United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I am inclined to furl everything at once, so as to be prepared for the wind when it reaches us; it is near the hurricane season in the West Indies, and they are sometimes felt as far to the eastward as this. Should the wind not prove as strong as I expect, we can easily make sail again." "Do as you propose, Owen," said the captain; "you are always careful and prudent."
Never, in the whole voyage, did our crew spring to it in more lively fashion. And lively fashion was needed to save our gear. As it was, they cut away the remnants of the mizzen-lower-topsail with their sheath- knives, and they loosed the main-skysail out of its bolt-ropes. The first infraction of our agreement was on the main-lower-topsail. This they attempted to furl.
In this assertion, however, Captain Blyth proved to be reckoning without his host; for as the morning wore on the breeze freshened considerably, obliging him to clew up and furl his skysails one after the other, and then his royals, which seemed to give the leading ship an advantage.
If it is light, the royal yards are clewed down, and the ship keeps on her way; but if the squall takes strong hold, the royals are clewed up, fore and aft; light hands lay aloft and furl them; top-gallant yards clewed down, flying-jib hauled down, and the ship kept off before it, the man at the helm laying out his strength to heave the wheel up to windward.
The lady was already crossing the street. He saw her pause before the door of the opposite house, open it with a latchkey, and caught a full view of her profile in the single moment that she turned to furl her umbrella and enter. It was his wife's voice he had heard; it was his wife's face that he had seen in profile.
The lighter canvas was instantly handed young Sam and one of the men who had gone in the boat were ordered out on the jibboom to furl the flying jib. As they were about this work, a tremendous sea struck the bows, the gaskets got loose, the jibboom was carried away, and with it the two poor fellows who were endeavouring to secure the sail.
Other vessels on the station, which had put to sea from the different isles, with the disappointed expectation of avoiding the contagion, now came to an anchor in the bay, their crews so weakened by disease and death that they could with difficulty send up sufficient men to furl their sails.
But the galley rolled so heavy that they couldn't use their oars to advantage, while the Bonaventure is so fast as any dolphin with a beam wind and enough of it to make us furl our topgallants; so we got away." "And a very smart piece of work, too, apparently," said Mr Marshall. "I must not forget to thank George Saint Leger for his share in it. Has your voyage been a success, Captain?"
From the 6th to the 14th continuous gales brought conditions of greater physical discomfort than had ever been experienced on board the Discovery, for she was in very light trim and tossed about the mountainous seas like a cork. It was, therefore, the greatest relief to furl their sails off the entrance of Ross Harbour on the 15th, and to steam into the calm waters of the Bay.
I sent some Lascars aloft to furl the loose canvas, and whilst this was doing, the wind freshened yet in another long-drawn blast that swept in a shriek betwixt our masts. "There's nothing to be done!" sung out the skipper; "get that boat under the fall, Jackson; we must hoist her up."
Word Of The Day