United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The brig carried a pair, of davits on each quarter, so I hauled the boat up on the starboard side, made her fast, slipped down into her and hooked on the tackles, and then, climbing inboard once more, hauled them both hand-taut.
There was, however, a little winch affixed to the fore part of the mast, chiefly used for this very purpose; so, upon jumping down off the companion, my first act was to assure myself that the mainsheet was securely belayed, after which I rushed forward, and, setting hand-taut the main halliard, threw two or three turns of the fall round the barrel of the winch.
The boat was rigged as a fore and aft schooner, setting a main trysail, fore trysail, and a staysail secured to the head of the stem; and while the masts had been stepped and the shrouds set up hand-taut, I found, upon casting loose the sails, that they had omitted to obey my instructions to close-reef them, and since the wind was still blowing altogether too hard for the boat to carry anything more than close-reefed canvas I lost quite ten minutes in reefing and setting the mainsail and staysail I dared not attempt to set the foresail also, for I did not believe that the boat could carry it.
The moon or what there was left of her was not due to rise until an hour and twenty minutes later; but by the time that we had got the two gigs hooked on, and the tackles hauled hand-taut which was as much as we intended to do with them before getting clear of the basin we had come to the conclusion that the stars afforded us light enough to see by, and we therefore determined to proceed at once with the task of setting the canvas.
He set the weather-topping- lift up hand-taut, and took a turn with the lee one; then dropped the peak of the mainsail until the end of the gaff was pressing against the lee-lift; triced the tack right up to the throat; then let run the throat-halliards, and hauled down the throat of the sail by the tack tripping-line; whilst I rounded in upon the main-sheet.
Word Of The Day