Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
She was particularly well equipped with boats, too: there were a steam pinnace and a whaler in chocks on the starboard side of the deck- house, balanced by the lifeboat and cutter on the other; and she carried no less than four fine, wholesome boats at her davits aft, all nicely covered over with canvas, to protect them from the sun and also, in one case, to screen from too curious eyes Jack's submarine, which was snugly stowed away in the largest quarter boat, that craft having had her thwarts removed to make room for the submarine.
The Montijos' luggage had been left in the hall of the hotel: there was nothing therefore but for the four seamen to seize it, shoulder it, and carry it down to the pinnace; and this occupied but a few minutes. A quarter of an hour later the party had gained the deck of the yacht, and the pinnace was once more reposing in her chocks on the bridge deck.
The lashings of the boat covers were again looked to, and the boats themselves secured more firmly in their chocks, until finally there remained nothing more possible to be done for security, and the outbreak of the storm could be awaited with reasonable confidence.
Almost everything smashed and parted except the anchor-hold. The chocks were jerked out, the rail torn off, and the very covering-board splintered, and still the anchor held. At last, hoisting the reefed mainsail and slacking off a few of the hard-won feet of the chain, we sailed the anchor out. It was nip and tuck, though, and there were times when the boat was knocked down flat.
Then they attempted sending down the topmasts, but gave it up for lack of strength to get mast-ropes aloft, and attacked instead the boats on the chocks, of which there were four.
The nine others chosen for dawn patrol signaled their readiness. Out came wheel chocks, motors roared into the smooth sound of ripping silk as one by one they lurched down across the field and took the air. The heart of every man in the flight, save McGee's, was racing in tune with his motor. Here was a mission so much more exciting than any dawn patrol. Harass the advancing enemy!
The boat deck was by this time a scene of feverish but orderly activity, every available seaman being mustered there, busily engaged, under the supervision of the chief and second officers, on the task of stripping the boats of their canvas, casting them loose, hoisting them out of their chocks, and swinging them outboard ready for lowering.
By the motion of the ship the buckets struck against the combings of the hatchways with great violence, and in casting them in the hold to fill, they frequently struck on the floating pieces of timber which were generally used as chocks in stowing the hold.
A last relic of it still flutters on blue water in the little ribbons of the wind-vane, on the weather side the poop, aboard sailing ships. The great ship carried three boats, which were stowed on chocks in the waist, just forward of the main-mast, one inside the other when not in use.
They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in his hands. "As I launch her, take the chocks from behind and put them in front," he said in a low voice. Then he laid the oars softly in the bows and dropped the rope into the bottom, and began to push the boat slowly down to the sea.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking