Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
The after yards are then trimmed, the captain generally looking out for them himself. ``Well the cross-jack yard! ``Small pull the main top-gallant yard! ``Well that! ``Well the mizzen topsail yard! ``Cross-jack yards all well! ``Well all aft! ``Haul taut to windward! Everything being now trimmed and in order, each man coils up the rigging at his own station, and the order is given, ``Go below the watch!
All the hides, too, that came down in the boats were soaked with water, and unfit to put below, so that we were obliged to trice them up to dry, in the intervals of sunshine or wind, upon all parts of the vessel. We got up tricing-lines from the jib-boom-end to each arm of the fore yard, and thence to the main and cross-jack yard-arms.
Inch by inch we floated forward, until I could see clearly the hat and coat-collar of the man who was leaning against the rail. It was Kipping. From forward came the cautious voices of the watch. The light revealed the masts and rigging of the ship for forty or fifty feet from the deck, but beyond the cross-jack yard all was hazy, and the cabin seemed in the odd shadows twice its real size.
"Raise tacks and sheets!" says the captain; "tacks and sheets!" is passed forward, and the fore tack and main sheet are let go. The next thing is to haul taught for a swing. The weather cross-jack braces and the lee main braces are each belayed together upon two pins, and ready to be let go; and the opposite braces hauled taught.
Suddenly the mizzen royal disappeared, followed by the top-gallant sail, topsail, and cross-jack courses, seeming to melt away under the eye like a misty veil, while, almost in a moment of time, there appeared a spanker, gaff topsail and gaff top-gallantsail in their place, while the vessel still held on her course.
All the hides, too, that came down in the boats, were soaked with water, and unfit to put below, so that we were obliged to trice them up to dry, in the intervals of sunshine or wind, upon all parts of the vessel. We got up tricing-lines from the jib-boom-end to each arm of the fore yard, and thence to the main and cross-jack yard-arms.
He made a sign to the mate, who came forward, took his station deliberately between the knight-heads, cast a glance aloft, and called out ``All hands, lay aloft and loose the sails! We were half in the rigging before the order came, and never since we left Boston were the gaskets off the yards, and the rigging overhauled, in a shorter time. ``All ready forward, sir! ``All ready the main! ``Cross-jack yards all ready, sir! ``Lay down, all hands but one on each yard! The yard-arm and bunt gaskets were cast off; and each sail hung by the jigger, with one man standing by the tie to let it go.
"She's had a pretty tough fight of it," said Hagger as we gazed at her. Her fore-topgallant main and cross-jack yard were shot away, her yards, rigging, and sails sadly cut up, but what injuries her hull had received we could not make out. I was one of the boat's crew.
There is a middy about half M-'s size, a very tiny ten-year-older, who has been my delight; he is so completely 'the officer and the gentleman'. My maternal entrails turned like old Alvarez, when that baby lay out on the very end of the cross-jack yard to reef, in the gale; it was quite voluntary, and the other newcomers all declined.
He had, I considered, fairly won the right to cob all the party; but, grown bold by his success, he descended by the lift to the topsail yard-arm, and was about to stoop down to traverse the brace to the mainmast, when, from hearing Spellman's shout, he looked up, and, missing his grasp, over he went headlong into the water. I was at the time on the cross-jack yard. I ran to the end.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking