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Updated: May 5, 2025
The variation, trifling as it was, brought the wind on the opposite quarter, and caused the boom that distended her mainsail to gybe. At the same instant, the studding-sails, which had been flapping under the lee of this vast sheet of canvas, swelled to their utmost tension; and the vessel lost little, if any, of the power which urged her through the water.
Paul certainly had the best of the argument; but Shuffles was not convinced, because he did not wish to be convinced. At eight bells, when the first part of the port watch went on duty, the wind had shifted from west to north; the studding-sails had been taken in, the spanker, main spencer, and all the staysails had been set, and the ship, close-hauled, was barely laying her course.
After this, came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle, in the afternoon, with clean duck trowsers, and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it, reading, sewing, and talking at our ease, with a clear sky and warm sun over our heads, a steady breeze over the larboard quarter, studding-sails out alow and aloft, and all the flying kites aboard; we felt that we had got back into the pleasantest part of a sailor's life.
Matters were becoming very serious, when the shot from a gun trained by Captain O'Brien brought down the pirate's fore-topsail yard; the studding-sail booms being carried away at the same time, the studding-sails were seen flapping wildly in the wind. "I am thankful that my old eyes are still of some use," he said, as he saw the effect he had produced. The British crew cheered right lustily.
Two hours later this ship, in company with another still smaller, the Ringdove, 18, left her anchorage, under a cloud of canvas, and stood down the bay, carrying studding-sails on both sides, with a light wind at northwest, heading toward Capri. "Speak to the business, Master Secretary: Why are we met in council?" King Henry VIII.
The Tigris was a fast ship, and she was under top-mast and top-gallant studding-sails at the time, going about seven knots. The brig was on an easy bowline, evidently looking up for our wake, edging off gradually as we drew ahead. She went about nine knots, and bade fair to close with us by noon. There was a good deal of doubt, aft, as to the course we ought to pursue.
After doubling Point Pinos, we bore up, set studding-sails alow and aloft, and were walking off at the rate of eight or nine knots, promising to traverse in twenty-four hours the distance which we were nearly three weeks in traversing on the passage up.
Monday, Feb. 1st. After having been in port twenty-one days, we sailed for San Pedro, where we arrived on the following day, having gone "all fluking," with the weather clew of the mainsail hauled up, the yards braced in a little, and the lower studding-sails just drawing; the wind hardly shifting a point during the passage.
I could see that this was a bitter pill for the haughty don to swallow, but I was politely insistent, and so of course he had to yield, which he eventually did with the best grace he could muster; and an hour later the Dolores, with Christie, the master's mate, in command, and ten of our lads as a prize crew, was bowling along before the wind with studding-sails set aloft and alow, while the Tern followed almost within hail; it being my intention to escort so valuable a prize into port, and thus take every possible precaution against her recapture.
On the fore-mast is a similar sail, which is called the try-sail. Attached to the respective yards of square-rigged ships there are smaller poles or arms, which can be pushed out at pleasure, and the yard lengthened, in order to receive an additional little sailor wing on each side. These wings are called studding-sails or stun-sails, and are used only when the wind is fair and light.
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