"Starboard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... studding-sails alow and aloft, rolled and pitched gracefully on the long swells of the German Ocean. The wind was very light from the north-west, and there was hardly enough of it to give the ship steerage-way. A mile off, on her starboard bow, was the Josephine, beclouded in the quantity of sail she carried, but hardly leaving a wake in the blue waters behind her. The hummocks and the low land of the shores of Holland and Belgium were in sight; but, with the present breeze, there was but little hope of reaching the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, endlich, enfin, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like this, keeping time with ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... very few shot struck the hull of the Karteria, yet the damage she received was not inconsiderable. The funnel was shot through, a patent windlass was broken to pieces, and the fragments of the iron wheels scattered about the decks like a shower of grape. Several paddles were wrenched off the starboard paddle-wheel, and one shot passed through the side near the water's edge. Two of the best sailors on board were killed by a twenty-four pound shot while working a gun on the quarter-deck. The hand of a boy was carried away by another, and yet all this loss was sustained ere ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... later Lieut. John J. Blandin was on watch as officer of the deck; Captain Sigsbee sat in his cabin writing letters; on the starboard side of the ship, made fast to the boom, was the steam cutter, with her crew on board waiting to make the regular ten o'clock trip to the shore to bring off such of the officers or crew as ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... darkness closed down round them. Stewards were busy closing ports and windows with fitted cardboards. Through the night the ship would travel over the dangerous lanes of the sea with only her small port and starboard lights. A sense of exhilaration possessed Edith. This hurling forward over black water, this sense of danger, visualised by precautions, this going to something new and strange, set every nerve to jumping. She threw back her rug, and getting ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... violence. The force of the gale was such that, while swinging the boats inboard, we were drenched and thoroughly chilled by the sheets of icy spray, which saturated us and instantly froze. The Roosevelt was blown over to starboard until the rails were submerged. To save her, she was steered into Buchanan Bay, under the lee of the cliffs, where she remained until the morning of ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... know that," agreed Grace. "I don't even feel hurt at her outburst to-night. I wouldn't think of accepting her resignation from the Phi Sigma Tau, either. We won't try to make up with her, but we'll all keep a starboard eye upon her, and see that she doesn't ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... into Grant's Pass. To southward lay Morgan and Gaines, floating the ensign of a saved Union. Close here on the right lay the ruins of Fort Powell. From the lower deck the boys, pressing to the starboard guards to see, singly or in pairs smiled up to Hilary's smile. Among them was Sam Gibbs, secretly bearing home the battery's colors wrapped round him next his scarred and cross-scarred body. And so, farewell Mobile. Hour by ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the edge in a regular manner. One lay crosswise at the head, while another was similarly situated as regarded the stern. The other four—there were six in all—were lashed lengthwise along the sides,—two of them opposite each other on the larboard and starboard bows, while the other two respectively represented the "quarters." By this arrangement a certain symmetry was obtained; and when the structure was complete, it really looked like a craft intended for navigation, and by Ben Brace,—its ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... to starboard. They shouted and gesticulated to the image they were all looking for,—so much nearer than they had expected to see her, clad in green folds, with the mist streaming up like smoke behind. For nearly every one of those twenty-five hundred ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... great San Philip hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle-thunder ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30' and longitude 72 degrees 15', ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts of these waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and 400-horsepower steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots. Without the high quality of its hull, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... 13th, 1915, on the first American passenger liner to run the von Tirpitz blockade. On February 20th we passed Queenstown and entered the Irish Sea at night. Although it was moonlight and we could see for miles about us, every light on the ship, except the green and red port and starboard lanterns, was extinguished. As we sailed across the Irish Sea, silently and cautiously as a muskrat swims on a moonlight night, we received a wireless message that a submarine, operating off the mouth of the Mersey River, had sunk an English freighter. The captain was asked by the British Admiralty ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... two or three hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I must go back to Holland on account ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... old man quietly: "if you didn't go close to that rock, you'd go on the sharp rock to starboard. There's only just ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... this subject is a beautiful specimen of a late fifteenth century ship. The ship has her sails furled, and is anchored by her port anchor as her starboard anchor is fished (i.e. made fast with its shank horizontal) to the ship's side by her cable. An empty boat is alongside. At the top of the mainmast is a fighting top from which ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... to the starboard side, and stood listening, one hand grasping the royal back-stay, his ear turned to the sea, but he could hear nothing from there. The quarter-deck was filled with subdued sounds. Suddenly, a long, shrill whistle soared, reverberated loudly amongst the flat surfaces of ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... farthest bound, As I beheld the bird of Jove descending Pounce on the tree, and, as he rush'd, the rind, Disparting crush beneath him, buds much more And leaflets. On the car with all his might He struck, whence, staggering like a ship, it reel'd, At random driv'n, to starboard now, o'ercome, And now to larboard, by ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... for first-class passengers are arranged a large number of cabins. What are known as the regal suites are on both port and starboard, and along each side of the main deck are more en ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... his craft, preceding the Lord Mayor in the City barge, "rearing its quaint gilded poop high in the air, and decked with richly emblazoned devices and floating ensigns.... Two royal gigs and two royal barges escorted the State barge, posted respectively on its port and starboard bow, and its port and starboard quarter. The Queen's shallop followed; the barges of the Admiralty and the Trinity Corporation barge brought up the rear." [Footnote: Annual Register.] According to ancient ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... British torpedo boat destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow, apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among the passengers; and at tea-time their number was increased to ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... scaped her heart, lying all the fight little more than pistoll shott from 'em; her Starboard still to the fort & at least 200 Musketts playing upon her. I wish'd heartily some of our London roaring Boyes[17] had bene in ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... daybreak I saw the lights of a considerable town, which must have been Yarmouth, bearing about ten miles west-south-west on our starboard bow. I took her farther out, for it is a sandy, dangerous coast, with many shoals. At five-thirty we were abreast of the Lowestoft lightship. A coastguard was sending up flash signals which faded into a pale twinkle as the white dawn crept over the water. ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a depot at Assistance Bay, some thirty miles only from Beechey Island. In nearing for that purpose the "Resolute" grounded, was left with but seven feet of water, the ice threw her over on her starboard bilge, and she was almost lost. Not quite lost, however, or we should not be telling her story. At midnight she was got off, leaving sixty feet of her false keel behind. Captain Kellett forged on in her,—left a depot ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... met the eyes of the new arrivals was not pleasant, but it was startling, for there was a patch of blood upon the deck, and signs of something bleeding having been dragged for a few yards to the starboard bulwarks, and then drawn up and over them, the ugly stains being on the top of the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... abreast of Littlehampton, and about eight miles off the shore, the Aurora went about once more, and stood over towards France, close-hauled on the starboard tack. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... men, and let them have it as fast as you can!" ordered Dave. "Riley, get your men into the boat, and take the Colt with you. Post it as fast as you can on the starboard quarter!" ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... exchanged bows and smiles with Crane and one or two others, his gesture completely casual. Yet when he entered the starboard alleyway he carried with him a complete catalogue of those who had contributed to the conversation. With all, thanks to seven days' association, he stood on terms of shipboard acquaintance. Not one, in his esteem, was more potentially mischievous than any other—not even the Brazilian ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... with all his might the chariot smote, Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard. ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... voices hailed together, raucously. The steersman, leaning on the loom of his paddle, made neither stir nor answer. They hailed again, this time close aboard, and as it seemed, in rage. Glancing contemptuously to starboard, the lowdah made some negligent reply, about a cargo of human hair. His indifference appeared so real, that for a moment Rudolph suspected him: perhaps he had been bought over, and this meeting arranged. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... o'clock we were over Lake Michigan. The west shore was lightless, except for a dull ground-glare at Chicago, and a single traffic-directing light—its leading beam pointing north—at Waukegan on our starboard bow. None of the Lake villages gave any sign of life; and inland, westward, so far as we could see, blackness lay unbroken on the level earth. We swooped down and skimmed low across the dark, throwing calls county by county. Now and ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... counter, and how well formed between the yardarms! I'll heave ahead and have a look at her bow chasers, head rails, and cut heads, for I think I have seen her before somewhere. You," said he to me, "can take the one on the starboard hand." He then let go my arm and shot ahead. He had no sooner done so than the youngest of them exclaimed, "Why, my dear George, is that you?" "Yes," he replied, "my dear Emily, and my dear mother, too; this is, indeed, taking me aback by an agreeable surprise. How ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the early sun lighted the newly painted, slanting deck of the Charming Lass as she snored through the gentle sea. On every side the dark gray expanse stretched unbroken to the horizon, except on the starboard bow. There a long, gray flatness separated itself from the horizon—the coast of southern ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... There was evidently something wrong with the machinery that brought shells and ammunition to her guns from out of her hold, the fire probably interfering with it. A 12-inch shell cut right through her third funnel and carried it completely off the ship. She turned so that she could bring her starboard guns into action, and they did so feebly. The fire on board her grew worse and worse, and it could be seen blood-red through holes made by the shells from the Invincible whenever her hull showed through the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... to hold her breath, as did the captain and pilots—and then she began to fall away to starboard and ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... seeing pilot, not a mere hearing one! It is evident you can never get your ship steered through the difficult straits by persons standing ashore, on this bank and that, and shouting their confused directions to you: "'Ware that Colonial Sandbank!—Starboard now, the Nigger Question!—Larboard, larboard, the Suffrage Movement! Financial Reform, your Clothing-Colonels overboard! The Qualification Movement, 'Ware-re-re!—Helm-a-lee! Bear a hand there, will you! Hr-r-r, lubbers, imbeciles, fitter ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... displeased that the fog had lifted and revealed her position. When she saw that the Fisgard was coming after her she began to make off, bore up, and headed due North. But presently she altered her tactics and hauled round on the starboard tack, which would of course bring her away from the land, make her travel faster because her head-sails would fill, and she hoped also no doubt to get clear of the Prawl-to-Lizard line. Before this she had been under easy ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... nothing of a great quantity of tinned food and groceries. Lastly on the deck above the saloon had stood two large lifeboats. Although these were amply secured at the commencement of the gale one of them, that on the port side, was smashed to smithers; probably some spar had fallen upon it. The starboard boat, however, remained intact and so far as we could judge, seaworthy, although the bulwarks were broken by ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... for her destination, was crossing the "Guerriere's" bows, her course was changed, in order to learn the character of the stranger. By half-past three she was recognized to be a large frigate, under easy sail on the starboard tack; which, the wind being northwesterly, gives her heading from west-southwest to southwest. The "Constitution" was to windward. At 3.45 the "Guerriere," without changing her course, backed her maintopsail, the effect of ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of the captain, he was watching the masts, which looked as if they were loaded down with all the sails they could carry, when a cry from the lookout in the bow of the vessel attracted his attention. That man reported, at two ship's lengths on starboard, a small boat, like a pilot-boat, making signs of distress. The captain and Daniel exchanged looks of disappointment. The slightest delay in the position in which they were, and at a season when night falls so suddenly, deprived them of all ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the starboard deck where they said the boats could not be launched because of the angle of the ship's side which prevented them from swinging free. They were obedient enough, but greatly alarmed when told that ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... p. m., the report of guns had become audible to me, and at 5.55 p. m. flashes were visible from ahead around to the starboard beam, although in the mist no ships could be distinguished, and the position of the enemy's fleet could ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... them that was goin', in ten minutes from the time I saw the ship. You know the Roarin' Bull, as sticks his horns out o' water just to windward of us? the cruelest rock on the coast, he is, and the treacherousest: and the ship struck him full and fair on the starboard quarter, and in ten minutes she was kindlin' wood, as ye may say. The Lord rest their souls as went down in ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... Of course I had been expecting some slight recognition of my real worth for a long time, but when the blow fell I was hardly prepared for it. Hurrying to "My Blue Jacket's Manual," I succeeded by the aid of a picture in getting firmly in my mind the port and starboard side of a ship and then I presented myself before the examiners—three doughty and unsmiling officers. There were about twelve of us up for examination. Seating ourselves before the three gentlemen, ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... round," he shouted to the mate; "give the boys on the other side a chance." The lugger put about and her starboard guns poured ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... the splashing and foam they make and produce have the appearance of the action of the waves upon rocks. An officer of the navy informed me, that after sunset, when near the equator, he was not a little alarmed and surprised (because quite unexpected) at the cry of "rocks on the starboard bow:" looking forward through the dubious light (if the expression may be admitted,) he indistinctly saw objects which he and all on board took to be the pinnacles of several rocks of a black and white colour: in a short time, however he discovered this formidable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... to the westward, I began to see Blue Mound rising like a low mountain off my starboard bow, and I stopped at a farm in the foot-hills of the Mound where, because it was rainy, I paid four shillings for putting my horses in the stable. There were two other movers stopping at the same place. They had a light wagon and a yoke of good young steers, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... earnestly striving to move softly, got within hand's reach of the dog. Suddenly he threw himself forward. At the same moment Reddy twisted the wheel ever so little to starboard. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... and take a volunteer or two from those grey jackets of yours amidships. I shall want as many hands as I can spare to man the long-boat and cutter, in case we want 'em. Steady there, lads! Easy!" and as the first eight men who could reach the deck parted to the larboard and starboard quarter-boats, Frere ran ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... waves broke over her so continually, that the between-decks were full of water, and as the hatches were kept down, the heat was most oppressive. When it was not my watch I remained below, and looked out for another berth to sleep in. Before the cabin bulkheads on the starboard side, the captain had fitted up a sort of sail-room to contain the spare sails in case we should require them. It was about eight feet square, and the sails were piled up in it, so as to reach ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... out, but paused indecisively. Phillips stepped past him and considered the cross passages near the midpoint of the corridor. Those in the plane of the control room deck probably led to port and starboard airlocks, he reasoned, so the others might ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... sing-song and larking, and, perhaps, a fight, or two! What did we care if Old Martin and his mates were croak, croak, croakin' about 'standin' by' and settin' th' gear handy? We were 'hard cases,' all of us, even young Munro and Burke, the 'nipper' of the starboard watch! We didn't care! We could stand the ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... of the place put out brisk and leapt on board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,— Shall the "Formidable" here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... from the earth. There was a great commotion in the bush; the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply—then silence, in which the languid beat of the stern-wheel came plainly to my ears. I put the helm hard a-starboard at the moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway. 'The manager sends me—' he began in an official tone, and stopped short. 'Good God!' he said, glaring at the ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... fluttering among the currant bushes in the garden. Mr. Ball, longing for conversation with his kind, went out to the gate and stood looking up at him, blinking in the bright sunlight. "Young feller," he said, "I reckon that starboard hoss is my old mare. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... to detain Charlie in the galley he went forward to assist in hauling. The skipper was on the bridge; the mate was working the donkey-engine, which was fast drawing in the long wire ropes attached to the net, and the deck hands stood at the starboard-side gunwale, watching for the net to appear. An electric light was hung up at the bridge, so that the men could see to do the work they had in hand. For a moment or two Charlie stood at the foot of the bridge, waiting for the skipper or the mate to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... 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
... of forty or fifty, can move about freely from larboard to starboard, or from stem to stern, or seat themselves on the benches running along the inside of the guard railing on the two sides of the vessel. They are protected from rain by a roof, and from the rays of the sun by a curtain extending along ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... my eyes fixed on this, my first view of Sunny Spain, if there had not been excited talk of another land looming on the starboard side. Looking quickly that way, I made out the grey wraith of a continent, and realised that, for the first time, Dark Africa had crept, with becomingly mysterious silence, into my ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... for two seamen and made them make two ropes fast to the wrists of my arms, and reeved the ropes through two blocks in the mizen shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up aloft, and made the ropes fast to the gunwale of the ship, and I hung some time. Then the jester called the ship's company to behold, and bear him witness, that he made the Quaker hale the king's ropes; so veering the ropes they lowered ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... Tom blessed us starboard and d—d us larboard, Right down from rail to the streak o' the garboard. Nor less, wife, we liked him.—Tom was a man In contrast queer with Chaplain Le Fan, Who blessed us at morn, and at night yet again, D—ning us only in decorous strain; Preaching ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... 1833. During the voyage down the river, an oar broke while the boat was shooting a rapid, and one of the party commenced praying in a loud voice; whereupon the leader called out: "Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard oar!" ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... always afternoon. No, TOBY, no! Yet stretch your tawny muzzle Upon these tawny sands! We will not puzzle, For a few happy hours, our weary pates With Burning Questions or with Dull Debates. We have had enough of Measures, and of Motions, we, "Ayes" to starboard, "Noes" to larboard (in the language of the sea), Where the wallowing SEYMORE spouted like a whale, and COBB made free. Let us take our solemn davy, TOBY, for a space (Punch perceives complete approval in that doggish face)— Let us take our davy, TOBY—for a time, now ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... see another," replied the mariner, shading his eyes and fixing them upon the sea-line. The sea-line away to starboard had lost somewhat its distinctness, and over the day an almost ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... twenty-two fathoms, and shoal gradually to seventeen fathoms, where the ships moored a-breast of the town. The tide flows two hours and thirty minutes at full and change, and rises in general about eight feet. In going into the harbour, it is necessary to keep the starboard shore best aboard, as the tide sets on the other side, till you get nearly a-breast of St. Cruz Fort, and in that situation you must be on your guard, if going in with the flood, as the passage is narrow: and there are whirlpools in many places, which will take ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... had got into the boat—Jack jumping in with him, as he always made a point of superintending the cooking operations—Godfrey took his place in the stern, jibed the sail, which had before been on the port quarter, over to starboard, brought her head somewhat to the north of west, and hauled in the sheet. Lying over till the water nearly touched her gunwale, the light little craft would have gone speedily along had it not been for the drag of the boat ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... cylinder-cover. It came down again, the full weight of the steam behind it, and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless as the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to the right and struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast-iron supporting-column of the forward engine, cracking it clean through about six inches above the base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the ship's side. There the connecting-rod ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... alive through that awful battle-storm. Outside them showed the masts and fighting-tops of those which had sunk before reaching shore, and outside these again lay a score or so of battleships and a few armoured cruisers, some down by the head, some by the stern, and some listing badly to starboard or port—still afloat, and still with a little fight left in them, in spite of their gashed sides, torn decks, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... pilot of much experience has assured the writer that ships, whose captains know the port, are sometimes seen "dodging about" (the phrase is the pilot's) looking for the entrance. Yet it may be allowed that if Le Geographe had sailed close in, with the shore on her starboard quarter, and the coast had been examined with care, she would hardly have missed the port; and, her special business being exploration, she certainly ought not to have missed it.* (* In Appendix B, at the end of this chapter, are given quotations ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... like this, acts as a fog-horn. But the snag is an insidious enemy, not revealing itself until we are within a rod or two, and then there is a quick cry of warning from the stern sheets—"Hard a-port!" or "Starboard, quick!" and only a strong side-pull, aided by W——'s paddle, sends us free from the jagged, branching mass which might readily have swamped poor Pilgrim had she taken it ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... permanent channels are usually hollow metal cylinders or cones about two feet in diameter, anchored so that the end of the cylinder projects about three feet above the water. On entering a channel from the seaward, red buoys are on the starboard, or right hand; white buoys are kept on the port, or left side. Buoys at the end of a channel are usually surmounted each by some device or other fastened at the upper end of a perch. Thus, at the outer entrance of Gedney Channel ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... Colonsay about six in the evening with the sky behind us banking for a storm, and the hills of Jura to starboard an angry purple. Colonsay was too low an island to be any kind of breakwater against a western gale, so the weather was bad from the start. Our course was north by east, and when we had passed the butt-end of the island we nosed about in the trough of big seas, shipping tons ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... rose and looked out over the stern, toward the land; he fixed his eyes on the foaming wake; he gazed into the water to starboard and to port. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... of us, and the African coast about seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky line. A few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We were thrown to the decks, bruised and stunned, and then above the ship, carrying with it fragments of steel and wood and dismembered human bodies, rose a ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this. I assume that these men have got the truth because I believe it an established fact. My next proposition is that after she struck the short and long pier and before she got back to the short pier the boat got right with her bow up. So says the pilot Parker—that he got her through until her starboard wheel passed the short pier. This would make her head about even with the head of the long pier. He says her head was as high or higher than the head of the long pier. Other witnesses confirmed this one. The final stroke was in the splash door aft the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... then," quoth Amyas. "Keep her closer still. Let no one fire till we are about. Man the starboard guns; to starboard, and wait, all small arm men. Pass the order down to the gunner, and bid all fire high, and take ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... in closely watching their situation, lest unawares they should be borne down on the waves. When morning broke they discovered that they were still being carried out over the sea on a furious gale, being apparently off the Danish coast, with the distant mountains of Norway dimly visible on the starboard bow. It was at this point, and possibly owing to the chill commonly experienced aloft soon after dawn, that the balloon suddenly took a downward course and plunged into the sea, happily, however, fairly in the track of vessels. Presently a ship ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... directly out to leeward, flapping and shaking the mast like a wand. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must come in or be cut adrift, or the mast would be snapt short off. All the light hands in the starboard watch were sent up one after another, but they could do nothing with it. At length John, the tall Frenchman, the head of the starboard watch (and a better sailor never stept upon a deck), sprang aloft, and by the help of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Latin, in a country church, among a parcel of ploughmen and farmers. Thus a sailor, writing a letter to a surgeon, told him he had a swelling on the north-east side of his face—that his windward leg being hurt by a bruise, it so put him out of trim, that he always heeled to starboard when he made fresh way, and so run to leeward, till he was often forced aground; then he desired him to give him some directions how to put himself into a sailing posture again. Of all which the surgeon understood little more than that he had a swelling on his ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... led the way up the starboard shrouds, while Harry, throwing off his coat, mounted those to port, closely followed by Bertie. Five minutes' hard work, and the Para was stripped for ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... side of the vessel by a shout of triumph. The Duke of Norfolk, a handsome young man, from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age, advanced to meet them. De Guiche and Bragelonne lightly mounted the ladder on the starboard side, and conducted by the Duke of Norfolk, who resumed his place near them, they approached to offer their homage to the princesses. Respect, and yet more, a certain apprehension, for which he ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to anchor at the Samoyed village one ought to keep about an English mile from the land on the starboard, and steer N.E. by the compass, until the Samoyed huts are seen, when one bends off from starboard, keeping the church a little to starboard. For larger vessels it is not advisable to go in shallower water than eight to ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... was lit by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the ship's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones, winked on the butterfly clamps of burnished brass and small rods from which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... now within twenty yards (they were standing starboard side on), and I prepared to get my picture. To do so I would either have to step quietly out into sight, trusting to the shadow and the slowness of my movements to escape observation, or hold the camera above the bush, directing ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... were inclined to be hostile. Sturt, who was at the helm, was steering straight for them and made the customary signs of peace. Just before it