"Taffrail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a gun, I saw the tricolour being slowly hauled down from the ensign staff upon which it had been hoisted when her mizenmast fell. The Captain, too, sprang up beside me in time to see the flag go fluttering in over the taffrail as it ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... round us, and a large tumbling swell threatened to poop us; the long-boat, which was at this time moored astern, was on a sudden canted so high that it broke the transom of the Commodore's gallery, and would doubtless have risen as high as the taffrail had it not been for this stroke which stove the boat all to pieces; but the poor boat-keeper, though extremely bruised, was saved almost by miracle. About eight the tide slackened, but the wind did not abate; so that at eleven the best bower cable, by which alone we rode, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... rough one, but the Irish girl did not suffer from seasickness. She stood leaning over the taffrail chatting to the captain, who thought her one of the most charming passengers he ever had to cross in the Munster; and when they arrived at the opposite side, Mr. Hartrick was waiting for his niece. He often said since that he would never forget his first sight of Nora ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... imminent. Our men had been supplied with muskets, and told to conceal themselves and use them when the critical time came, and to make sure that every shot was effectual. Two small cannon, which were fixtures on the taffrail, were loaded ready to do service. At last she came within hailing distance of our weather beam. A man shouted through a speaking-trumpet in mongrel English to 'Heave to!' We did not heed this insolent command, but kept going. In a few minutes more a peremptory ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... bright sunshine had brought the passengers on deck like bees from a hive, and the two broad promenades resembled, in color and life, the streets of a city. The watch was busy at the inevitable scrubbing, and Rowland, with a swab and bucket, was cleaning the white paint on the starboard taffrail, screened from view by the after deck-house, which shut off a narrow space at the stern. A little girl ran into the inclosure, laughing and screaming, and clung to his legs, while she jumped up and down in ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... of my voice, the man who had pointed us out to the woman rose stiffly to his feet and staggered aft to the taffrail, with his hand ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... groaning with anguish; huddled up in corners with a lemon-prophylactic against sea-sickness, apparently-pressed to faces which, by some subtle process of colour-adaptation, had acquired the complexion of the fruit; tottering to the taffrail. . . . ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the vessel, Allan walked straight to the stern, and looked out to sea over the taffrail. No such thing as a boat was in view anywhere on the quiet, moon-brightened waters. Knowing Midwinter's sight to be better than his own, he called out, "Come up here, and see if there's a fisherman within hail of us." ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... from her taffrail Sent down his hopeful cry "Take heart! Hold on!" he shouted; "The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... washed over the deck, the master was alarmed, the crew were confounded, the passengers were overwhelmed with sickness and fear, and universal distraction ensued. In the midst of this uproar, Peregrine holding fast by the taffrail, and looking ruefully ahead, the countenance of Pipes presented itself to his astonished view, rising, as it were, from the hold of the ship. At first he imagined it was a fear-formed shadow of his own brain; though he did not long remain in this error, but plainly perceived that it was no other ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and I was standing by the taffrail, when suddenly a giant specter seemed to come up from out of the sea, bearing directly down upon us. Her great lantern swung in a glow in a fog, by ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... now gazing hopelessly through her cabin windows upon the busy street before her. But still a ship despite her transformation. The faintest line of contour yet left visible spoke of the buoyancy of another element; the balustrade of her roof was unmistakably a taffrail. The rain slipped from her swelling sides with a certain lingering touch of the sea; the soil around her was still treacherous with its suggestions, and even the wind whistled nautically over her chimney. If, in the fury of some southwesterly gale, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... resistance. Great was their surprise, then, when they were permitted to take a raking position under the stern of the "Hope," and to board her without a shot being fired. But as Mugford, at the head of the boarders, clambered over the taffrail, he heard the captain of the "Hope" order the men to cut the topsail halliards and ties, with the intention of so crippling the ship that the British squadron ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... it in silence, and leaning over the taffrail (the two men were on deck) looked down for some time at the play of the eddies round the schooner's rudder. At last he said ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... not whom you expected, Captain Munson," said the stranger, in a low, quiet voice; "but if you have not forgotten the day when a very different flag from that emblem of tyranny that now hangs over yon taffrail was first spread to the wind, you may remember ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the speakers. The wind had freshened and her hat was tied closely over her ears. She leaned against the taffrail, enjoying the cool breeze after hours of sultry heat. The sky was cloudless yet, but there was a queer tinge of burnished copper in the all-pervading sunshine. The sea was coldly blue. The life had gone out of it. It was no longer inviting and ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... of her deck, cluttered with the wreck of houses torn up by the roots, while the fall of the spars had taken her starboard bulwarks with it. Her boats were gone; a davit stuck up at the end of the poop crumpled like a ram's horn; and by the taffrail her worn and sodden crew clustered and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... always model their ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had one hundred feet in the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Like the beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous catheads, a copper bottom, and withal a ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and the rushing hiss of water as the prow of the great steamer sheared through the placid surface, furrowing up on either side a long line of phosphorescent wave. Such a contrast he who stood alone in the darkness, leaning over the taffrail, could ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... was thus discussed near the taffrail, Mabel sat silently by the companion-way, Mr. Muir having gone below to look after his personal comforts, and Jasper standing a little aloof, with his arms crossed, and his eyes wandering from ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the fact, that, if this vessel could be carried, the American line would be turned, and the day won by the English. But the American schooner fought stubbornly. Her gallant commander, Lieut. Cassin, walked up and down the taffrail, heedless of the grape and musket-balls that whistled past his head, pointing out to the gunners the spot whereon to train the guns, and directing them to load with canister and bags of bullets when the enemy came too near. The gunners of the schooner ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Hansen—we had thought him asleep—"course there is! That's what ye came here for, isn't it? This is when th' hero stands on th' weather taffrail, graspin' th' tautened backst'y an' hurlin' defiance at th' mighty ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre. And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true." The skipper called to the tall taffrail: — "And what is that to me? Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? He has learned to run from a ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... in the middle of July the Gaika with Ogilvie on board entered the Brisbane River. He had risen early, as was his custom, and was now standing on deck. The lascars were still busy washing the deck. He went past them, and leaning over the taffrail watched the banks of low-lying mangroves which grew on either side of the river. The sun had just risen, and transformed the scene. Ogilvie raised his hat, and pushed the hair from his brow. His face had considerably altered, it looked worn and old. His ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... times, and was so breathless and hurt by his falls from the deck that at the end he could no longer even attempt to climb the sides of the Spanish vessel. Captain Martin was able to take no part in the melee. He had at the beginning of the fight taken up his post on the taffrail, and, seated there, had kept up a steady fire with a musket against the Spaniards as ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... French ship-of-the-line was no model of discipline or order, and a letter-of-marque was consequently worse. As it afterwards appeared, we were first seen by the mate of the watch, who ran to the taffrail, and, instead of giving an order to call all hands, he hailed us. Mr. Forbank, our second-mate, answered; mumbling his words so, that, if they were bad French, they did not sound like good English. He got out the name "Le Hasard, de Bordeaux," ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... last moment of leaving the "New York" an old catamaran had been thrown on the "Merrimac's" deck, as a possible aid to the crew in extremity. This float lay on the roof of the midship house, a rope fastening it to the taffrail, with enough slack to let it float loose after the ship had sunk. It was a fortunate thought for the crew, as it afforded them a temporary refuge in place ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... was not an American, neither was he an Englishman. He was a little bit of a man, of a swarthy complexion, and did not weigh perhaps more than an hundred pounds by the scale. During the firing, our little man stood upon the taffrail, swung his sword, d—d the English, and praised his own men. He had been long enough in the United States to acquire property and information, and credit enough to command a schooner of four guns and ninety men. The crew considered him a brave man, and a good sailor, but not over generous in ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... in a careless tone of command, but withal with frankness and civility. The captain led him aft toward the taffrail, but in crossing the deck the little tot of a boy followed closely in his wake, and getting hold of the officer's sword, which trailed along by its belt-straps on the deck, he got astride of it, and seized on to the coat-skirts of the wearer. The little tug he gave ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... suffered a sharp stab of disappointment. For nothing was changed. There, leaning over the taffrail, staring shoreward, was the Japanese mate, Asoki, in the exact attitude in which Martin had last seen him, when he entered the caves in Ichi's wake. The man seemed not to have budged since then. And forward, the guards were still at the hatches. He saw ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... handkerchiefs to their eyes. The delay, the lingering, upset even Gertrude, and brought her for a moment down to the usual level of leave-taking womanhood. Alaric, the meanwhile, stood leaning over the taffrail with Charley, as mute as the fishes ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to let your weary eye and mind disport themselves like sea-gulls on the broad waters of the bay. What so fresh and cool and clean and still and sparkling and in perfect contrast to the stern and stony and resounding streets! As you lean over the taffrail, looking down into the clear, gliding wave, you can readily conceive why the poor unfortunates to whom life has become a stern and stony street are so often tempted to bury their sorrows ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... might not hear when I was called; and when I went on deck, so great were my ideas of the importance of my trust, that I walked regularly fore and aft the whole length of the vessel, looking out over the bows and taffrail at each turn, and was not a little surprised at the coolness of the old seaman whom I called to take my place, in stowing himself snugly away under the long-boat for a nap. That was a sufficient lookout, he thought, for a fine night, at ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a flag ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... calls piping some order along her decks, she floated majestically across our path. But the only living being we saw was the red-coated marine on sentry by the lifebuoys, looking down at us over the taffrail. We passed so close to her that I could distinguish the whites of his eyes, and the tompions in the muzzles of her stern-chasers protruding out of the ports belonging ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... they were heading down the river. As they cleared the old transport docks they made out the Nuestra well off the breakwater, her brown, bare masts rising like spires from her black hull, and the morning sun glinting from a strip of brass on her taffrail. They could see busy figures aboard, and as they drew nearer Captain Jarrow appeared on the poop-deck smoking a cigar. He was all in white, his queer cockle-shell straw hat fastened to a button of ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... these auxiliaries existed upon the MAY-FLOWER, though quite possible. Her 180 tons measurement indicates, by the general rule of the nautical construction of that period, a length of from 90 to 100 feet, "from taffrail to knighthead," with about 24 feet beam, and with such a hull as this, three masts would be far more likely than two. The fact that she is always called a "ship"—to which name, as indicating a class, three masts technically ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... shame," mourned Captain Candage, staring over the taffrail at the ice-sheathed steamer. "'Most new, and cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build, if I remember right what the paper said when she ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, and with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grab were taken off. As they came aboard the Good Intent, Diggle, who was leaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, and moved towards the taffrail. One of the newcomers, a fine muscular fellow, seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then salaamed. The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and grasped his hand with the familiarity of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... passage, "Ships of Tarshish shall bring presents"? That is what it means. Oh, what a goodly fleet when the vessels of the sea come into the service of God! No guns frowning through the port-holes, no pikes hung in the gangway, nothing from cut-water to taffrail to suggest atrocity. Those ships will come from all parts of the seas. Great flocks of ships that never met on the high sea but in wrath, will cry, "Ship ahoy!" and drop down beside each other in calmness, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... object looms up against the horizon. It is the smoke of a steamer—sign of advanced civilisation—emblem of active life. She nears the shore. Ha! a foreign flag—the flag of another land trails over her taffrail; a foreign flag floats at her peak; foreign faces appear above her bulwarks, and foreign words issue from the lips of her commander. She is not of the land. My first ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the region of hurricanes. He had, therefore, many misgivings, as he paced the quarter-deck, watching the angry bolts of lightning, and listening to the deafening roar of the thunder. Occasionally he halted at the taffrail, and gazed into the thick darkness of the south-west, from which his experience taught him the tempest would come. Then, at the foot of the mainmast he halted again, to listen for any sound that might come over the waters from the eastward; ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... it as having a hook, but it was quicker, and he did not do it for sport, but because he hated the sharks. I heard say that he had had a young brother killed by one of them. He would sit there on the taffrail for hours on the lookout for them, with three or four loaded lumps of pork. Why, I have known him kill as many as a dozen in a day. I expect the best part of his pay must ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... passing through my mind, I was pacing to and fro on the sloop's deck, where was also Angela, sitting on a cobija, and leaning against the taffrail, Kidd being at the helm, and Ramon and Yawl smoking in the bows, for though they did not quite trust each other, they occasionally exchanged a not unfriendly word. Now and then I glanced mechanically at the compass. As I have already mentioned, it ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... southeaster, dead ahead and blowing harder every minute, was sending its seas further and further aft. He left his wet berth on the deck, reeled, or rather was flung, to the stern of the vessel, lodged himself between the little wheel-house and the taffrail, and watched a scene in consonance with his feelings. Innumerable twinklings of stars faintly illuminated a cloudless, serene heaven, and a foaming, plunging ocean. The slender, dark outlines of the sailless upper masts were leaning sharply over to leeward, and describing what seemed ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... regarded sculling round her. But he threw his bow over to port, and thereby made a striking discovery. For beside the great bulk lay a small bulk, and the latter was a boat swinging to the shattered taffrail of the Three Spires by her painter. Chippy checked his way, and the two boats floated side by side on the quiet, dark backwater, with the hull of the deserted barquentine towering above them against ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... the captain in a deep, unsteady voice. "There is but one course for us, Buzzby," he continued, glancing towards his wife, who, all unconscious of their danger, sat near the taffrail employed with her needle; "these fellows show no mercy, because they expect none either from God or man. We must fight to the last. Go, prepare the men and get out the arms. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... floating as placidly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco; the green water showed in her shadow, and in the green water waved the tropic weeds that were growing from her copper. Her paint was blistered and burnt absolutely as though a hot iron had been passed over it, and over her taffrail hung a large rope whose end was lost to sight in ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... trader's canoe, painted vermillion like his establishment and flying over the water under the paddle strokes of his six men, Signet took himself hastily overboard with the rest. There was no question of protest or false pride. Over he went. Rising and treading water under the taffrail, and seeing the trader still some fathoms off, he shook the wet from the rag of a beard with which long want of a razor had blurred his peaked chin and gathered up the ends of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tiller he unshipped for the purpose, he knocked the plug out, but did not take the trouble to lower the sail. He felt the water welling up heavily about his legs before he leaped on to the taffrail. There, upright and motionless, in his shirt and trousers only, he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he sprang far away with ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... eyes! Over to the east about fifty yards was the stern of the ship, taffrail and cabin out, and the mizzentop and topmast. She was just hung there, canted to an angle of forty-five, and ready to slide down with the first shift of a sea. And there was where that clock was, high ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... is!" cried enthusiastically the three peers, who, leaning over the taffrail of the frigate, at once ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... that was now beneath the heights of Elba had three masts, though sails were spread only on the two that were forward. The third mast was stepped on the taffrail; it was small, and carried a little sail, that, in English, is termed a jigger, its principal use being to press the bows of the craft up to the wind, when close-hauled, and render her what is termed weatherly. On the present ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sunsets were lovely, and the phosphorescent light in the water at night especially so. The wake of the ship was luminous for a long distance, and the crests of the waves shone all around us. Once I was leaning over the taffrail late in the evening, when a shoal of fish passed. There were thousands of them, and each one was a living, moving centre of light. Bottle-nosed whales gambolled around us when we were within a few hundred miles of Labrador, and later on "schools" of porpoises ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... the explosion. All hands felt the jar; the watch below frantically sprang on deck under the impression that they had collided with another vessel; and the skipper, who happened to be standing near the taffrail, was horrified beyond expression to see an immense cone of water some thirty feet high rise out of the sea just astern of his vessel, to fall next moment with a deafening splash and an accompanying surge ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... were also carried: Three minimum registering thermometers; one aneroid barometer which was tested and set for me by the United States Weather Bureau; one clinometer; one pocket transit; three compasses; one pedometer; one taffrail log; one pair binoculars; three No. 3A folding pocket Kodaks, sixty rolls of films, each roll sealed in a tin can and waterproofed, and six "Vanguard" ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... in that formation. But an officer on the Arethusa shouted to them through a megaphone to jump while they could to save their lives. This had a psychological effect, and as the starboard side of her hull slowly came up her men were seen scrambling on it from behind her taffrail and creeping down toward her keel. Some of them almost walked into the water while she was in that position. Her guns were pointing toward the sky, one of them slowly revolving. Finally, when she was completely upside down she went under. Many of her crew were picked up by British small boats, and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... full ship-rigged, that is to say, she carried square sails on all three masts. Her deck was flush fore and aft, the only obstructions being the brick-built "try-works" in the waist, the galley, and cabin skylight right aft by the taffrail. Her bulwarks were set thickly round with clumsy looking wooden cranes, from which depended five boats. Two more boats were secured bottom up upon a gallows aft, so she seemed to be well supplied in that direction. Mistah Jones, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... following after the unknown member of the crew, when the other made that flying leap over the side of the boat. Not that he wanted to take a bath just then, but his forward progress had been rapid, and he only saved himself by banging up against the taffrail, which was unusually high for so small a vessel, and ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Antarctic twilight our noble ship was plunging and rolling now under a fragment of maintopsail, now under a reefed foresail and double-reefed foretopsail, chased by the shrieking western gale that flew like volleys of scissors and thumbscrews over our taffrail, and by seas, whose glittering, flickering peaks one looked up at from the neighbourhood of the wheel as at the brows of tall and beetling cliffs. The gale was white with snow, and dark with the blinding fall of it too, when I came on deck at noon. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... by one, in the firmament, when the king of day had descended. Calmly the night looked down, and undisturbed were Harry's thoughts, as seated upon the taffrail, old Neptune by his side, he once again breathed the air of liberty. Not that he rejoiced that he was thus freed from him who had kept him in perfect slavery, for he alone had dropped a tear over the ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... radiant now taffrail and prow, And hull, and cordage, beams and spars, Thus lit she sails on fiery gales To purple seas where float ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... in a coast, sometimes extensive, as the Cove of Cork. In naval architecture, the arched moulding sunk in at the foot or lower part of the taffrail.—My cove, a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... The viewers had awarded the government bounty without a quibble. Old John Hulton, the chief of them—a terror to the slipshod master-builders—had frankly said that she was an honest little craft from bowsprit to taffrail. The newspapers had complimented Bill o' Burnt Bay, her builder, in black and white which could not be disputed. They had even called Skipper Bill "one of the honest master-builders of the outports." Nor had they forgotten to add the hope that "in the hands of Skipper ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... Mackay in horror noticed that in the barter all the Indians were taking knives {111} for their furs, and that groups were casually stationing themselves at points of vantage on the deck—at the hatches, at the cabin door, along the taffrail. Mackay hurried to the captain. Thorn affected to ignore any danger, but he nevertheless ordered the anchors up. Seeing so many Indians still on board, the sailors hesitated. Thorn lost his head and uttered a shout. This served as a signal ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut |
