"Seamanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us to attend to the defects of Arabic geography, in order to understand how in the long Saracen control of the world's trade routes and of geographical tradition, science and seamanship were so little advanced. Between Ptolemy and Henry of Portugal, between the second and the fifteenth centuries, the only great extension of men's knowledge of the world was: (1) in the extreme north, where the semi-Christian, semi-Pagan Vikings reached ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... Swedish town of Carlscrona, and the desolate island Hveen, on which Tycho de Brahe passed the greater portion of his life, occupied with stellar observations and calculations. Now came a somewhat dangerous part, and one which called into action all the careful seamanship of the captain to bring us safely through the confined sea and the strong current,—the entrance of the Sound ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... man,' continued Joseph Finsbury. 'As a young man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... brutality, if its ships still needed to have those improvements in design and equipment which have to-day reached such a high mark of distinction, if its men were men not altogether admirable characters, at any rate their seamanship and their daring, their ingenuity and their exploits, cannot but incite us to the keenest interest in ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... exilerates your spirits. There is something like life in her gait, and you have her in hand like a horse, and you feel as if you were her master, and directed her movements. I ain't sure you don't seem as if you were part of her yourself. Then there is room to show skill and seamanship, and if you don't in reality go as quick as a steamer, you seem to go faster, if there is no visible object to measure your speed by, and that is something, for the white foam on the leeward side rushes by you in rips, raps, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... next three days Reuben made no advance in seamanship, being prostrated with seasickness. At times he crept out from the forecastle, and tried to lend a hand whenever he saw a party of men hauling at a rope; but the motion of the ship was so great that he could scarce ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... the great English admiral and "Sea King," born at Bridgewater; successful as a soldier under the Commonwealth, before he tried seamanship; took first to sea in pursuit of Prince Rupert and the royalist fleet, which he destroyed; beat the Dutch under Van Tromp de Ruyter and De Witt; sailed under the great guns of Tunis into the harbour, where he fired ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of excitement or peril. We were at war with France and Spain. Every white sail, therefore, that showed above the horizon meant the coming of a possible enemy; no day passed, in some part of which there might not chance to arise the necessity to employ every device of seamanship if escape were to be effected should the enemy prove too big to fight, or in which there was not at least the possibility of smelling powder burned ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... great stir in the United States, it was most favorably received in England, where it paved the way for many pleasant and valuable acquaintanceships. The following year, Dana produced a small volume on seamanship, entitled The Seaman's Friend. This, and a short account of a trip to Cuba in 1859, constitute the sole additions to his early venture. He was a copious letter-writer and kept full journals of his various travels; but he never elaborated them for publication. Yet, long before ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a row of ashy-colored gulls sunned themselves, and blinked at us sleepily as we drifted slowly out of the channel, our breeze cut off by the Mesa that hemmed us in on the right. I have told you that I did not much pretend to seamanship, but I was not sorry that I had taken passage on the Lively Polly, for there is always something novel and fascinating to me in coasting a region which I have heretofore known only by its hills, canons, and sea-beaches. The trip is usually made from Bolinas Bay ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... sloop-of-war, Jocasta, had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed diplomatist and his family; for whose uses let a sufficient vindication be found in the exercise he affords our crews in the science of seamanship. She entered our noble river somewhat early on a fine July morning. Early as it was, two young people, who had nothing to do with the trimming or guiding of the vessel, stood on deck, and watched the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... discharges confirms his claim, slight as it is, to seamanship, and Duncan M'Innes, of Sleat, in Skye, after being cautioned as to his obligations, signs his name ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... via Cape Horn to join the Atlantic squadron. The long, hard, swift trip was made without the break of a bar or the loosening of a bolt, a result which attracted expert notice abroad as attesting the very highest order of seamanship. Meantime war had commenced. It was feared that off Brazil Admiral Cervera would endeavor to intercept and destroy her; yet, with well-grounded confidence, Captain Clark expected in that event not only to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the West Indies with their cargoes of salt fish, grain, and tobacco. Trading became almost as dangerous as privateering, and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... smart seamanship to get through that rushing raceway without capsizing; but, whatever Ditty's faults, he did not lack ability, and the work was done in a way that elicited an unwilling grunt of admiration ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... so. He engaged his men without any help from the shipping-master, and had hardly reached an understanding with the American when Alfredo Redvignez put in an appearance and applied for a berth, saying that he had heard the best kinds of accounts of the captain's seamanship and ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... begin the battle unsupported by the rest of the fleet. One after the other the Carthaginian quinqueremes were grappled and stormed, for once the great corvus crashed down on a deck all the arts of seamanship were useless. Before the day was over the Carthaginians had lost 14 ships sunk and 31 captured, a total of half their fleet, and the rest had ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... pleasant residential quarter somewhat away from the visitors' portion of the town, with its promenade and lodging-houses. There was a beautiful view over the sea, where to-day little white caps were breaking, and small vessels bobbing about in a manner calculated to test the good seamanship of any tourists who had ventured forth in them. Aunt Ellinor was in the town at a Food Control Committee meeting, so Elaine for the present ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of everyone on board and no one but he was supposed to estimate the risk of travelling at the speed he did, when ice was reported ahead of him. His action cannot be justified on the ground of prudent seamanship. ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... for every possible contingency. His personal prowess had already been shown at the cost of the rovers of Tripoli, and in this action he helped fight the guns as ably as the best sailor. His skill, seamanship, quick eye, readiness of resource, and indomitable pluck are beyond all praise. Down to the time of the civil war, he is the greatest figure in our naval history. A thoroughly religious man, he was as generous and humane as he was skilful and brave. One of the greatest of our sea ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... on deck watching the sunset, and occupied with our thoughts, when suddenly there was a cry from the "look out" in the main fore-top which created an instantaneous and marvellous scene of activity on board. It was then that we witnessed the first example of thorough seamanship and discipline; the shrill boatswain's whistle, the captain shouting a few orders, passed on by the mates, a crowd of sailors appearing like magic in the rigging, and in another instant the ship riding under bare masts; a deathlike stillness for a few seconds, and then ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... dismasted, the sea—well, I don't know what I can compare it to, unless 'tis to mountains, it runned so high; and as for the poor little Judith, 'twas only by the mercy o' God and Cap'n Drake's fine seamanship that she didn't go straight to the bottom. By the time that them there hurricanes was over the ships was not much better nor wrecks, and 'twas useless to think o' makin' the v'yage home in 'em in that condition, so ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... Committee—Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Hewes, R. H. Lee and John Adams. At a session of Congress on the 9th of November, 1775, a resolution was passed authorizing the creation of two battalions of marines. They were to be composed only of those acquainted with seamanship. This same committee on the 23d of November reported certain rules for the government of the navy, which were adopted on the 28th (see journal of Congress 1, page 255). On the 2d of December the committee was authorized to prepare a commission for the captains of armed vessels in ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... could help, for anything I was—don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not the fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind—for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... time, and, indeed, for perhaps fifty years thereafter, the sea was a favorite career, not only for American boys with their way to make in the world, but for the sons of wealthy men as well. That classic of New England seamanship, "Two Years Before the Mast," was not written until the middle of the nineteenth century, and its author went to sea, not in search of wealth, but of health. But before the time of Richard Henry Dana, many a young man of good family and education—a Harvard graduate like him, perhaps—bade farewell ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... teaching. And again, Drake's cannon would not have roared so loudly and so widely without seamen already trained in heart and hand to work his ships and level his artillery. It was to the superior seamanship, the superior quality of English ships and crews, that the Spaniards attributed their defeat. Where did these ships come from? Where and how did these mariners learn their trade? Historians talk enthusiastically of the national ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... not take to the sea, you'll like to learn as much seamanship and navigation as you can while you are on board," observed ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... of the Hellenes who had been appointed to serve in the fleet were these:—the Athenians furnished a hundred and twenty-seven ships, and the Plataians moved by valour and zeal for the service, although they had had no practice in seamanship, yet joined with the Athenians in manning their ships. The Corinthians furnished forty ships, the Megarians twenty; the Chalkidians manned twenty ships with which the Athenians furnished them; 1 the Eginetans furnished eighteen ships, the Sikyonians twelve, the Lacedemonians ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... of them, apart from Jeremy Pitt, who was utterly incapacitated for the present, possessed a superficial knowledge of seamanship. Hagthorpe, although he had been a fighting officer, untrained in navigation, knew how to handle a ship, and under his directions they set about getting ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the steamboat has reduced the employment of sailing craft, and the Bocchesi have become poor, but they provided the best sailors for the Venetian fleet, and their seamanship ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... smartly painted, trim-built sailing barge, plying chiefly from the lower reaches of the Thames to ports west of Dover. She had no equal of her class, at any point of sailing, and certainly her Master, Mr. Joseph Pigg, was not the man to let her fair fame suffer for want of seamanship. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his mind that ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... "A man who has spent thirty-two years of his life on saltwater can say no more. If being an officer of home ships for the last fifteen years I don't understand the heathen ways of them there savages, in matters of seamanship and duty, you will find ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... it; and I've got pioneering, pathfinding, athletics, and then come the ten that I selected myself; angling, bugling, carpentry, conservation or whatever you call it, and cycling and firemanship and music hath charms, not, and seamanship and signaling. And two-thirds of the stalking badge. I bet you'll say ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... guile, 'twas craft, 'twas seamanship. Lord love your eyes, pal, Cap'n Adam seized him the vantage point by means of a fore-course towing under water, and kept it. For look'ee, 'tis slip our floating anchor, up wi' our helm and down on 'em 'thwart-hawse and let fly our larboard broadside, veer and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... from the business of this work to detail the particulars of that signal victory obtained by English seamanship and English valor against the boasted armament of Spain, prodigiously superior as it was in every circumstance of force excepting the moral energies employed to wield it. While the history of the year 1588 in all its ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of a suitable commander for the mortar flotilla was less difficult, inasmuch as this little fleet was a creation of the officer who was chosen as its leader. David D. Porter, for gallantry and ingenuity, for theoretical and practical seamanship, and for general popularity among the officers of his own rank and date, has no superior in the navy, and his appointment to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... well-defined bourne. In vain had the boats of the Excelsior, manned by her crew, endeavored with a towing-line to check or direct the inexplicable movement; in vain had Captain Bunker struggled, with all the skilled weapons of seamanship, against his invincible foe; wrapped in the impenetrable fog, the ship moved ghost-like to what seemed to be ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... they had endured hardships of every description. Captain Saumarez went to Bath for the recovery of his health. He subsequently served in the Sandwich, York, and Yarmouth: in the York he encountered a heavy gale, in which his superior seamanship was severely put to the test. He was subsequently removed to the Nottingham, of sixty guns, and on the 11th October 1747 fell in with the Mars, a French sixty-four gun-ship, with five hundred men, commanded by M. de Colombe, being one of the ships that had separated from D'Anville's fleet ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... were over the day's work began. The embryo officers were attached to the seamanship class, consisting of about twenty men of all ages. Oilskins were donned, for the sky was overcast and the wind keen. They climbed down the steel sides of the cruiser on to the small deck of a tender, which was to convey them out on to ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... voyage. Ideal monasteries and ideal hermits people the "deserts of the ocean." All beings therein (save daemons and Cyclops) are Christians, even to the very birds, and keep the festivals of the Church as eternal laws of nature. The voyage succeeds, not by seamanship, or geographic knowledge, nor even by chance: but by the miraculous prescience of the saint, or of those whom he meets; and the wanderings of Ulysses, or of Sinbad, are rational and human in comparison with ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... in his own judgment; every body was listened to, and he readily yielded his opinions without argument or controversy. Our chief officer, a Catalonian cousin of the captain, made no pretensions to seamanship, yet he was a good mathematician. I still remember the laughs I had at the care he took of his lily-white hands, and the jokes we cracked upon his girl-like manners, voice, and conversation. The boatswain, who was in his watch, assured me that he rarely gave an order without ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... feeling how great a burden there was on the lad's shoulders, he did all he could to lighten the load, by setting a capital example to his messmates of quick obedience, and was always suggesting little bits of seamanship, and making them seem to emanate from Mark himself. The consequence was that matters went in the most orderly way on board, and they steadily kept on north, north-west, or sometimes due west, according to the trend of ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... path of life, and had even induced him to "follow the sea" for a short time in the merchant service. But the force of nature and of circumstances had very soon prevailed again, and Robin returned to his old pursuits with larger experience, and seamanship improved. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... enemy. It is not improbable that the true explanation of his conduct is that offered by the captain of a Neapolitan galley, present at the battle, that he wished to gain an advantage over Aluch Ali by seamanship, and that the renegade, no less skilled in the game, played it on this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... your mind to come along with your running-mate. By Jove, that's a brain throb, Peggy! How about it? Can't you persuade this girl of ours to give up the co-ed plan back yonder in Annapolis,—she knows all the seamanship and nav. that's good for her already,—and you'll need a room-mate up here at Columbia Heights School if we settle upon it," and Captain Stewart looked at Polly half longingly, half teasingly. Polly ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Almost all our progress has been made in the teeth of the storm. We have always had to "tack," but as it is "the set of the sails, and not the gales" that decides the ports we reach, the competency of our seamanship is determined by the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... sailed from New Castle, New South Wales, on the 17th of March, bound for Hong Kong. Everything went well until the 9th of the following month, when she encountered a severe gale. Despite all that skillful seamanship could do, and in the face of the most strenuous exertions, she struck the dangerous Susanne Reef, near Poseat Island, one of the Caroline group ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... find you a good position on one of my ships, commend you specially to the captain as a young friend of mine, and promote you as fast as your progress in seamanship will warrant my ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... and owing to the lack of foresight on the part of the master, who was obstinate, but little acquainted with seamanship, and trusting only his own head. He was a good carpenter, skilful in building vessels, and careful in provisioning them with all necessaries, but in no wise adapted ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... do you let my habits alone, and look out for your own fore-top-mast. Why, in the name of seamanship, is that spar stayed forward in such a fashion, looking ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... an early start, but it was half-past two in the afternoon before I could get my Indians together—Toyatte, a grand old Stickeen nobleman, who was made captain, not only because he owned the canoe, but for his skill in woodcraft and seamanship; Kadachan, the son of a Chilcat chief; John, a Stickeen, who acted as interpreter; and Sitka Charley. Mr. Young, my companion, was an adventurous evangelist, and it was the opportunities the trip might ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... running current of the river was Keith, on that tiny yacht so open upon the treacherous sea to every kind of danger. And nothing between Keith and sudden, horrible death but that wooden hulk and his own seamanship. She was Keith's: she belonged to him; but he did not belong to her. To Keith she might, she would give all, as she had done; but he would still be apart from her. He might give his love, his care: but she knew ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;—could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated —— of Boston,—and left her, as he told her agent, "because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... asleep, when suddenly he discovered that the vessel was making no headway. They had, in fact, run upon the dangerous shoal without being aware of it. A strong sea was running with a stiff breeze, and although his seamanship was poor, he was capable enough to recognize at once that they were ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... laughing a good deal to-day, Captain Benson, over the joke sprung on us last night," was Admiral Bentley's greeting. "It was cleverly carried out, and with a great deal of skill in seamanship as well." ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... survivors, three being taken out of the water, including the commander and one other officer. The prisoners on coming on board expressed their willingness to assist in taking the Prize into port. It did not at this time seem likely that she would long remain afloat, but by great exertion and good seamanship the leaks were got under to a sufficient extent to allow of the ship being kept afloat by pumping. The prisoners gave considerable help, especially when the ship caught fire whilst starting the motor again. On May 2 she met a motor launch off the coast ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... Poor Dashington was one of the best seamen that ever trod a deck; and he took especial delight in showing you how to make every knot and splice, as well as in instructing you in the higher details of practical seamanship. Blowitt and myself assisted him, and old Boxie, who gave his life to his country, was more than a grandfather ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... seafaring men. And yet they believed that God preserved them. Surely their faith was tried, if ever faith was tried. But as surely their faith failed not, for—if I may so say—they dared not let it fail. If they ceased to trust God, what had they to trust in? Not in their own skill in seamanship, though it was great: they knew how weak it was, on which to lean. Not in the so-called laws of nature; the treacherous sea, the wild wind, the uncertain shoals of fish, the chances and changes of a long ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... hesitated in his life. Why should he? He had been a most successful trader, and a man lucky in his fights, skilful in navigation, undeniably first in seamanship in those seas. He knew it. Had he not heard the ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... not so obedient, and Campion's attempt to show his seamanship was disastrous. He ran right under the steamer's nose, and had just almost cleared her when her prow struck the boat, six or eight feet from the stern, sheared off her helm and steering apparatus as if cut with a knife, and struck Campion as he fell. Then in a moment the boat filled ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... with a turn of fortune. The strenuous efforts of Blake enabled him again to put to sea in a few months after his defeat; and in February 1653 a running fight through four days ended at last in an English victory, though Tromp's fine seamanship enabled him to save the convoy he was guarding. The House at once insisted on the retention of its power. Not only were the existing members to continue as members of the new Parliament, thus depriving ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... by the last shift of seamanship, she veered about broadside on, her huge guns still belching defiance. In crazy flight, she barely missed one of her own squadron, then rounded back in a great circle for the English line. No doubt her crew did not try to stop her, hoping that her ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... thrown together a great deal; especially after the death of the 'patron.' He was of great assistance to me and to Hoel Grall, the second in command, by reason of his knowledge of seamanship." ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... run down a steamer— she came toward us," insisted Betty, not willing to have her seamanship brought into question. "If it had been any other boat, not drawing so much water, she could have steered out of the way. As it was we, not being under control, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... away, and the ghostly agencies are introduced in the spirit of serious, if somewhat melodramatic, romance. Marryat's personal experience enabled him, with little research, to produce a life-like picture of old Dutch seamanship, and his powers in racy narrative have transformed the Vanderdecken legend into a stirring tale of terror. The plot cannot be called original, but it is more carefully worked out and, from the nature of the material at hand, more effective than most of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... being wounded: at nine she anchored in safety off Newton's Point. Soon after this a gale came on; the galley drove towards the rocks, and it was supposed she must be lost; but Lieutenant Saumarez cut his cable, and by a masterly act of seamanship saved his vessel, and gained the admiration of the whole squadron. During this period, Lieutenant Saumarez was under the orders of Commodore Griffith, of the Nonsuch, senior officer of his Majesty's ships and vessels at Rhode Island; and it will appear by the following secret order, that he was kept ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... found himself forced into flight for having defied the authorities of the island, embarked upon a doubtful trading venture into one of the wildest and least known portions of the continent, and, with but a slight knowledge of seamanship, engaged in navigating a small sailing vessel across one of its stormiest seas. What would his guardian and employer say could he know all this and see him at the ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... name on the clothes which constituted my kit, pumping water for the cooks' galley, helping to scrub the decks and wringing out swabs. On the Thursday, I, with other novices, was sent to the 'Impregnable' to commence my training in seamanship and gunnery. Every Thursday half a day's leave is given to the boys, and we were granted this privilege. How glad and thankful I felt! After landing, I hastened home with all possible speed. The sight of me in my uniform overcame my mother's feelings, and oh! how bitterly ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... them a surgeon, a stock of medicines, and a quantity of comforts for the use of the sick and convalescent. These favourable circumstances may be attributed, with propriety, to the almost miraculous interposition of the Almighty, who vouchsafed to bless in an especial manner the prudence, good seamanship, and cool intrepidity of the captains and officers of the ships, and those under their care, whilst at sea: and afterwards, when on shore, the judgment, skill, and good management of Lieut.-colonel Bunbury and the military and other officers, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... was not pleased with this piece of skill in seamanship, and for coming through a crowded harbour under all sail. The "Raleigh" was ordered out for a twenty-four hours' cruise, and to come in in a shipshape way the next time. Well, she went out again, and as she came in past Green Island, she had all sail as before, and ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... friend to whom one had never to make explanations, yet who always understood what was wanted of her,—with a presence so propitious as the calm and unconscious Miss Bocock, the sickening plunges of explanation and recrimination that accompany unwary seafaring and unskilful seamanship were quite avoided in the time that passed between Valerie's appearance at the tea-table—where she dispensed refreshment to Mrs. Wake, Miss Bocock, and Jack only—and the meeting of all the ship's ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... fact, constituted a mercenary navy, ready for employment against the power of Spain by any other nation, on condition of sharing the plunder; and they were noted for their daring, their cruelty and their extraordinary skill in seamanship. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of short, thick-set men. His hair curled ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... many years before the visit of the "Yankee college boys," the speed of the Yankee schooner and the skill and seamanship of the Yankee captain ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... him, with his rule-of-thumb knowledge of mathematics, the matter seemed complex), and still more surprised when he found, presently, that I really understood the underlying principle of this simple bit of seamanship far better than he did himself. He said that I knew more than most of the captains afloat and that I ought to be a sailor; which he meant, no doubt, to be the greatest compliment that he could pay me. After that I took the sights ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying. Besides that every year he sent out threescore galleys, on board of which there went numbers of the citizens, who were in pay eight months, learning at the same time and practicing the art of seamanship. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to fall back a little way. Then he exerted himself to show his best in seamanship as he ran the submarine up to board the sloop by the starboard quarter. The two boats barely touched. Mr. Terrell, his three marines and two seamen leaped to the standing room of the yacht. Eph, all aquiver, let the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... perils which afterwards beseiged him, until his years had made him more capable of confronting them, but also he had thus an opportunity, which he improved to the utmost, of making himself acquainted with the two separate branches of his profession—navigation and seamanship, qualifications which are not very ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... gesture expressive of a world of compliment and praise, but he kept one eye steadily on the dog; he seemed to imply that but for the presence of the dog on board the commander might have forgotten his seamanship. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... rowing in boats,—an exercise in which both the Tzar and the Marquess are said to have excelled. The Navy Board received directions from the Admiralty to hire two vessels, to be at the command of the Tzar, whenever he should think proper to sail on the Thames, to improve himself in seamanship. In addition to these, the King made him a present of the "Royal Transport," with orders to have such alterations and accommodations made in her, as his Tzarish Majesty might desire, and also to change her masts, rigging, sails, &c., in any such way as he might think proper for improving her sailing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... with them, and the captain had a half-defined suspicion that neither he nor the pilot knew exactly where they were. That is a bad condition for a great ship to be in, and that, too, so near a coast which requires good seamanship and skillful pilotage in the best of weather. Not that the captain would have confessed his doubt to the pilot, or the pilot to the captain, and that was where the real danger lay. If they could only have permitted themselves to speak ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... immediately to the count's rooms, there to await an answer to the note. Henri Theriere, the second officer of the Halfmoon, in frock coat and silk hat looked every inch a nobleman and a gentleman. What his past had been only he knew, but his polished manners, his knowledge of navigation and seamanship, and his leaning toward the ways of the martinet in his dealings with the men beneath him had led Skipper Simms to assume that he had once held a commission in the French Navy, from which he ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... an attachment to the vessel." He cruised three years in the Mediterranean, carefully selecting and training his crew. He studied thoroughly the whole subject of the Eastern Archipelago, and acquainted himself as perfectly as possible with the minutiae of seamanship and with every useful art. And when his preparations were all complete, on the 16th of December, 1838, he set sail for Singapore, in the yacht Royalist, a vessel of one hundred and forty-two tons, manned by twenty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... sometimes he'd be sailing so far off the quarter that I couldn't but call out to him through the window and tell him, "Hard a lee there, Stevey! You'll never fetch it that tack;" when he'd shift his helm, feeling the edge of the breeze with as neat a piece of seamanship as a man could ask, and come up dead into the wind, his sails dropping back stiff on his yardarms, and the subject of matrimony speared on the end of his bowsprit; then Madame Bill would get up, and run away laughing. She seemed to enjoy those ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... have distinguished medals that betokened membership in the Beaver Patrol, Boy Scouts of America. Other insignia indicated to the initiated that the boys had won distinction and were entitled to the honors in Seamanship, Life Saving, Stalking and Signaling. On the jacket of the one addressed as "Jack" were insignia that betokened his rank as Scout Master and also as Star Scout. These had ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... years after his discovery of the St Lawrence, an Englishman, Fletcher of Rye, astonished the seafaring world of 1539 by inventing a rig with which a ship could beat to windward with sails trimmed {47} fore and aft. This invention introduced the era of modern seamanship. But Cartier has another, and much more personal, title to nautical fame, for he was the first and one of the best of Canadian hydrographers, and he wrote a book containing some descriptions worthy of comparison with ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... straightaway to the stake-boat, set far out in the lake—quite out of sight from the decks of the boats about the starting point—and turning that, to beat back. The wind was free, but not too strong. The out-and-return course would prove the boats themselves and the seamanship ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... time they forgot the way to "Hawaiki," and even at last the art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand coasts. Their skill and coolness in paddling across flooded rivers ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Europe. She shipped a new crew, and cruised along the New England coasts. In the middle of July she fell in with Broke's squadron. Perceiving his peril, Hull sought safety in flight; and then began one of the most remarkable naval retreats ever recorded, in which skillful seamanship won the race. There was almost a dead calm. Down went the boats of the Constitution, with long lines attached to them, and strong sweeps were used with desperate energy in towing her. A long cannon was placed at the stern ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hearts—and scores had been spread out before him—knew of Kate's, no one but the girl herself could have told. That she was adrift on an open sea without a rudder, and that she had already begun to lose confidence both in her seamanship and in her compass, was becoming more and more apparent to her every day she lived. All she knew positively was that she had been sailing before the wind for some weeks past with everything flying loose, and that the time had now come for her either to ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Lord Ipsden, and affected to doubt their prudence. The bait took; Lord Ipsden wrote to his man of business, and an unexpected blow fell upon the ingenious Flucker. He was sent to school; there to learn a little astronomy, a little navigation, a little seamanship, a little manners, etc.; in the mysteries of reading and writing his sister had already perfected him by dint of "the taws." This school was a blow; but Flucker was no fool; he saw there was no way of getting from school to sea without working. So he ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... religion. Commissioned by the King of France, Francis I, he conducted three successive expeditions across the Atlantic for the purpose of prosecuting discovery in the western hemisphere; and it is well understood that he had previously gained experience in seamanship on board fishing-vessels trading between Europe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... never find its way into any book save his own ship's log, but who in his own way has set as fine an example as any admiral of them all. We know them, and talk of them in the fleet, though they may never be bawled in the streets of London. There's as much seamanship and pluck in a good cutter action as in a line-o'-battleship fight, though you may not come by a title nor the thanks of Parliament for it. There's Hamilton, for example, the quiet, pale-faced man who is learning against the pillar. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the ship was bad, the crew was ten times worse. What Dawkins said turned out to be literally true. Every ill-conducted, disorderly fellow who had been up the gangway once a week or so, every unreclaimed landsman of bad character and no seamanship, was sent on board of us: and in fact, except that there was scarcely any discipline and no restraint, we appeared like a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... soul!" exclaimed the stranger. "But surely you are somewhat late in following the paternal craft; you do not learn seamanship in this sylvan sphere." ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... coast of Leaplow made its appearance, close under our larboard bow. So sudden was our arrival in this novel and extraordinary country, that we were very near running on it, before we got a glimpse of its shores. The seamanship of Captain Poke, however, stood us in hand; and, by the aid of a very clever pilot, we were soon safely moored in the harbor of Bivouac. In this happy land, there was no registration, no passports, "no nothin'"—as ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... all in running and in dancing and in pulling with the oar. Lo, now, ye dancers! Come forward and show your nimbleness, so that the stranger may tell his friends, when he is amongst them, how far we surpass all men in dancing as well as in seamanship ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... send his boat for the captain, but a most unfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough and against the hoy, while this was endeavoring to avail itself of great seamanship in hauling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer of any use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck, saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... fight like a demon to make it; but she was never a fighting power like Rome. She won her successes at first because her seat was on the sea, and the war was naval, and sea-battles were won not by fighting but by seamanship. If Carthage had won, they say;—but Carthage could not have won, because the cycles were for Rome. You will note how that North African rim is tossed between European and West Asian control, according to which is in the ascendant. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those early hours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailors scouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with his fellow- passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker lady whom he joined ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... take you to learn you seamanship and navigation, but you'd be no use as a sailor, wee laddie, and it's not for a ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... FOLLIOTT. It is the natural result, Mr. Mac Quedy, of that system of state seamanship which your science upholds. Putting the crew on short allowance, and doubling the rations of the officers, is the sure way to make a mutiny on board a ship in distress, Mr. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... enough," returned the captain. "Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is off-colour." ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... sufficient knowledge to enable him to study the works of the learned, and of the ancients in Latin translations. But in his early years he devoted his attention to obtaining a practical acquaintance with seamanship. In his day, as we have seen, Portugal was the centre of geographical knowledge, and he and his brother Bartolomeo, after many voyages north and south, settled at last in Lisbon—his brother as a map-maker, and himself as a practical seaman. ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... a rope than hold a wheel, hey? 'Tis but a wooden sailor, after all. I hoped such a ship would boast a seaman as master. I'll show thee seamanship, sheep-heart!" ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... weeks old, and I've been sweating along the way from Lun'non, and she yowlin' enough to tear a fellow's nerves to pieces." This said triumphantly; then in an apologetic tone, "What does the likes o' me know about holdin' babies? I were brought up to seamanship, and not to nussin'. I'd joy to see you, missus, set to manage a thirty-pounder. I warrant you'd be as clumsy wi' a gun as I be ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... a man of some fifty winters, still made his two yearly fares to the Banks, in his own trim little pinky, and prided himself on being the smartest and jolliest man aboard. His boys had sailed with him till they got vessels of their own, had learned from his stout heart and strong arm their seamanship, their fisherman's acuteness, their honest daring, and child-like trust in God's Providence. These poor fishermen are not rich, as I have said; a dollar looks to them as big as a dinner-plate to us, and a moderately flush Wall-Street man might buy out the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... distinction were as open to her as to him. As educator, author, artist, in painting, music, and sculpture, she could freely attain to the same coveted end. The Suffragists did not decry man's "monopoly" of the honorable and profitable but severe professions of civil engineering, seamanship, mining engineering, lighthouse keeping and inspecting, signal service, military and naval duty, and the like. These, and the drudgery of the world's business and commerce, man was ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... of books. I hope sometime to be able to continue my studies. At present it is my business to learn seamanship." ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... fault with certain elements of Cooper's art. Mark Twain, in one of his least inspired moments, selected Cooper's novels for attack. Every grammar school teacher is ready to point out that his style is often prolix and his sentences are sometimes ungrammatical. Amateurs even criticize Cooper's seamanship, although it seemed impeccable to Admiral Mahan. No doubt one must admit the "helplessness, propriety, and incapacity" of most of Cooper's women, and the dreadfulness of his bores, particularly the Scotchmen, the doctors, and the naturalists. Like Sir Walter, Cooper seems ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... followed. God has given you England for your country, and the West country—the best place in England for your home. God has given you a good Queen, and good magistrates and landlords. God has given you health and strength, and seamanship, and clear heads and stout hearts. And God has made you seamen and fishermen, and given you a business in which you can see God's mighty power and wisdom day and night, and feel Him taking care of you when you cannot take care ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... trade to the West Indies had been one of the most important branches of American industry. The men of New England were famous for seamanship, and better and cheaper ships could be built in the seaports of Massachusetts than anywhere in Great Britain. An oak vessel could be built at Gloucester or Salem for twenty-four dollars per ton; a ship of live-oak or American cedar cost not more than thirty-eight dollars ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... lad, when a ship does that? Bumps, and a sale arterwards of new-wrecked timber on the beach. But here we are all right, and instead of being ashamed of ourselves we can look the mounseers full in the face and tell 'em that if they can manage a better bit of seamanship than the skipper, they had better go ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... that were enchantments. And presently a great tempest arose. Thord, Ingun's son, and his companions, continued out at sea as he was, soon knew that the storm was raised against him. Now the ship is driven west beyond Skalmness, and Thord showed great courage with seamanship. The men who were on land saw how he threw overboard all that made up the boat's lading, saving the men; and the people who were on land expected Thord would come to shore, for they had passed the ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... seem difficult to avoid either of these two extremes, it will not do to refuse to choose at all, and leave things to chance. We drift into many of our connections with men, but the art of seamanship is tested by sailing not by drifting. The subject of the choice of friendship is not advanced much by just letting them choose us. That is to become the victim, not the master of our circumstances. And while ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... naval academy, furnishing the means of theoretic instruction to the youths who devote their lives to the service of their country upon the ocean, still solicits the sanction of the Legislature. Practical seamanship and the art of navigation may be acquired on the cruises of the squadrons which from time to time are dispatched to distant seas, but a competent knowledge even of the art of ship building, the higher mathematics, and astronomy; the literature which can ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing? And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking a great huge old seaman by both ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Rawlins persuaded the captain, who himself had little knowledge of seamanship, to steer northward, meaning to draw him away from the neighbourhood of other Turkish vessels. On February 6 they descried a sail, and at once the Turks gave chase, and made her surrender. It proved to be a ship from near Dartmouth, laden with silk. As it was stormy weather, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... near the binnacle, and roared to the men to be careful and keep her steady. It was plain he knew nothing of seamanship, but could tell that a thing must be done well after the mate had given orders. He was apparently perfectly sober now, and as cool as though on the beach. It was evident the man feared nothing and could command. I saw that I could be of little use aft, ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... a basis of operations, a halfway house from whence to work out the North-West passage to the Indies—that golden dream, as fatal to English valor as the Guiana one to Spanish—and yet hardly, hardly to be regretted, when we remember the seamanship, the science, the chivalry, the heroism, unequalled in the history of the English nation, which it has called forth among those our later Arctic voyagers, who have combined the knight-errantry of the middle age with the practical prudence ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... principal instructors on the U.S.S. Essex, the government training ship at Norfolk, is Matthew Anderson, a Negro. He has trained thousands of men, many of them now officers, in the art and duties of seamanship. Scores of Negroes; men of the type of these in the Navy, would furnish the nucleus for officers and crews of separate ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... officers. The latter the British had only in the sense of fine seamen and gallant men. In courage there is no occasion to institute comparisons between the two nations; in kind there may have been a difference, but certainly not in degree. The practical superiority of seamanship in the British may be taken as a set-off to the more highly trained understanding of military principles and methods on the part of their enemy. For commander-in-chief, there were at this time but two, Howe and Rodney, whose ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... trial as first mate, and, to his credit be it said, he justified his brother's faith in him. In a tempest off the coast of Africa the captain was washed overboard and the first mate succeeded to the command. His seamanship and courage saved the vessel, under circumstances of danger which paralyzed the efforts of the other officers.. He was confirmed, rightly confirmed, in the command of the ship. And, so far, we shall certainly not be wrong if we view his ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... he was on the point of surrender, as often plucked up hope; as the minutes wore on and he kept above water, he began to believe that if he could stick it out his judgment and seamanship would be justified ... though human ingenuity backed by generosity could by no means contrive adequate excuse for ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... successfully the Shadow Line that divides youth from manhood. And it is through facing the unleashed fury of the tornado that the old captain of the 'full-powered steam-ship' in Typhoon shows what he has in him, compassion and kindness as well as shrewd knowledge of men, expert seamanship, and indomitable heroism. The whole thing is driven home with a power, an incisiveness, and a delicate irradiating humour which I should despair of conveying by mere criticism. The book must be read for itself, and read again and again. It is told, in one way, simply ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... who were on board the little vessel saw no chance of escape unless the crew of the "Ariel" should think of heaving ropes when the big ship went over us; but she glided past our bow, and we breathed freely again. We had now an opportunity of witnessing man-of-war seamanship. Captain Chapman, though his engines were disabled, did not think of abandoning us in the heavy gale, but crossed the bows of the "Lady Nyassa" again and again, dropping a cask with a line by which ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... not know but the last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American merchantman was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972. A heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the master of the Brazilian permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last of a long series of outrages upon our commerce. God alone knows how many hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the roving steel sharks of blood-frenzied Europe. Countless ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pleasing young man. We had, besides, a surgeon, a master's assistant, the captain's clerk and the purser's clerk, who made up the complement in our berth. My chief friend among the men was Dick Tillard, an old quartermaster, to whom I could always go to get instruction in seamanship, with the certainty that he would do his best to enlighten me. He had been at sea all his life, and had scarcely ever spent a month on shore at a time. He was a philosopher, in his way; and his philosophy was of the best, for ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the navy was of a piece throughout. As the courtly Captain despised the Admiralty, he was in turn despised by his crew. It could not be concealed that he was inferior in Seamanship to every foremast man on board. It was idle to expect that old sailors, familiar with the hurricanes of the tropics and with the icebergs of the Arctic Circle, would pay prompt and respectful obedience to a chief who knew no more of winds and waves than could be learned in a gilded barge ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... becomes a fisherman, a sailor, a discoverer. Since the early Northmen scoured the northern seas, discovered America, and sent their fleets along the shores of Europe and up the Mediterranean, the seamanship of the men of Teutonic race has always ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles |
