloft to see what damage had been done by the shot; it was not very much: the fore topmast showed a white mark where a piece had been neatly gouged out of it, and a few ropes were severed, but nothing serious ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... having a correspondingly small sail-area, but in spite of her great age she was still absolutely sound and was a splendid sea-boat. The Bermudian rig had been evolved to meet local conditions. Imagine a cutter with one single long spar in the place of a mast and topmast; this spar is stepped rather farther aft than it would be in an ordinary cutter, and there is one huge mainsail, "leg-of-mutton" shaped, with a boom but no gaff, and a very large jib. Owing to their big head-sails, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... in among the weed. At that, as may be imagined, we were very greatly excited, and stood upon the thwarts that we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was upon our larboard side, gave me some sight of her hull, but not much, because of ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... as usually applied, has reference to a vessel furnished with a bowsprit and three masts—a mainmast, a foremast and a mizzenmast; and these three masts are each composed of three parts, namely, a lowermast, a topmast, and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... and Stars, Cloaking her shame under legal bars, Not too moral for traffic, but shirking wars, While the Southern cross, floating topmast high. Though torn, perchance, by a thousand scars, Shall ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Then the—fore-topmast crosstrees reports a sail on the weather quarter, the Richard is brought around on the wind, and away we go after a brigantine, "flying like a snow laden with English bricks," as Midshipman Coram jokingly remarks. A chase is not such a novelty with us ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his whale dead about one mile to windward, so I came to wind on the port tack, but it took us some time to get up to the mate, as we could not carry any foretopsail or flying jibs as the topmast had given out. ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... take the risk," replied Claudius, who had retired again to the crosstrees. "I am going to put it on the topmast-head, so that you may have a good ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... juncture Captain Wilmot happened, unluckily, to be on board my ship, to his great mortification; for we not only lost sight of his ship, but never saw her more till we came to Madagascar, where she was cast away. In short, after having in this tempest lost our fore-topmast, we were forced to put back to the isle of Tobago for shelter, and to repair our damage, which brought us ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... although our topmast was carried away by her foreyard-arm, and came down with a crash on deck, papa narrowly escaping being struck. The next instant ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... soundly. The noise is beyond all belief; the creaking, trampling, shouting, clattering; it is an incessant storm. We have not yet got our masts quite safe; the new wire-rigging stretches more than was anticipated (of course), and our main-topmast is shaky. The crew have very hard work, as incessant tacking is added to all the extra work incident to a new ship. On Saturday morning, everybody was shouting for the carpenter. My cabin was flooded by a leak, and I superintended the baling and swabbing from my ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... was always called at the turn of the tide to swing the vessel, so that the cable did not foul the anchor. This was done by a skilful manipulation of the yards and fore topmast staysail. Some mates had quite a genius for this piece of real seamanship. Others never got within the fringe of doing it successfully, and the result was that many a mishap occurred in consequence of cables fouling the anchor stock, or flukes, thereby pulling ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... length of the pole cautiously. It was a high one, with a slim topmast spliced on with iron bands. He knew how to climb this like a sailor; careful to hold himself close in to the slender stick, and not throw his weight out, so as to put a strain on it that might cause it to snap and let him fall; careful not to get it ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... her off up channel and round Hollyhead past the Skerries and takin' a pilot off P'int Lynas. It were a sight worth seein' for to watch the old man handle her in takin' a pilot. The wind were fresh from west-nor'west, and we passed the Skerries with all three royals set and lower topmast and to'gallan' stunsails on the port side. As soon as ever we passed the rocks we kep' off for Lynas, and as soon as the stunsails got by the lee they was hauled in. Then with the wind about two p'ints on the starboard quarter we went bilin' along for the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... said, "as if there was something afire over there. Here, you Tom," to a lad belonging to the relief-watch, who had just come on deck, "slip up as far as the fore-topmast cross-trees, and see if you can see anything out of the common away there on ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... shift and the weather clear up in a few hours, and that we should be able to weigh with the coming down of the ebb. He asked Bramble whether he thought it would blow hard. Bramble could not say, but it would be better that the men should not turn in, as they might be wanted; and that if the fore-topmast staysail was hoisted, she would lie better at her anchor, and in case of parting, he would be able to manage her till sail was set. This advice was followed, and all the men sat up in the cabin drinking, those who had the watch occasionally ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... we worked our guns was the chief cause of our success. Instead of tacking, as the enemy fancied we were going to do, we once more filled and ran after him. A loud shout burst from our crew. The Frenchman's fore-topmast came tumbling down on deck. We quickly came up after him and gave him a full dose ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... lugger of about forty tons, as we measure nowadays (but upon the old plan she would work out nearer a hundred and forty); and Phoby a St. Ives ketch, the Nonesuch, of about the same size. But which was the Black Joke and which the Nonesuch you never could be sure, for the lugger carried fids, topmast, crosstrees, and a spare suit of sails to turn her into a ketch at twenty minutes' notice; and likewise the ketch could ship topmast, shift her rigging, and hoist a spare suit of lug-sails in no longer time. The pair of them, too, had ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... heart and strength to the hand, to which, in all time, it shall be intrusted! May it ever wave first in honor, in unsullied glory and patriotic hope, on the dome of the Capitol, on the country's stronghold, on the tented plain, on the wave-rocked topmast. ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... assemblage of vessels of every class, from the humble gondola to the bulky East Indianian and the first-rate ship of war, gaily bannered with the Orange colours and thronged from deck to topmast by enthusiastic multitudes, was waiting to receive their beloved stadholder. A deafening cannonade saluted him on his approach. The Prince was escorted to the Square or Dam, where on a high scaffolding covered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gaed down, and farther down, Her love's ship for to see, And the topmast and the mainmast Shone like ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... was celebrated in Adelie Land with a small display. At 2.30 P.M. the Union Jack was hoisted to the topmast and three cheers were given for the King. The wind blew at fifty miles an hour with light drift, temperature -3 degrees F. Empire greetings were sent to the Colonial Secretary, London, and to Mr Fisher, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... musketry, and passed on to the support of the Captain, at that time warmly engaged with a three-decker, carrying a flag. His interference here was opportune, as the continual and long fire of the Captain had almost expended the ammunition she had at hand, and the loss of her fore-topmast, and other injuries she had received in her rigging, had rendered ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... woods to roam; And city life hath a thousand joys, That quiver amid its ceaseless noise; Yet nothing on land can give to me Such joy as that of the pathless sea. When morning comes, and the sun's first rays All around our gallant topmast plays, My heart bounds forth with rapturous glee, O, then, 't is then that I love the sea! Talk as you will of the land and shore; Give me the sea, and I ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Carden's action. He interpreted the manoeuvre as indicating a wish to get to windward, which the "Macedonian's" then course, far off the wind, would favor. He therefore hurriedly gave the order to haul up (2), cutting adrift the topmast studdingsail; a circumstance which to seamen will explain exactly the relative situations. That he had rightly interpreted Decatur's purpose seems probable, for in fifteen or twenty minutes the "United States" again wore (a), resuming her original course, by the wind on the port ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... on the crest of a sea; she sank into the hollow behind, shipped a few dozen tons of water from the next comber, and then lay fairly steady, with her bow meeting the seas, and the huge steamer not a half-length away on the lee quarter. The fore-topmast-staysail was flattened, and Seldom closely scrutinized the drift and heave ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... 21st, in the evening, we saw several men of war birds; and at midnight, heard many birds about the ship. At five o'clock in the morning of the 23d, we saw the Island of Ascension; and at eight, discovered a ship to the eastward, who brought-to, and hoisted a jack at her main-topmast-head, upon which we shewed our colours, and she then stood in for the land again. We ran down close along the north-east side of the island, and looked into the bay, but seeing no ship there, and it blowing a stiff gale, I made the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... ships, on leaving Darien, had three hundred each, including officers, crew and colonists. On August 13th, the Unicorn, commanded by Captain John Anderson, came into New York in a distressed condition, having lost her foremast, fore topmast, and mizzen mast. She lost one hundred and fifty men on the way. It appears that Captain Robert Pennicuik of the St. Andrew knew of the helpless condition of the Unicorn, and accorded no assistance.[14] As might be expected, passion ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... precipitate and hilly. You pass through forests of splendid timber, chiefly fir, but of a size which is surprising. Here are masts for "tall admirals," so lofty that you could not well perceive a squirrel, or even a large animal, if upon one of the topmast boughs. The pine forests are diversified by the oak; you sometimes pass through six or seven miles of the first description of timber, which gradually changes, until you have six or seven miles ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Church for the departing soul, but I couldn't see the speaker. The moon had gone under a cloud again, but there was light enough for me to catch a glimpse of some floating wreck on the crest of a wave above me; and then it came down right on top of me,—a lot of rigging and a spar or two,—our topmast and yard, which had gone over the side just before we foundered. I climbed on to it, and found my prospects hugely improving,—especially as clinging to the other end was the soldier left on board. As soon as I could persuade him I was no spook or mermaid, he was almost as pleased ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... January, 1893, I was seventeen, and the 20th of January I signed before the shipping commissioner the articles of the Sophie Sutherland, a three topmast sealing schooner bound on a voyage to the coast of Japan. And of course we had to drink on it. Joe Vigy cashed my advance note, and Pete Holt treated, and I treated, and Joe Vigy treated, and other hunters treated. Well, it was the way of men, and who was I, just turned seventeen, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... the old days when she had a master. And the short bright summer passes. And again she sees the sun set from her decks. And now even her topmasts see it set. And now it does not rise to her deck. And the next day it does not rise to her topmast. Winter and night together! She has known them before! But now it is winter and night and loneliness all together. This horrid ice closes up round her again. And there is no one to bring her into harbor,—she is out in the open sound. If the ice drifts ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... long yarn to spin," he said, "though it is a somewhat wonderful one. When I was washed off the deck, I found near me a topmast, which had probably been carried away and cut adrift from some craft ahead of us. I clung on to it, and was picked up a day or two afterwards by a vessel which had to touch at Walfish Bay on her way to the Cape. Finding a party settled there on ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the morning the wind abated considerably, but the ship labouring extremely, rolled the fore-topmast over on the larboard side, and, in the fall, the wreck went through the foresail, tearing it to pieces. At eleven the wind came to the westward, and the weather clearing up, the Berryhead was distinguishable, bearing north and by east, distant four or five leagues. Another foresail was now ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous |
