United States or United States Minor Outlying Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The motor was running smoothly, the balloon skin was taut, and everything was working well; pulling the rudder slightly, Santos-Dumont headed directly for the great steel shaft. The people who were on the Eiffel Tower that breezy afternoon saw a sight that never a man saw before. Out of the haze a yellow shape loomed larger each minute until its outlines could be distinctly seen.

Nevertheless, the 'Neva' went ashore on the Harbinger reef, on May 13th unshipped her rudder and parted into four pieces. Only nine men and thirteen women reached the island; they were nearly naked and had nothing to eat, and they wandered along the beach during the night, searching amongst the wreckage. At last they found a puncheon of rum, upended it, stove in the head, and drank.

If the hood and tarpaulins had failed to keep out the seas we should have been pooped, and if the jib-sheets had carried away or the rudder become unshipped we should have broached to, when immediate destruction would have been our lot. The remainder of the journey was simple enough, and in a few hours we were safely back in port.

The theory I do not accept: one simply folds his sails, unships his rudder, and waits the will of Providence, or the arrival of some compelling fate. The longer one remains, the more difficult it is to go. We have a fashion indeed, I may call it a habit of deciding to go, and of never going.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves Where life and its ventures are laid, The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves May see us in sunshine or shade; Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, We'll trim our broad sail as before, And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore! Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.

A strong gale blew, during the whole forenoon, from the northeast, and drove large cakes of the drift against the rudder and counter with such violence that we all trembled for the consequences.

The other proved to be at once a rudder to guide him over the uncharted future of his life, and an outlet for the pent-up passion within him. His voice was totally untrained, and as yet it broke into all manner of distressing falsetto fragments.

The little squadron reached the Canary Islands in a few days, with no event worth recording, except that the caravel "Pinta," commanded Martin Alonzo Pinzon, unshipped her rudder. This was supposed to be no accident, but to have been contrived by the owners of the vessel, who did not like the voyage.

The machine meanwhile flies itself, adapting itself automatically to all the differences of wind pressure which, if it had not this natural stability, would need a constant action of the pilot to overcome. All he need do is to maintain it on its course by an occasional movement of the rudder.

Mole, Joe Basalt, Sam Mason, and Jack Tiller. "Now Jack," said Mr. Mole, settling himself comfortably at the rudder lines; "and you too, my dear Harry, you know, of course, we are going shark-fishing. You understand what that is?" "I know what a shark is, if you mean that," answered young Jack. "Rather," said Harry, with a shudder at old recollections "we had a white one after us once."