United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I had dressed completely ere this, and was trying my best to open the cabin door. If I could get to the centerboard and drop it, I believed the sloop would ride better and could be steered. Those rascals had nailed the door securely, however. The slide in the deck above was fastened on the outside too.
Better to lose a boat than a man any day; that 's what I say. Besides, I should n't have sent you out there. And there 's no harm done. We can pick it up all right. Go in and drop some more centerboard, a couple of feet, and then come out and do what I tell you. But don't be in a hurry. Take it easy and sure." Joe dropped the centerboard and returned, to be stationed at the jib-sheet.
Nelson, at the wheel, waved his hand to them as he hurtled past, and laughed joyously in French Pete's face, who was angered by the dangerous trick. When to leeward, the splendid craft rounded to the wind, rolling once till her brown bottom showed to the centerboard and they thought she was over, then righting and dashing ahead again like a thing possessed.
Yes! there was the beacon at the extreme point of Bolderhead Neck it was just abreast of me as I stood at last upon the sloop's unsteady deck. I leaped down into the cockpit and quickly lowered the centerboard. Almost at once the Wavecrest began to ride more evenly.
He jumped to the stern and caught hold of the skiff's painter. I shoved him out of the way and picked up the boat hook. Jonadab rolled up his shirt sleeves and laid hands on the centerboard stick. "I wouldn't, if I was you," says the cap'n. Jonadab weighs pretty close to two hundred, and most of it's gristle. I'm not quite so much, fur's tonnage goes, but I ain't exactly a canary bird.
"I was not there; I was two hundred miles to the sou'west, first mate of one of those old-fashioned, soft-pine, centerboard barkentines three sticks the same length, you know with the mainmast stepped on the port side of the keel to make room for the centerboard a craft that would neither stay, nor wear, nor scud, nor heave to, like a decent vessel.
But Halvard, in crisp white, standing behind the steaming supper viands, brought his thoughts again to the day's familiar routine. The cabin was divided through its forward half by the centerboard casing, and against it a swinging table had been elevated, an immaculate cover laid, and the yacht's china, marked in cobalt with the name Gar, placed in a polished and formal order.
Under the other lad's directions, Joe flattened down the jib-sheet, and, going into the cabin, let down a foot or so of centerboard. The excitement of the struggle had chased all unpleasant thoughts from his mind. Patterning after the other boy, he had retained his coolness. He had executed his orders without fumbling, and at the same time without undue slowness.
The result is distinctly a Chinese creation, a craft that seems to reflect his personality, that responds to his touch and works with him. She's higher in the bows than an ordinary junk, and lower in the stern; a broad, shallow hull that needs a centerboard on the wind. Of course she's completely decked over for heavy weather.
The place was brightly lighted by a nickeled lamp, though it was scarcely four feet high and the centerboard trunk occupied the middle of it. A wide cushioned locker ran along either side a foot above the floor, and a swing-table, fixed above the trunk, filled up most of the space between.
Word Of The Day