"Jib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dark, lowering morning, the desolate sea still threateningly rough, the heavy clouds hanging low. The Romping Betsy was hove to, under bare poles, a bit of the jib alone showing, with decks and spars exhibiting evidence of the terrific struggle to keep afloat. I never witnessed wilder pitching on any vessel, but the fresh air brought new life to the wretches about me, and a species of cheerfulness was ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... If it's truth or a lie that lies at the root Should be shown when the doctrine grows up and bears fruit Thus I daundered and pondered, on lifting my e'e An answer to some o my thocts cam to me There cam' doon the causey a comical chiel, Wi an air an a gait that was unco genteel, By the cut o' his jib an the set o his claes He was ane o thae folk wha ha e seen better days, He was verra lang legged hungry-lookup an lean, His claes werna' new, nor weel hained nor clean, Tight straps his short trews to meet shiny boots drew, Where wee tae an' big tae alike keeked through, ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... there, seeing the horse taken care of; and, knowing the cut of the fellow's jib, what does I do, but whips the body-clothes off Naboclish, and claps them upon a garrone that the ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... ready for breakfast in two hours. The stock and things can go. The men 'll 'tend to 'em. Just haul on that sheet a bit. Now the jib. Look out for the boom. There. The wind's a little ahead, but ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... our next care. The jib was unbent, the sheet and head were brought together and made into a sack. This was filled with sand, and, slung on an oar, was shouldered by two and ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... see and understand his signals. Slightly changing her course, she first struck her mainsail, and, in order to facilitate the movements of her helmsman, soon carried nothing but her two topsails, brigantine and jib. After rounding the peak, she steered direct for the channel to which Servadac by his gestures was pointing her, and was not long in entering the creek. As soon as the anchor, imbedded in the sandy bottom, had made good its hold, a boat ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... the bay; you can steer a ship about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks. Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner of some hundred tons had luffed about the sentinel, and was standing up the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blowing stiffly," he writes, "and we were carrying a press of canvas to get north out of the bad weather. Shortly after four bells we hauled down the flying-jib, and I sprang out astride the boom to furl it. I was sitting astride the boom when suddenly it gave way with me. The sail slipped through my fingers, and I fell backwards, hanging head downwards over the seething tumult of shining ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... when she was certain of being followed, went back into London, turned again and made for Westridge's great stores in Oxford Street. The grey man ticked up two pences in pursuit. All along the Brompton Road he pursued her with his nose like the jib of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... blood, and, as I was considered the master's pet, I soon began to feel the bitterness of the subordinate's spite. This fellow was not only cross-grained, but absolutely malignant. One day, while the ship was skimming along gayly with a five-knot breeze, he ordered me out to the end of the jib-boom to loosen the sail; yet, without waiting until I was clear of the jib, he suddenly commanded the men who were at the halliards to hoist the canvas aloft. A sailor who stood by pointed out my situation, but was cursed into silence. In a moment I was jerked into ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... dancing around the deck like a maniac, trying to put his pack-loop over his head. Enoch went toward him, to tell him how he could go on the "Enchantress," but he looked wildly at him, ran forward and sprang out on the bowsprit, and from there to the jib. Enoch saw he was out of his mind, and ordered two sailors to bring him in. As they sprang on to the bow, he stood ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman "who must not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... Marjorie, contritely; "it's horrid of me, I know, and I'll stop it. But she did look like a flyaway jib!" ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... and then you knows all a midshipman's expected to know nowadays. Ar'n't I right, sir?" said the sailor, appealing to the gentleman in a plaid cloak. "I axes you, because I see you're a sailor by the cut of your jib. Beg pardon, sir," continued he, touching ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Those pressing prevailers, The ready-made tailors, Quote me as their great double-barrel; I allow them to do so, Though ROBINSON CRUSOE Would jib at their wearing apparel! I sit, by selection, Upon the direction Of several Companies bubble; As soon as they're floated I'm freely bank-noted - I'm pretty ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... force of the wind—and his opinion, as a person experienced in the Firth, that it was going to be worse instead of better; in reply, he received an order to step forward to his place in the cutter—the immediate vicinity of the jib-boom. On this, Mr. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... looked in the required direction, and he, too, fancied he saw something in motion on the margin of the bank. At the point where the wreck lay, the beach was far from wide, and her flying jib-boom, which was still out, projected so near the low acclivity, where the coast rose to the level of the desert, as to come within ten feet of the bushes by which the latter was fringed. Although the spar had drooped a little in consequence ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... pipes, as soon as he got his breath, 'my financed bride billed to appear in a hugging handicap? Not yet! Sabrina you certainly do jag my jib to think that you would enter into such a deal. From now on our trail parts.' 'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if you pull off any stunts you can figure that I will be in the running. And that goes ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... cried. "If it was a mistake it's one that can be straightened out in two shakes of slack jib sheet. You stay here and rest easy. I'll be back in a ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... life in the state-room of some ocean liner, or a broom of Japanese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a tiger nautilus shell, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch cutter. Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the head fast upright on a flat rock, and again the stand of a grindstone, and a trestle, high and elaborately stayed. Cases, invariably and disappointingly ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... as the Americans term it, is a detestable vice. As a rule, it is the outcome of the knowledge an animal has acquired of his own power. Some horses are foolishly allowed by their riders to jib successfully. For instance, I was once riding with a lady whose animal "planted" himself at a certain spot and refused to "budge." Instead of trying to make him go on, his mistress wearily said that that was her limit, and that she always took him home from it, because he did not want to go any ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... hornpipe," cut in Fred, as Jo paused for breath, "and, as they danced, the rubbishy old castle turned to a man-of-war in full sail. 'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard alee, and man the guns!' roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast. 'Go in and win, my hearties!' says the captain, and a tremendous fight ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... cut of that girl's jib," Mrs. Purchase announced after a pause. "She's good-looking, and she has pluck. But I don't take back what I said, that it's a wrong you're doing to Clem and Myra, putting them to school with all ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... way for over a week, and everybody was getting tired of it; not only on our ship, for one day we caught a 'Torreador' openly admiring our collection of sharks' tails which we had nailed to the jib-boom. When he found himself observed he blushed and went about some business, before we had a chance to ask him aboard to see the sharks' backbones—fashioned into fearsome walking-sticks. Up town we met them occasionally, but no one seemed ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... us in charge and puffed with us down the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... wind they might, with all canvas set—mainsail, foresail, jib, and fore-topsail—make Rozel Bay within two hours and a quarter. All seemed well for a brief half-hour. Then, even as the passage between the Marmotier and the Ecrehos opened out, the wind suddenly shifted from the north-east to the southwest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... safety. At five o'clock I was on deck. The fog was colder and denser than ever, and out of it rolled the white-capped waves raised by a fresh south-easterly breeze. Shortly before six o'clock it began to grow light, the brig was headed for the land, and under foresail, jib, and topsails, began to forge steadily through the water. The captain, glass in hand, anxiously paced the quarterdeck, ever and anon reconnoitring the horizon, and casting a glance up to windward to see if there were any ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... of this order the ship swung to the ebb. Instantly Mr. Sharpe unmoored, and the Agra began her famous voyage, with her head at right angles to her course; for the wind being foul, all Sharpe could do was to set his topsails, driver, and jib, and keep her in the tide way, and clear of the numerous craft, by backing or filling as the case required; which he did with considerable dexterity, making the sails steer the helm for the nonce: he crossed the Bar at sunset, and brought to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... life of me, I have never been able to tell a fore-royal from a back-royal; or a mizzen head-stay from a head mizzen-stay. They are the most puzzling things imaginable; and now I cannot discover how you know that yonder sail, which I see plain enough, is a royal, any more than that it is a jib!" ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... beyond that the yellow line of the sand-dunes broken by the white spot of Jaffa, and beyond that the azure breadth of the Mediterranean. Northward, at our feet, on the summit of a lower conical hill, ringed with gray rock, lay the village of El-Jib, the ancient Geba of Benjamin, one of the cities which ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... blew half a gale, it blew a gale: little they cared, these sons of Ares, these cousins of the broad daylight! There mere no men on earth save these two who would not have got her under a trysail and a rag of a storm-jib with fifteen reefs and another: not so the heroes. Not a stitch would they take in. They carried all her canvas, and cried out to the north-east wind: "We know her better than you! She'll carry away before she capsizes, and she'll ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... anchor and drifted rapidly up-stream. This was the highest and most powerful spring tide, and the situation was full of peril. The captain, Wilcox, calmly took the helm himself, steered toward the bank and ordered his men to leap to the ground from the jib-boom, carrying the kedge anchor. By this means the mad rush of the vessel was stopped, and by the use of logs and cables she was kept a safe distance from the bank. When the stores were finally landed they turned gratefully ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... been up for three weeks, it's been such pore weather for ducks—I seen a bunch of widgeon go down right over here, an' as I skims up by the collard patch t'other side of the bridge, I noticed a boat lyin' in the mud, and when I gits near to her, I knows by the cut of her jib that ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... boat without meeting any person, though Mrs. Loraine's man drove the cow into the yard just as we were pushing off from the pier. I had only lowered the jib of the Splash, so that she was ready to start without any delay; and in a few moments we were standing up the lake, the breeze ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... Gypsy gemman see, With his Roman jib and his rome and dree— Rome and dree, rum and dry ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... sliding hatch was fitted, so that in reality their boat was half decked over. They lastly gave her a thick coat of tar outside, and two coats of paint all over inside. She was rigged with a mainsail, a mizen, and a foresail, to which they added a sliding bowsprit, so that a jib could be set in light winds, with a flying gaff topsail. Having plenty of canvas and spars, they also fitted a square sail; some sand-bags served for ballast, although the stores they intended to take would reader them at first unnecessary. Tom had, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... hands, and I walked to the boat, which waited with her nose on the beach. The schooner, her mainsail set and jib-sheet to windward, curveted on the purple sea; there was a rosy tinge on her sails. "Will you be going home again soon?" asked Jim, just as I swung my leg over the gunwale. "In a year or so if I live," I said. The forefoot grated on the sand, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... distance, among a thousand freemen. They have a nice eye to detect shades of vassalage. They saw in the aristocratic popinjay strut of a counterfeit Democrat an itching aspiration to play the slaveholder. They beheld it in 'the cut of his jib,' and his extreme Northern position made him the very tool for their purpose. The little creature has struck at the right of petition. A paltrier hand never struck at a noble right. The Eagle Right of Petition, so loftily sacred in the eyes of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... could have done it without Scudamore. He jumped a most wonderful jump from our jib-boom into her mizzen chains, when our grapples had slipped, and we could get no nearer, and there he made fast, though the enemy came at him with cutlasses, pikes, and muskets. By this means we borded and carried ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... That's why!—What you're doin' now! I likes people to keep their proper stytion! I was brought up middle-clarss myself, an' taught to be'ave myself before my betters!—No offence to you, Mr. Manson! [He says this with a jib, belying his words.] ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... the wind began to shift about and came in squalls so hard that we could scarcely stand, so we took in the jib and mizzen, and lay to under the foresail. Of course the hatchways was battened down and tarpaulined, for the seas that came aboard was fearful. When I was standin' there, expectin' every moment that we should founder, a sea came and swept Fred Martin overboard. Of course ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... squadron had been seen by an American schooner off the Caicos Islands steering for St. Domingo, which report in the sequel proved a tarnation Yankee lie. When near the Platform we experienced a heavy squall, which carried away the foretop-mast and jib-boom, and, most singular to relate, although some miles from the shore after the squall had passed, we found some scores of very small crabs on the decks. I leave this phenomenon to longer heads than mine—although mine is not the shortest—to explain. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, and stowed himself where he couldn't be well seen to leeward of the sail. Then he sung out with all his might through the trumpet, 'Schooner ahoy, there! Port your hellum!—port H-A-A-A-RD! I say,—you're right aboard of us!'—And then he'd drop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... sloop-rigged, and carried a large jib and mainsail. Everything about her was fitted up in good style; indeed, the carpenters, riggers, and painters had been at work upon her for a month. I was rather sorry, as I looked at her, that I was not a rich man, able to own just such a craft, for I could conceive ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... the Nilghai. 'It's the same with horses. Some you wallop and they work, some you wallop and they jib, and some you wallop and they go out for a walk with their hands ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... of the coils.' A sudden blow sent Huish flat along the deck, and the captain was in his place. 'Pick yourself up and keep the wheel hard over!' he roared. 'You wooden fool, you wanted to get killed, I guess. Draw the jib,' he cried a moment later; and then to Huish, 'Give me the wheel again, and see if you ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... that the rammers of the American sailors struck the side of the Frolic as they drove the shot down the throats of their guns. It was literally muzzle to muzzle. Then they crashed together and the Wasp's jib-boom was thrust between the Frolic's masts. In this position the British decks were raked by a murderous fire as Jacob Jones trumpeted the order, "Boarders away!" Jack Lang, a sailor from New Jersey, scrambled out on the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... storekeeper. "But I don't jest fancy the cut of his jib. Wanted to know if you was ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... but the main-topsail, jib, and trysail, were split into ribbons, so that we became anxious to know how we should reach port when the gale subsided. But we were soon spared further care on that head. As the day closed in, the tempest resumed its fury, and ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... one on 'em, sir," said Jecks, "by her great yard. I never see a junk with such a big un afore. Talk about the cut of a jib—I says, look at ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... and make a man of him." To them, Sara's ideas were foolish and high-flown, their notion of a "gentleman" being too often associated with city "lubbers" who came down to spy out the land—and sea—in their ridiculous knickerbockers and helmets, and who did not know a jib from a spanker, or had any idea when a sailor spoke of the "hull" of his vessel, that he referred to anything but the sum of its component parts! Gentlemen, as a class, were not held in high esteem at Killamet. Even Captain Norris laughed at fine ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... examined his pockets to assure himself that some other article necessary for his purpose was all right. No mistakes or omissions had been made, and he proceeded to hoist the mainsail. He then cast off the moorings, and hoisted the jib. The wind was too fresh to permit the Greyhound to carry all sail, and even with what he had set, she put her rail under the water at the ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... wan. It slipped my memory. '2 wheelbarrows.' Then I goes on, 'pig stock; pig trough; 2 young breeding sows; 4 garden tools; 2 peat cutters; 2 carts; 1 market trap; 1 empty cask; 1 Dutch oven; 1 funnel; 2 firkins and a cider jib; small sieve; 3 pairs new Bedford harrows; 1 chain harrow (out of repair).' You see all's straight enough, which it ban't in some sales. No man shall say he's got ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... machines will only serve on condition of being served, and that too upon their own terms; the moment their terms are not complied with, they jib, and either smash both themselves and all whom they can reach, or turn churlish and refuse to work at all. How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Long, after a protracted stare at Sally,—"wimmin is the oddest craft that ever sailed. I swan, when I sight 'em I don't know a main-top-sail from a flyin' jib! Goin' to take care o' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... shaking down into our places. The sea became wild and mountainous, the wind shrieking and vicious, and as to hold our course we had to stem its full fury, it was found impossible to keep the ship head on except at a much greater consumption of coal than we were prepared to use. Crash! What's gone? The jib-boom and all its appurtenances. The wrecked spar falling athwart the ram remained there for hours, proving a most difficult obstacle to clear away in such a whirl as was going on in ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... as the decision of Captain Crutchely was made, the helm was put up, and the ship kept off to her course. It was true, that under double-reefed topsails, and jib, which was all the canvas set, there was not half the danger there would have been under their former sail; and, when Mark took charge of the watch, as he did soon after, or eight o'clock, he was in hopes, by means of vigilance, still to escape the danger. The darkness, which was getting to be ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... wooded, like the hills of the Alten Fjord, the trees have long since disappeared, and now nothing can be more bleak and desolate. The wind blew violently from the east, gradually lifting a veil of grey clouds from the cold pale sky, and our slow little steamer with jib and fore-topsail set, made somewhat better progress. Toward evening (if there is such a time in the arctic summer), we reached Kistrand, the principal settlement on the fjord. It has eight or nine houses, scattered along a gentle slope a mile in length, and a ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... consumed in the fire at Grimross. He had fortunately saved two of the compasses from the flames. After days of toil he managed to get the vessel in fair working order. The old half-burnt blankets were patched together and a mainsail and jib were completed. On the 30th of May, 1771, he ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... hedge gives shelter he will roll himself up and sleep. And it is possibly because he has no property of his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in others. But above all, his tongue—the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his blood—is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to 'Gorgios'—a few experts such as ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... hollow behind our seat, it will grasp the storm mizen, a strongly made triangular sail, to be used only in untoward hours, and for which we must prepare by lowering the lug mizen, and shifting the halyard, tack, and sheet. Then the Rob Roy, with her mainsail and jib reefed, will be under snug canvas, as seen at ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... pupil: Servitude was not the nurse of your childhood; you are getting on in years when she takes you in hand; accordingly, you will do her little credit, and give little satisfaction to your lord. Recollections of Freedom will exercise their demoralizing influence upon you, causing you to jib at times, and you will make villanous work of your new profession. Or will your aspirations after Freedom be satisfied, perhaps, with the thought, that you are no son of a Pyrrhias or a Zopyrion, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... only time to put in a firkin of butter and a ten-gallon keg of water. Eight in number, the crew entrusted themselves to the waves, in a leaky tub, many leagues from land. As the boat swept under the burning bowsprit, Israel caught at a fragment of the flying-jib, which sail had fallen down the stay, owing to the charring, nigh the deck, of the rope which hoisted it. Tanned with the smoke, and its edge blackened with the fire, this bit of canvass helped them bravely on their way. Thanks to kind Providence, on the second day they were picked ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... said. She nodded, and Dan looked about for the easiest way to the deck. It was not difficult to find. The end of the jib-boom had dropped into the water, making an easy incline, and the foremast had also fallen over the bow and was directly alongside. Both were covered with sections of canvas and a ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... correct. In a few minutes the ship was enveloped in a livid creeping mist, and he heard the Captain shout, "All hands stand by to reef!" Reef they did, but Pentland's temper was rapidly rising, and in a few minutes there was an impetuous shout for the storm jib, "Quick," and down came a blast from the north, and with a rip and a roar the yacht leaped her full length. If her canvas had been spread, she would have gone to the bottom; but under bare masts she came quickly and beautifully to her bearings, shook herself ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... first mad shock not a sail was clewed up, not a jib lowered, not a reef taken in, so much is flight a delirium. The mast creaked and bent back as ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... FitzGerald at Wyvenhoe in 1863, was first called the Shamrock and then the Scandal. Personally, I remember the names of a good many of the yachts of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast of the period, but I can't identify the Sapphire. The Red Rover was a river craft, a cutter, with the one big jib of our river craft instead of jib and foresail, belonging to the late Mr. Sam Nightingale, of Lacon's Brewery. She was originally about twelve tons, but by improvements and additions, when Mr. Nightingale died in the eighties, was eighteen tons. For many years she was the fastest ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... what sail she was carrying, and the probable distance from the cape, he gave orders to call all hands to take in the topgallant-sails, double reef the fore, and single reef the maintop-sails, and stow the flying-jib—dressed himself, and came on deck. Just as he put his head above the slide of the companion, and stopped for a minute with his hands resting upon the sides, a vivid flash of lightning hung its festoons of fire around the rigging, giving ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... he wanted to get rid of Pearl, and he hoped he should never see him again. While his disagreeable companion was walking down the wharf, he cast off the bow line which held the Goldwing to the pier, and hoisted the jib. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... its size greatly surprising the boys; then the foresail and jib were got up, and lastly the mizzen. Then the capstan was manned, and the anchor slowly brought on board, and the sails being sheeted home, the craft began to steal through the water. The tide was still draining up, and she had not as yet swung. The wind was light, and, as the skipper ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... facade, proscenium, facia[Lat], frontispiece; anteriority[obs3]; obverse [of a medal or coin]. fore rank, front rank; van, vanguard; advanced guard; outpost; first line; scout. brow, forehead, visage, physiognomy, phiz[obs3], countenance, mut*[obs3]; rostrum, beak, bow, stem, prow, prore[obs3], jib. pioneer &c. (precursor) 64; metoposcopy[obs3]. V. be in front, stand in front &c. adj.; front, face, confront; bend forwards; come to the front, come to the fore. Adj. fore, anterior, front, frontal. Adv. before; in front, in the van, in advance; ahead, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... nerves thrilled with apprehension when he stood holding fast to the rail during the lonely mid-watch, and the schooner, with the spray dashing wildly about her bows and everything drawing, was running before a strong wind through darkness so black that her flying-jib-boom could not be seen, and there was no light on board except the one ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... wi' mist; a fine-gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an'—what nane o' us likit to hear—anither wund gurlin' owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane craigs o' the Cutchull'ns. Weel, Sandy was forrit wi' the jib sheet; we couldna see him for the mains'l, that had just begude to draw, when a' at ance he gied a skirl. I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were over near Soa; but na, it wasna that, it was puir Sandy Gabart's deid skreigh, or near-hand, for he was deid in half ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hard gales of wind. Brought to off Tortugas under our foresail, and about 5 A.M. saw a sloop bearing down upon us. Got all things ready to receive her, fired our bow chaser, hoisted our jib & mainsail & gave chase, and, as we outsailed her, she was soon brought to. She proved to be a sloop from Philadelphia, bound to Jamaica; and as it blew a mere fret of wind from N.E., we brought to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... tells you. Will not stand abuse for knowing my business and attending to it without instructions from landlubber! When you appointed me you said remember speed synonymous with dividends in shipping business. How can I make fast passages with whiskers two feet long on my keel? Send new flying jib and spanker next loading port. Send new skipper, too, if you feel that ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... refer either to the bowsprit or to the flying balloon-jib," he replied coldly, and acting generally as if he were very much bored, "you are entirely wrong. This isn't a sloop, or a catamaran, or a caravel. Neither is it a government transport, an ocean gray-hound, or a ram. It's just ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... interrupted sight of his face in the river-garden at Hammersmith, and a reference to his felonious antecedents at the inquest. He was, by the time the conversation assumed the interest due to a hint of emolument, able to say to himself that he should know the Old Bailey again by the cut of its jib next ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... were drifting four days outside there in dead calms. Then the nor'wester caught us and drove us on the lee shore. We made sail and tried to clew off, when the rotten work of the Tahiti shipwrights became manifest. Our jib-boom and all our head- stays carried away. Our only chance was to turn and run through the passage between Florida and Ysabel. And when we were safely through, in the twilight, where the chart shows fourteen fathoms as the shoalest water, we smashed ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... The wind howls, the rain beats, the ship staggers, the salt spray flies over us from time to time. During the space of three bells, we have our hands pretty full, and then the mate bawls: 'For'ard there! In with jib; lay out, men!' The vessel is buried to her bight-heads every plunge she takes, and sometimes the solid sea pours over her bowsprit as far as the but-end of the flying jib-boom. But to hear is of course to obey; and while some of our messmates ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... Cutter, and myself. Macaulay had borrowed a good-sized cutter from one of his many colleagues who kept yachts on the Bosphorus, and at three o'clock in the afternoon we started from the Buyukdere quay. There was a smart northerly breeze as we hoisted the jib, and it was evident that we should have to make several tacks before we could beat up to our destination. The boat was of about ten tons burden, with a full deck, broken only by a well leading to the cabin; a low rail ran round the bulwarks, for the yacht was ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... it. Aren't you well enough acquainted with me to know that nothing in the world pleases me so much as to interfere in other people's business? I have found out all about the girl who kept you in, and a mighty plucky action it was too. I have seen that girl on the deck, and I like the cut of her jib. I like the way she walks. Her independence suits me. She is a girl who wouldn't give a man any trouble, now, I tell you, if he were lucky enough to win her. And I am not going to see that girl put to any ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... he only lets her nibble. Crevel is a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand to three thousand francs a month; they jib at any serious outlay, as a donkey does ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... 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 reefs ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... indicated. Not a fourth of a mile away a dingy fishing-sloop was bobbing along, with her dirty mainsail and jib set, yet seeming to catch no breeze. Both Merry and Hodge forgot their discomfort, forgot their chilled and benumbed condition, and, lifting themselves as high as they ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... cove the schooner's canvas was reduced smartly to merely a topsail and jib, the wind in which carried her close enough to Luiz Wharf for a line to be cast ashore. Tier upon tier of barrels of clams were stored under the open sheds, ready to be packed away in the Seamew's hold. Orion loudly ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... the steamer bound from New York to London direct, as we, my wife and I newly married, were taking a last look at the receding American shore, there appeared a gentleman who seemed by the cut of his jib startlingly French. We had under our escort a French governess returning to Paris. In a twinkle she and this gentleman had struck up an acquaintance, and much to my displeasure she introduced him to me as "Monsieur Mahoney." I was somewhat mollified when later ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... work of all self-respecting playwrights. But theorists spring up every now and then to defend them. "The stage is the realm of convention," they argue. "If you accept a room with its fourth wall removed, which nothing short of an earthquake could render possible in real life, why should you jib at the idea—in which, after all, there is nothing absolutely impossible—that a man should utter aloud the thoughts that are passing through ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... disc, frontage; facade, proscenium, facia [Lat.], frontispiece; anteriority^; obverse (of a medal or coin). fore rank, front rank; van, vanguard; advanced guard; outpost; first line; scout. brow, forehead, visage, physiognomy, phiz^, countenance, mut [Slang]; rostrum, beak, bow, stem, prow, prore^, jib. pioneer &c (precursor) 64; metoposcopy^. V. be in front, stand in front &c adj.; front, face, confront; bend forwards; come to the front, come to the fore. Adj. fore, anterior, front, frontal. Adv. before; in front, in the van, in advance; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... right name—he was, I think, the third lieutenant—he went by the name of 'Jib and Foresail Jack,' for, whenever he had the watch, he did nothing but up jib, and down jib, up foresail, down foresail, every five minutes, always worrying the men for nothing. He was not considered as a good officer, but a very troublesome one. He had a knack ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... some reason whiskers are associated with the practice of banking all over this country; hallowed by custom, they have come to stand for financial responsibility. A New York banker wears those little jib-boom whiskers on the sides of his head and sometimes a pennon on his chin, whereas a country banker usually has a full-rigged face. This man's whiskers were of the old square barkentine cut. I should have known who he ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... concealed under some marsh brush, young Levin pushed off to his vessel, made her tidy by a few changes, pulled up the jib, and brought her in ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... pi muttermengri dye ('drink tea,' but an equivoque). It's muttermengri with you and with us of the German jib." ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... follers along arter him, goin' two feet to his one, still carryin' all three royals, with hands at halliards and clewlines. Just afore we gits to him the old man sings out, 'Clew up the royals, haul down the flyin' jib, haul up the crochick and mainsail.' By this time we was well under the land and in smooth water. Keepin' his eye onto the pilot-boat, which were a couple of p'ints onto our weather bow, the old man no sooner seen her come to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... "Now that's Jib there, driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit—the one all black from the coal. Cutwater's the girl leaning over the stern; Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead playing ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... attempting to go about, being at the time near the shore, which was covered with the enemy's marksmen, she hung in stays, and Mr. Pellew, not regarding the danger of making himself so conspicuous, sprang out on the bowsprit to push the jib over. The artillery-boats now towed her out of action, under a very heavy fire from the enemy, who were enabled to bear their guns upon her with more effect, as she increased her distance. A shot cut the ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... equal facility; his next object was to try her movements as well on the surface as beneath it. On the 26th of July he weighed his anchor and hoisted his sails; his boat had one mast, a main-sail and a jib. There was only a light breeze, and therefore she did not move on the surface at more than the rate of two miles an hour; but it was found that she would tack and steer, and sail on a wind or before it as well as any common sail-boat. He then struck her masts ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... bulwarks to the receding wave. It was certain death for a man to attempt to stand upright upon the sopping deck, for the huge spar swung shoulder high. The steersman, crouching low by his strong tiller, was doing his best to avoid a clean sweep, but only a small jib and the mizzen were standing with straining clews and gleaming seams. Crouching beneath the weather bulwarks, with their feet wedged against the low combing of the hatch, three men were vainly endeavouring to secure the boom, and to disentangle the clogged ropes. Two were huge fellows ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... barricade and watched; an idea was stirring in his brain—an idea that made him pat his breast-pocket, twirl his moustache, and smile contentedly. "Not much of a fisherman, I think," he murmured. "Ah, my friend, I know the cut of your jib, I fancy. After poor old Jean Dieppe, are n't you, my boy? A police-spy; I could tell him ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... solved. One day Temistocle was actually seen giving a letter into the hands of a huge fellow in a red woollen cap. The sbirro who saw him do it marked the sailor and his vessel, and never lost sight of him till he hoisted his jib and floated away down stream. Then the spy took horse and galloped down to Fiumicino, where he waited for the little vessel, boarded her from a boat, escorted by a couple of gendarmes, and had no difficulty in taking the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... I cannot believe it. There must be some other method of teaching the lessons of playing for the side and unselfishness. The spurred culprits of Mr. Wells' imagination have given a lead over the fence; surely all the rest of the field is not going to jib. ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... on the run of the shingle, lay the lugger. Her jib was flapping; the mainsail set for the hoisting; every stick and stay in place. Half a dozen burly Grenadiers, black-muzzled with a week's beard, were busy about her, stowing their kits, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... we clear when the foremast dropped down on the fastenings, dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not see them; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Dr. Silence from his seat in the bows where he held the jib sheet. His hat was off, his hair tumbled in the wind, and his lean brown face gave him the touch of an Oriental. Presently he changed places with Sangree, and came down to talk ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the sky as clear. All of a sudden, while they were at breakfast, the sea began to break heavily without a wind, and clouds came up, with every sign of a hurricane. The captain was obliged to sacrifice his anchor; there was no time to land his guest: he hoisted a little jib and top-gallant, and made for open water, taking Monsieur Bon with him. Then the hurricane came; and from that day to this nothing has ever been heard of the bark nor of the captain nor ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... acquiescence pleased him. I could see that he was relieved. I think he had expected me to jib at the prospect ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... soften the first blow as much as possible, and I ordered the helm to be put down. When the ship came head to wind she struck the Revolutionnaire just before the mainmast, slewed our cut-water right across, carried away the jib-boom, spritsail yard, &c., and then backed clear of her. A lad fell overboard from the Revolutionnaire and made a great noise, which enabled us to send a boat and pick him up, he having got upon one of our life-buoys. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... I caught my breath, as I heard a snap and a crash, like the fall of a tree, and suddenly, one of our flying-jib guys jerked out the bolt near the cat-head; and presently, we heard our ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... jump down on the other side, Over the garden wall; There's plenty of room, and my arms are wide. Over the garden wall: JOHNNY may jib, and Sir JOHN may kick, I have an impression I'll lick them—slick; So come like a darling and join me quick, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... remains of my precious system lying high and dry among the rocks of that winter's experience. Yet I tried all ways to make it go. I was like a boy with a new boat, who increases or lessens his ballast, now tries her with mainsail, foresail, topsail, jib, flying jib, and jibber jib, and now with bare poles,—anything to make her float. Each night I took my poor system home for repairs, and each morning, full of hope, tried to launch it anew in my school-room. I have always felt that I wronged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... jib-sail will stand the pressure on it, perhaps we can avoid the reefs. I reckon they are not a half mile away; the ship yields ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... she had her flags fore and aft, running up to her flying jib-boom from the water, and down to the gaff on her mizzen. The frigate had been newly painted, and looked upon this occasion exceedingly well, her neat appearance being the subject ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... a twisted smile, helped them get away. The mainsail took a steady set; but the jib, from the first, possessed an active life of ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... one. They also procured a musket, two pistols, some powder and bullets, some tools and six live turtles. From the light spars of the ship they rigged two masts for each boat and with the light canvas provided each one with two spritsails and a jib. They also got some light cedar planking used to repair the boats, and with it built the gunwales up six inches ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... The whole were then discharged. The effect and crash were 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 ...
— 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
... at four o'clock the next morning we had the misfortune to lose our bowsprit by the vessel's plunging into a head sea. We had however made a sufficient offing to enable us to keep away two points, so that, by rigging the wreck of the bowsprit, which was barely long enough to spread the storm jib, we contrived to steer a course we had every reason to think would carry her clear of Port Stevens. We continued to run to the southward until the afternoon, when, supposing we had passed that port, we bore away to the South-West. At midnight the gale fell, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... a night, what a night! The devil astride the jib boom, his tail lashing in the wind. "Pokker!" says Tobias, "fa'n ta mig. Hold tight and here ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the bowsprit to the 'pulpit,' the characteristic feature of a swordfish schooner. This was a small circular platform about three feet across, built at the end of the bowsprit, with a rail waist high around it and a small swinging seat. Triced up to the jib stay was the long harpoon with its ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... ulster and the Derby hat became apparent on English yachts, where women learned to put themselves in the attitude of men, and very properly adopted the storm jib; but, if one of those women had been told that she would, sooner or later, appear in this dress in the streets of London, she would ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... in the morning and went on deck, the island of Hoy lay far to windward like a bank of mist upon the sea. We were far out on the broad Pentland Firth, plunging about on the rough water, with our mainsail double-reefed, and the flying jib pulling away like to split itself in the wind. I enjoyed it all for a time; but when I went below to help Jerry to get ready some breakfast for the skipper, the smell of the coffee and the frying bacon overcame me, and I was ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... for the expedition with all possible care, being supplied with carefully chosen spars and ropes, six boats, and a "dinghy;" lightning conductors, "invented by Mr. Harris, were fixed in all the masts, the bowsprits, and even in the flying jib-boom." To quote my father's description, written from Devonport, November 17, 1831: "Everybody, who can judge, says it is one of the grandest voyages that has almost ever been sent out. Everything is on a grand scale. Twenty-four ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... in view he displayed plenty of eagerness. The sight of the cutter-rigged smack lying with her bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most phlegmatic to a desire to have a cruise, and see some of the wonders of ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... future visitor to this gay scene. This had an instantaneous effect upon the trading fair ones, who began immediately to throw out their lures. One declared he had a sweet pretty brooch; another, that she knew he was a trump by the cut of his jib; a third, that he look'd like a gentleman, for she liked the make of his mug; a fourth, that his hat was a very pretty shaped one, although it was of a radical colour; and while Tom and the ladybird{l} were soothing the pains of the grey-headed wanton, Bob ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... on deck rather disappointed at the result of the conference, for I was interested in the chase. I ordered the jib and mainsail to be taken in, and the helm to be put down. The fog had lifted to the northward and westward of us, so that I could see St. Augustine light and the pilot-boat. We took up one of the pilots, and in less than half an hour we were anchored under the lee of the town, where ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... helm—hard up!" Wilkinson shouted. "Hold on a moment with those head sails; that will do, that will do. Let go the halliards; down staysails and jib." ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... the room furiously until the chapter was finished. Then half ashamed of the excitement into which he had been betrayed, he avenged himself just as if he were a professional reviewer by indulging in a bit of special criticism: "It's all very well," he burst out, "but you have let your jib stand too long, my fine fellow." For once Cooper heeded advice. "I blew it out of the bolt-rope," said he, "in pure spite;" and blown out of the bolt-rope the jib ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... courses: big topsails and topgallantsails, staysails, and topmastsails, with a spritsail and a lateen-mizen; the spanker and jib were not yet, but the sprit-topsail had just gone out. The ship when rigged and fitted ready for sea probably cost King William's Admiralty about L10,000. But the Roebuck was pretty well worn out when Dampier was given the ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... a mile from the shore a small brigantine, stripped to a lower topsail, storm-jib, and balance-reefed mainsail, was trying to claw off shore. She had small chance, unless the gale shifted or moderated, for she evidently could not carry enough sail to make any way against the huge sea, and to heave to would be ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... take the rude outline of sail in Fig. 3, and now considering it as a jib of one of our own sailing vessels, slightly exaggerate the loops at the edge, and draw curved lines from them to the opposite point, Fig. 4; and I have a reptilian or dragon's wing, which would, with some ramification of the supporting ribs, become ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... being exposed to great danger with the least increase of wind, we got a spring on the stream cable and began to heave on the best bower. In the mean time the ship drove with both anchors ahead, which obliged me, on the instant, to cut both cables, heave upon the spring, and run up the jib and stay-sails; and my orders being obeyed with an alacrity not to be exceeded, we happily cleared the rocks by a few fathoms, and at noon made ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders |
