"Spanker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see, 'twas a matter o' three years ago. I was bo'sun on the Swallow, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to Calcutta. There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an' square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon to the Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... on board the "Wasp" that the enemy fired thrice to her twice, but the direction of their shot was seen in its effects; the American losing within ten minutes her maintopmast with its yard, the mizzen-topgallant-mast, and spanker gaff. Within twenty minutes most of the running rigging was also shot away, so as to leave the ship largely unmanageable; but she had only five killed and five wounded. In other words, the enemy's shot ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... approaches to this tiny harbour (save the mark) were very forbidding. Ugly-looking rocks showed up here and there, the surf over them frequently blinding the whole entry. But we came along, in our usual leisurely fashion, under two topsails, spanker, and fore-topmast staysail, and took that ugly passage like a sailing barge entering the Medway. There was barely room to turn round when we got inside, but all sail had been taken off her except the spanker, so that her way was almost stopped by the time she was fairly within ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... properly scant and unhemmed, to avoid all risks when taking fences and hedges in a hunting country, with her chimney-pot hat and her own gold-mounted crop, her knowing little riding-boots and buckskins, with outfit enough for Baby Blake and Di Vernon and Lady Gay Spanker, and to see that young woman dancing in the saddle, now here and now there, pulling at the reins in a manner to make a rocking-horse rear, and squealing tearfully and jerkily: "Oh, ho-ho-oh, wh-h-hat m-m-makes h-h-him ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... for less than four hundred. I've put twice that much into her, one time and another. She's built clean and solid all through, and there's everything a man would need from blankets to bouillon cubes. The whole thing's yours for $400—including dog, cook stove, and everything—jib, boom, and spanker. There's a tent in a sling underneath, and an ice box (he pulled up a little trap door under the bunk) and a tank of coal oil and Lord knows what all. She's as good as a yacht; but I'm tired of her. If you're so afraid of your brother taking a fancy to her, why don't you buy ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... barracks, sir, by half. Who is that? Mr Williams and Mr Moore—both on the hammocks, too. Up to the foretopmast head, both of you, directly. Mr Thomas, up to the main; and I say, you youngster, stealing off, perch yourself upon the spanker-boom, and let me know when you've rode to London. By God! the service is going to hell! I don't know what officers are made of now-a-days. I'll marry some of you young gentlemen to the gunner's daughter before long. Quarter-deck's no better ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... off Cape Hatteras, when there came a tremendously heavy blow from the southwest. We were, in a measure, prepared for it, however, as the weather had been holding out threats for some time. Everything was made snug, alow and aloft; and, as the wind steadily freshened, we lay to, at length, under spanker and foretopsail, both double-reefed. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... chance as well as the arm. Do not let the animal eat up the soul. Let the body be the well-fashioned hulk, and the mind the white sails, all hoisted, everything, from flying jib to spanker, bearing on toward the harbor of glorious achievement. When that boat starts, we want to be on the bank to cheer, and after sundown help fill the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... there we chiefly lived, and occasionally there were guilty approaches and rencontres, she in her boat, I in mine, both being slight clinker-built Montreux pleasure-boats, which I had spent some days in overhauling and varnishing, mine with jib, fore-and-aft mainsail, and spanker, hers rather smaller, one-masted, with an easy-running lug-sail. It was no uncommon thing for me to sail quite to Geneva, and come back from a seven-days' cruise with my soul filled and consoled with the ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel |
