Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the mainmast head, he received the two ends of the downwardreeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail.
The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands, did duty about the decks and guns, in the setting up and preservation of the rigging, and in the trimming of the braces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary seamen, younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft, furled and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasing work of sailors.
"Fore tack head bowlines of all haul!" yells Mr Howard, and the head yards sweep round and are braced hard up, the fore and main tacks are boarded, the weather braces steadied taut, the weather lifts bowsed up, the bowlines hauled, and away goes the saucy Europa on the other tack, having stayed triumphantly in a wind and sea that would have compelled most ships to wear.
We crossed the bar, all three of us, within a cable's length of each other, and made sail in company, with the wind a trifle abaft the beam. Just as Navesink disappeared, our two men-of-war, merchantmen altered, hauled up on bowlines, and jogged off towards the West Indies, being at the time about a league astern of us.
The smaller of the two sharks was at once hooked, and when dragged up alongside amidships struggled and lashed about so furiously that the big fellow came lumbering up to see what was the matter, and Billy Rotumah, our native boatswain, who was watching for him, promptly drove a harpoon socket deeply into him between the shoulders; then, after some difficulty, a couple of running bowlines settled them both in a comfortable position to be stunned with an axe.
They also have their specific names, as the "weather fore-top-gallant brace," the "lee main brace." The bowlines are ropes attached to the leeches of square sails to draw the edge forward, so that they may take the wind better. They are fastened to the bridles, which are loops like those of a kite, two or three of them extending from the side of the sail.
Our tacks were aboard and the bowlines triced out, and the vessel was scarcely looking up to her course, slightly heeling away from a fiery fanning of wind off the starboard bow, with the sea trembling under the sun in white-hot needles of broken light, and a narrow ribbon of wake glancing off into a hot blue thickness that brought the horizon within a mile of us astern.
The sails were made of matting, with laths placed across them. When it was necessary to reef or lower the sails the seamen climbed up these laths, and standing on the upper yards pressed them down, no down hauls being necessary. Bowlines, however, were used to stretch them out.
Parker had got abeam, and pressing nearer, he compelled la Victoire to haul her bowlines, bringing her completely between two fires. Spar went after spar, and being left with nothing standing but the lower masts, the Plantagenet and Carnatic could not prevent themselves from passing their victim, though each shortened sail; the first being already without a top-sail.
Thus, thus, and no near. Mind your steerage; bring your main-tack aboard. Clear your sheets; clear your bowlines; port, port. Helm a-lee. Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore. Thou art mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with hearing make mention of thy mother. Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster that conned the ship, keep her full, luff the helm. Luff.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking