Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
Suddenly there was a loud clap like that of thunder, and what looked for the moment like a white cloud was seen carried away before the blast. It was the fore-topsail which had been blown from the bolt-ropes. The few shreds that remained were quickly wrapped round and round the yard, whence it would be no easy matter to cut them. Still the ship went on under bare poles.
The little captain had not seen her skipper since the day on which the old sail had been blown from the bolt-ropes by the squall; and he ran the Woodville alongside of her, in order "to pass the time of day" with him. "How are you, Captain John?" shouted the young pilot. "Why, Lawry! How are you?" replied the skipper of the sloop. "What are you doing here?" continued Lawry.
"Oh! ay; yes, yes the lady is quite right. We are full jiggered from our dead-eyes to our eye-bolts." "I thought as much, sir, from your ground hamper and top-tackles," added the relict smiling. "For my part there is nothing in nature that I so much admire as a full jiggered ship, with her canvas out of the bolt-ropes, and her clew-lines and clew-garnets braced sharp, and her yards all abroad."
I did not like the state of things, and Toby's teeth began to chatter in his head. It was very dark. The wind roared through the rigging; the sails, extended to the utmost, would, I thought, burst from the bolt-ropes, or carry the stout mast out of the vessel.
"It is not like Captain Kendall to be caught napping when a squall is gathering," added the principal. "I should think the thunder would wake them up. It's heavy for these parts. That squall will come all at once when it does come. It will take their sails right out of the bolt-ropes." Mr.
The canvas had been reduced to a single close-reefed fore-topsail, which so tugged and strained at the mast that every instant it seemed as if about to be torn out of the bolt-ropes. As long as the wind blew from the westward or south-west, the ship could run on with safety till she had got to the eastward of Cuba, and before that time there was every probability of the hurricane ceasing.
"She's a clipper and no mistake when she has the wind abeam: bears her canvas well, too, for a little un!" he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings.
At the same time the two try-sails were hoisted, but they at once blew out of the bolt-ropes. “Don’t you think, sir,” the first lieutenant shouted, “that if we lash a hawser to all this hamper, and hang to it, it will act as a floating anchor, and bring her head up to the wind?” “Very well thought of, Mr. Farrance,” the captain shouted back; “by all means do so.”
Five times he read it; and then, in the language of the poet, hell began to pop! Cappy Ricks came out of a gentle doze to find his big son-in-law waving the telegram under his nose. "Why didn't you tell me?" Matt Peasley bawled, for all the world as if Cappy was a very stupid mate and all the canvas had just been blown out of the bolt-ropes. "Why didn't you ask me, you big stiff?" shrilled Cappy.
Anchors and gear were lost, the sails were torn out of the bolt-ropes, timbers were strained; and for six weeks this state of affairs went on to an accompaniment of thunder and lightning which added to the terror and discomfort of the mariners. This was in August and the first half of September six weeks of the worst weather that Columbus had ever experienced.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking