Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
Those who performed the duty were slung in ropes, that they might not be washed away; and hardly was it completed, when a heavy roll, assisted by a jerking heave from a sea which struck her on the chesstree, sent the foremast over the starboard cathead. Thus was the Circassian dismasted in the gale.
The base of the island was still buried in impenetrable gloom. In this perilous extremity, one was for cutting away the anchor, which had been got up to the cathead in time of need; another was for cutting down the foremast, the foretop-mast being already by the board. The fog totally disappeared, and the black, rocky island stood in all its rugged deformity before their eyes.
Having no pilot on board, two midshipmen were stationed at each cathead to look out. Soon after, several lights were seen, which were supposed to be those of the fleet. The Juno accordingly stood on under her topsails till she made out a brig which lay off Point Grandtour, when the captain, finding that he could not weather her, set more sail.
I could not at all make her out. She was not anchored, though a sheet-anchor hung over at the starboard cathead; she was not moored; and two small ice-floes, one on each side, were sluggishly bombarding her bows. I began now to wave the paddle, battling for my breath, ecstatic, crazy with excitement, each second like a year to me.
And whereas we had before ridden buoyantly over the head seas, with nothing worse than an occasional shower of spray flying in over the weather cathead, the frigate now plunged her bows savagely right into the very heart of them, quivering to her keel with the violence of the shock, raising a very hurricane of foam and spray about her figurehead, and shipping the green seas in tons over her forecastle at every dive, while the main tack groaned like a giant in torment as it seemed to strive to tear up the very deck of the ship.
Make it too hot for him on deck, and he'll have to give up, Raoul Yvard or the d l!" "There she is, sir!" shouted a midshipman from a cathead for everybody who dared had crowded forward to get an early look at the chase.
One Sunday morning, in the warm latitudes, while the sea was calm, a young man, on his first voyage, quietly undressed himself, and without a word to any one, thoughtlessly mounted the cathead and plunged into the water. He swam off some distance from the ship, and laughing and shouting, seemed greatly to admire the refreshing exercise.
Accordingly a large chest was roused up from below, and placed athwart-ships on the forecastle, between the bowsprit bitts and the cathead. The parties took their seats on the ends of the chest, facing each other, and the business was to be settled by hard knocks.
By this time we were out from under the shelter of Port Royal Point, and were beginning to feel the first of the jump that the sea-breeze was kicking up outside; but it appeared to make practically no difference in our speed, our abnormally long, keen, wedge-like bow seemed to cleave the seas without effort or resistance as they came at us, while the flaring overhang lifted the little craft buoyantly over them, with nothing worse than a small playful flash and patter of spray in over the weather cathead to tell of the encounter.
Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes. "Brake down, heave y'r anchor to the cathead." The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A nor'west wind filled the schooner's sails, a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking