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Updated: May 28, 2025
Now the manner in which we secured the masts, before ever we came to the rigging of them, was by lashing them to the stumps of the lower-masts, and after we had lashed them, we drove dunnage and wedges between the masts and the lashings, thus making them very secure.
"Now, as to the brig, it's my opinion as they means to careen her, just as we've done with our little barkie. They've been working like galley- slaves aboard there all day, and have stripped her to her lower-masts. The sails are all gone ashore, for I saw 'em lowered over the side into the boats with these same two good-looking eyes of mine, but the spars is still aboard.
As the lower-masts of a large ship are from five to six feet in circumference, it is manifest that some powerful mechanical contrivance is required to raise them over the bulwarks, and put them in an upright position, into their appointed places.
In most large ships there are three masts, each having three parts. The centre mast, being the largest, is the main-mast; the front one, which is next in size, is the fore-mast; and the one next the stern, the smallest, is called the mizzen. Although we have spoken of lower-masts for the sake of clearness, the name is never used. The name of the mast itself designates the lower part of it.
They report that last Saturday, between three and four P.M. they saw two three-deckers and three seventy-fours arrive at Cadiz from Ferrol; that the Santissima Trinidad, another Spanish three-decker, is completed and ready in that harbour; and that they are fitting out five other line-of-battle ships at Cadiz, which have their lower-masts in; that, in order to man the said ships, they are detaining all the crews of the French privateers; that those eleven ships are to be commanded by French officers; and they say the five ships in the Caraccas will soon be ready, that they observed a number of seamen rigging them.
She was launched with her two lower-masts in, and was at once taken up the harbour and moored opposite Mr White's warehouse, where the work of rigging her and getting her guns and stores on board was forthwith commenced.
The top-gallant masts can also be lowered, but the lower-masts, of course, are fixtures. The bowsprit of a ship is a mast which projects out horizontally, or at an angle, from the bow. It is sometimes in two or three pieces, sometimes only in one. To it are attached the jib-sail and the flying-jib, besides a variety of ropes and stays which are connected with and support the fore-mast.
And so, having gotten in our three jury lower-masts, we hoisted up the foreyard to the main, to act as our mainyard, and did likewise with the topsail-yard to the fore, and after that, we sent up the t'gallant-yard to the mizzen.
"And a very creditable `all, too," answered the Admiral, evidently well pleased. "And what about your seamanship?" he continued. "I believe I am pretty good at that too, sir," I said. "I was at Portsmouth, in the dockyard, every day during the fitting-out of the frigate, and watched the whole process of rigging her. When I first saw her she had nothing standing but her three lower-masts."
As the men worked with spirit, and a strong party remained below to give the drags, and to come up the lanyards, spar came down after spar with rapidity, and just as the sun dipped into the ocean to the westward, everything but the lower-masts was lying on the sands, alongside of the ship; nothing having been permitted to touch the decks in descending.
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