marline-spikes

Updated: June 6, 2025

"Blatheration!" exclaimed my chum, smacking the butt of his rifle on the deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction. "Ye jist say, now, if we don't join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last noight, alannah.

John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson - Young Tom Bowling: The Boys of the British Navy

This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have seen the decks washed down and scrubbed, when the water would have frozen if it had been fresh; and all hands kept at work upon the rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

Send a man below to get a block, and he would capsize everything before finding it, then not bring it up till an officer had called him twice, and take as much time to put things in order again. Marline-spikes were not to be found; knives wanted a prodigious deal of sharpening, and, generally, three or four were waiting round the grindstone at a time.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have seen the decks washed down and scrubbed when the water would have frozen if it had been fresh, and all hands kept at work upon the rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

Send a man below to get a block, and he would capsize everything before finding it, then not bring it up till an officer had called him twice, and take as much time to put things in order again. Marline-spikes were not to be found; knives wanted a prodigious deal of sharpening, and, generally, three or four were waiting round the grindstone at a time.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

I put a bunch of candles in my pocket they were as hard as a parcel of marline-spikes and took the lanthorn into the passage and inspected the next room.

William Clark Russell - The Frozen Pirate

The crew call him the ``sailor's waiter, as he has to furnish them with spun-yarn, marline, and all other stuffs that they need in their work, and has charge of the boatswain's locker, which includes serving-boards, marline-spikes, &c., &c.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

I must say that I was rather astonished; where were Mr Mortimer and the two men in flaunting liveries, and long cotton epaulettes with things like little marline-spikes hanging to the ends of them? Even the livery was changed, being a plain brown coat, with light blue collar and cuffs.

Frederick Marryat - Jacob Faithful