was too late to avoid a collision, Sturt marked hostility in their quivering limbs and battle-lusting eyes. He instantly put the helm a-starboard, and the boat sheered down the reach, the baffled natives running and yelling defiantly along the bank. The river, however, was shoaling rapidly, and from the opposite side there projected a sand-spit; on each side of this narrow passage infuriated blacks had gathered, and there was ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... with the men at the look-out, to gaze right away into the soft, hot, black darkness, thinking how easily we might run into another vessel, or another vessel run into us. Then setting my face aft, I went back along the starboard side, and made my way, blinking like an owl after being so long in the darkness, into the saloon-cabin, where the passengers were sitting about, some reading, others working, and where on one side I found Mr Denning playing ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... passage of the Channel and the voyage from Marseilles to Constantinople. Poor Schipka Campbell put him under examination one evening at a brasserie in the Grande Rue, and elicited the fact that he supposed port and starboard to mean the same thing, and larboard to be the antithesis of the two. I forget the first lieutenant; but a subordinate officer was a fat City clerk who had been a volunteer in some London corps, and who on the strength of his military experiences had come out with intent to seek a ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... the honesty of his and the Kanaka's sleep, Wolf Larsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... yourself," he replied gravely. "I think of myself, Mademoiselle, of myself always, and now I am very fortunate, but the blue from my coat is running on your dress. Brutus will see to me, Mademoiselle. He is quite used to it. The rum, Brutus. You will find it in the starboard locker." ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... returned to Greenland. A few years later, Thorfinn and his wife, Gudrid, set out with a fleet of three ships and 160 persons, of whom seven were women, to go to Vinland, and in two days' sail beyond Markland they came to the ship's nose set upon the shore, and, keeping that upon the starboard, they sailed along a sandy shore, which they called Wunderstrandir, and also Furderstrandir. One of the captains, evidently satisfied that they were not in the region visited by Leif and Thorwald, turned his vessel to the north to find Vinland. Thorfinn ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... shipping the launch worked her way, guided by the steady hand of the man at her wheel, his gray eyes alert for every move on port or starboard. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... back so far that, in the dark whirlwind of dawn, I saw a fire-ball go whirring aloft and spatter the eastern horizon. Then, through the shrilling of the tempest, a gun roared to starboard, and at the flash a gun to port boomed, shaking our decks. We had beaten back within range of the British lines, and the batteries on Cock Hill opened on us, and a guard-ship to the west had joined in. Southeast a red glare leaped, and died ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the 21st October, 1805. She was next to the Victory, and followed Nelson into action; commanded by Captain Elias Harvey, with Thomas Kennedy as first lieutenant. Her maintopmast, the head of her mizzenmast, her foreyard, her starboard, cathead and bumpkin, and her fore and main topsail yards were shot away; her fore and main masts so wounded as to render them unfit to carry sail, and her bowsprit shot through in several places. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... ship early every evening. The only person on board that seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led a sort of "in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed against the starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby—Nicholas—looked on with a cold, ruffianly leer, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of course, took the post of honour. Anchored with springs on his cables, he alternately engaged a heavy battery on his starboard bows, a much heavier, backed by a citadel, throwing shells, on his beam, and a masked battery on his quarter, which he had not reckoned upon. The latter was rather annoying, and the citadel threw shells with most disagreeable precision. He had almost as much to do as ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had sea-room. When the storm was over, we set foresail and mainsail, and brought the ship to. Then we set the mizzen, main-top-sail, and the fore-top-sail. Our course was east north east, the wind was at southwest. We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our weather braces and lifts; we set in the lee braces, and hauled forward by the weather bowlings, and hauled them tight and belayed them, and hauled over the mizzen tack to wind-ward and kept her full and by, as ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... spaces filled his lungs with freshness. On three sides the sun-silvered green of the ocean fairly sang to the eye as it rolled away to meet the far blue of the horizon. Half a mile off the starboard bow, edged by lines of breaking surf, sand-dunes topped with green merged gradually southward, into strange jade-green hills, low and soft as brushed velvet in the distance. To the North the dunes tapered to a long, narrow shoal over which, as far as the eye could ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... was pushing her nose past the spit of rock hiding our creek from seaward. As she came by with both large sails boomed out to starboard and sheets alternately sagging loose and tautening with a jerk, I caught sight of two of her crew in the bows, the one looking on while the other very deliberately unlashed the anchor, and aft by the wheel a third man, whom I made out to be Captain ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the Jessamy Bride's cabin five sleeping berths were bulkheaded off. The Major's was right aft on the starboard side. Mine was next his. The captain occupied a berth corresponding with the Major's, right aft on the port side. Our solitary passenger was exceedingly amiable and agreeable at the start and for days after. He professed himself delighted with the cabin ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... could behold the approach of this galley from above the starboard bulwarks, and it appeared to him impossible for them to hope to escape either it or the man-of-war. But still Captain Morgan maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while, only now and then ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... minutes. That he took a keen interest in ships, however, I do not assert; that he could have told you the difference between a brig and a schooner is barely imaginable. The board on which Sloper had flourished was not shipboard, it had nothing to do with starboard or larboard; he was a tailor, not a sailor, and the friends who ran down to see him were of his own sort ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... and unhappy. He stood at the starboard rail of the mail boat gazing out at the cold, bleak rocks of the Labrador coast, dimly visible through ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... When I looked again for the red cap, it was gone. But Don Miguel waited, silent and impassive as ever. Suddenly he gestured with his hand, I saw the heave of the steersmen's shoulders as they obeyed, while the air rang with shouts of command as, the starboard oars holding water, the larboard thrashed and churned amain and the great "Esmeralda" galleass (turning thus well-nigh in her own length) drove straight for the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... about 6:25 A.M. on the starboard beam. The Hogue and Cressy closed and took up a position, the Hogue ahead of the Aboukir, and the Cressy about 400 yards on her port beam. As soon as it was seen that the Aboukir was in danger of sinking all the boats were sent away ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... windows of which the wreck could be seen very plainly, as its distance from the ship was rapidly reduced. By this time the entire crew had rushed to the deck, and were waiting for orders on the forecastle. Mr. Boulong, with his boat's crew, had gone to the starboard quarter, where the first cutter was swung in on her davits. The boat pulled six oars, and ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... and so is the gain thereby we obtain; and if Allah deign preserve us and keep for us the livelihood He vouchsafed to us we will bestow upon thee a portion thereof." After this they ceased not sailing until a tempest assailed them and blew their vessel to starboard and larboard and she lost her course and went astray at sea. Hereat the pilot cried aloud, saying, "Ho ye company aboard, take your leave one of other for we be driven into unknown depths of ocean, nor may we keep our course, because the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... star-crowned maiden with golden ringlets, that did duty for her figurehead, an impromptu shower bath as she parted the indignant waves with her glistening black hull, sending them off on either hand with a contemptuous "swish" on their trying in mad desperation to leap on board, first to port and then to starboard, as the ship listed in ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... attitude to all led captains, tutors, dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... knew you so far gone in drink before, Mr. Harry," said he, as he threw over the wheel to pick up the first starboard channel light. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Arks are very easy to steer if you only know the way. Of course arks are not like other vessels; they require neither sails nor steam engines, nor oars to make them move. The very arkishness of the ark makes it move just as the steersman wishes. He only has to say 'Port,' 'Starboard,' 'Right ahead,' 'Slow' and so on, and the ark (unlike many people I know) immediately does as it is told. So steering was easy and pleasant; one just had to keep the ark's nose towards the distant domes and pinnacles of a town that shone and glittered ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... there, George—starboard your helm; bring her around quick. The Alert can show as clean a pair of heels as ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... day they were narrowly watched by the British fleet, as they were through the night; and on the morning of the 20th the combined fleets, consisting of thirty-three sail of the line and seven large frigates, were seen ahead in a close line of battle, on the starboard tack, about twelve miles to leeward, and standing to the south. On board the enemy had four thousand troops, and numerous Tyrolese riflemen were dispersed through the ships. The British admiral had with him only twenty-seven ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan |
