United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We rescued him and handed him over to his mates, who had rowed back to his assistance. On our return voyage through the North Sea we met a large sailboat, with the Swedish flag flying from the topmast. She lay completely becalmed, and signaled for us to draw near.
Of course I should have liked to send down the royal and topgallant yards, and to have housed the fore topgallant mast and main topmast, and I would have attempted it had we had a decently willing crew; but I doubted whether the Dagoes would have undertaken the job, except under compulsion; and I was unwilling to engage in a tussle with a crowd of insubordinates with a hurricane threatening to burst upon us at any moment.
But the Gloucester craft crept up, passed, and with an ironical dip of their little flags raced on to the Banks. Cape Sable was not yet out of sight when a topmast on the Rosan broke off short in a sudden squall. Bijonah Tanner immediately laid her to and set all hands to work stepping his spare spar, as he would not think of returning to a shipyard.
They leaned on each side of the door peacefully interested and with crossed legs; they stood astride the doorstep discoursing, or sat in silent couples on his sea-chest; while against the bulwark along the spare topmast, three or four in a row stared meditatively; with their simple faces lit up by the projected glare of Jimmy's lamp.
With the aid of the winch the two men succeeded in getting the main- topmast staysail set, after which they hauled out the spanker. They were now running for the passage between the two bluffs, with the wind over their starboard quarter, the ship in her best possible sailing trim going through the water at a speed of nearly three knots.
Then before we could get clear of this, the Spaniard came to the wind and sent a broadside that shot away our mizzen and main topmast and fore topsail yards, and played sad havoc with our braces and bowlines. In this condition, and being now almost under the guns of the forts, we had to discontinue the fight, and with the Lucy, haul off.
We had had a new topmast studding-sail made with a reef in it, a thing hardly ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal, saying that when it was time to reef a studding-sail, it was time to take it in. But we found a use for it now; for, there being a reef in the topsail, the studding-sail could not be set without one in it also.
We ought to get sail on forward in less than a week, and then, with a jury topmast, make enough way to get in while the grub holds out." The steward got breakfast in the after-cabin, and as soon as the men had eaten they were turned to rigging tackles to hoist the dragging foremast aboard.
Then we will loose and set the fore and main topsail and fore topmast staysail, slip the cable, and work the ship out between the Heads into the lagoon. Once there, we are safe; we can heave-to, and hoist the two quarter boats to the davits, then put on the hatches, and hoist in the longboat, with no fear that anyone can possibly interfere with us.
The foremast was stepped well forward, almost over the spring of the cutwater. If it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees, judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. Masts were pole-masts until early in the reign of Elizabeth, when a fixed topmast was added.
Word Of The Day