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Updated: May 19, 2025
"The wind came on towards the afternoon to blow harder and harder; and by nightfall you know it gets dark as soon as the sun goes down in those latitudes we had to shorten sail so much that the Cranky Jane was staggering along at the rate of nearly fourteen knots an hour with reefed top-sails and jib and main-sail besides the stay-sails.
Therefore, one oar was erected for a main-mast, and the other broke to the breadth of the blankets for a yard. The people in the cutter observing what was done in the long-boat, converted a hammock which they had on board into a main-sail.
Then came the final command, "Main-sail haul!" and the Silver Queen came up to the wind slowly. The foretack being then boarded and the main- sheet hauled aft, she heeled over on the starboard tack with the wind well on her starboard beam, heading towards the South Foreland, which she rounded soon after.
He then sprang aft to the tiller, which he seized, shouting at the same time, "To your stations, lads! In with the fore-sail, smartly now." The sail was speedily taken in; the close-reefed main-sail was set; and the moment that the sheet was hauled aft the helm was jammed hard down and the boat brought to the wind, without wasting a moment to watch for a favourable opportunity.
In our engraving we have several cutter-rigged yachts sailing with a light side wind, with main-sail, gaff, fore-sail, and jib set. This is the most elegant and, for small craft, the most manageable vessel that floats. Its proportions are more agreeable to the eye than those of any other species of craft, and its rig is in favour with owners of yachts, especially with those whose yachts are large.
The wind had now got to south-south-east, but continued to blow with great violence, the ship upon this tack lying up south-west, we set the reefed main-sail, and at half past six we saw the land again, through the haze close under our lee bow, and the sea breaking with prodigious force upon it it, was impossible to weather it; therefore we wore the ship immediately, while there was a chance of having room for doing so.
Nails we had only, by drawing them from different parts of the boat; and the rest of the chest was used to kindle a fire. It also happened that our main tarpaulin, which had been newly tarred, was put into the boat. Of it we made a main-sail; and of an old piece of canvas, that had been a sail to a yawl, we made a fore-sail.
The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness.
The best rig of all for a model boat, and indeed for a pleasure-boat, is that which comprises a main-sail, in form like that of a sloop or a cutter, omitting the boom, or lower yard, and a triangular fore-sail extending from near the mast to the bow of the boat or to the end of the bowsprit somewhat like a sloop's jib.
Two or three large schooners were moored along the river's brink, which had here a stone margin; another large and handsome schooner was evidently just finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; the rudiments of another were on the stocks, in a ship-yard bordering on the river. Still another, while I was looking on, came up the stream, and lowered her main-sail, from a foreign voyage.
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