"Binnacle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing of the fact that my powerlessness to make any provision against bad weather made me indifferent to warnings of coming storms. And then, when I continued my search in the wheel-house, though not very hopefully, all that I discovered there was that the binnacle was empty and that the compass was gone too. In a word, there was absolutely nothing on board the hulk that would enable me to fix my position on the surface of the ocean, or that would guide me should I try the pretty hopeless ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... horizon, as if to catch a recognition of some point of land near by, and walks again. Now he places his body against the spokes, leans forward, and compares the "lay" of the land with points of compass. He will reach his hand into the binnacle, to note the compass with his finger, and wait its traversing motion. Apparently satisfied, he moves his slow way along again; now folding his arms, as if in deep study, then locking his hands behind him, and drooping his head. He paces and paces ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... mizzen-mast, with "haul-yards," travellers, down-hauls, sheets, &c. Her canvas consisted of foresail, mainsail, and mizzen with a yard for each. She carried also a jib, the casks for water and provisions, a boat's "bittacle" ( binnacle), with compass and lamp. She was further furnished with a couple of creeping irons for getting up the smugglers' kegs, a grapnel, a chest of arms and ammunition, the Custom House Jack and spy-glass ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... elapsed from our sailing till our return to New York; though I often used to get a peep at it through a little pane of glass, set in the house on deck, just before the helm, where a watch was kept hanging for the helmsman to strike the half hours by, with his little bell in the binnacle, where the compass was. And it used to be the great amusement of the sailors to look in through the pane of glass, when they stood at the wheel, and watch the proceedings in the cabin; especially when the steward was setting the table for dinner, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... in five hours of the country that we was going to introduce to long drinks and short change the captain calls us over to the starboard binnacle ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... complete. This, with the addition of some sails and tarpaulins stretched on spars, made a very comfortable storehouse and galley. Pieces of planking from the deck were lashed across some spars stuck upright into the snow, and this, with the ship's binnacle, formed an excellent look-out from which to look for seals and penguins. On this platform, too, a mast was erected from which flew the King's flag and the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... the men being on deck, and the boat made fast, Jack and Mesty led the way aft; not a soul was to be seen: indeed, it was too dark to see anybody unless they were walking the deck. The companion-hatch was secured, and the gratings laid on the after-hatchways, and then they went aft to the binnacle again, where there was a light burning. Mesty ordered two of the men to go forward to secure the hatches, and then to remain there on guard—and then the rest of the men and our hero ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing almost unconcernedly beside the binnacle. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... all traces had been lost since she left Bombay two years before. She was now painted entirely black, and a snake had been added for her figurehead. The original name, however, still remained upon the binnacle and ship's bell. Her former armament had been increased and she now carried thirty guns, of which ten ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... Java and Sumatra. Impenetrable darkness shrouds both earth and sea, and only by the light of the electric flash is the mariner shown how to keep off land, and with shortened sail holds on his way. On board of all vessels, on binnacle, masts and spars are hung lighted lanterns in order to avoid collision with each other, for in the thick darkness that envelopes all around, no object can be discerned at a distance of three yards. In the meantime the wind pipes shrilly through the shrouds, and lashes ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... smoky roof of a Philadelphia train-shed, clamorous with the train-bells of a strange town, giving a sense of mystery to the traveler stepping from the car for a moment to stretch his legs; an ugly junction station platform, with resin oozing from the heavy planks in the spring sun; the polished binnacle of the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... forward I met Ransome bringing up the spare binnacle lamp. That man noticed everything, attended to everything, shed comfort around him as he moved. As he passed me he remarked in a soothing tone that the stars were coming out. They were. The breeze ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... button. The screen becomes transparent; and the Negress, brilliantly dressed, appears on what looks like the bridge of a steam yacht in glorious sea weather. The installation with which she is communicating is beside the binnacle. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Addled brains, they forget! O—quartermaster I; yes, the signals set, Hoisted the ensign, mended it when frayed, Polished up the binnacle, minded the helm, And prompt every order blithely obeyed. To me would the officers say a word cheery— Break through the starch o' the quarter-deck realm; His coxswain late, so the Commodore's pet. Ay, and in night-watches long and weary, Bored nigh to death with the navy ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... the binnacle lamp was extinguished, and the light in the cabin burned too dimly to throw the faintest colour upon the hatchway. One thing I quickly noticed, that the gale had broken and blew no more than a fresh breeze. The sea still ran very high, but though every surge continued to hurl its ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... reader, ourselves, and the binnacle, there isn't a living writer—unless it be Clark Russell, and he appeals more to the adult—who can hold a candle, or shall we say a starboard light, to Gordon Stables as a narrator of sea stories for boys. This one is worthy of ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... 'He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the night the smack sank off Telscombe ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... it. Except on Morro Castle at Havana there were no lights on the northern coast of Cuba; if it was cloudy and there happened to be no moon, the darkness was impenetrable; the war-ships did not allow even so much as the glimmer of a binnacle lamp to escape from their lead-colored, almost invisible hulls, as they cruised noiselessly back and forth; and the correspondent on the despatch-boat not only did not know where they were, but had no means whatever of ascertaining ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... had now risen mountains high, and more than once had struck the ship abaft. Kloots was at the binnacle, Hillebrant and Philip at the helm, when a wave curled high over the quarter, and poured itself in resistless force upon the deck. The captain and his two mates were swept away, and dashed almost senseless against the bulwarks—the binnacle ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... what was that?' said the first mate, the light from the binnacle showing his face as ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... they had gone out of my hearing with their exulting smacks, I should not have envied their soup, but their hungry glee so excited my imagination that I could see nothing through the glazing of the binnacle but a white plate with a slice of lemon on the rim, a loaf of delicate bread, a silver spoon, a napkin, two or three wine glasses of different hues and shapes, and a water goblet clustering round it, and a stream of black, thick, and fragrant ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... worn off, a sickly greenish white, and giving a general impression of dirt and want of attention. She was flush-decked, and sat high in the water, with a freeboard of nearly five feet. A little forward of amidships was a small deck cabin containing a brass wheel and binnacle. Aft of the cabin, in the middle of the open space of the deck, was a skylight, the top of which formed two short seats placed back to back. Forward rose a stumpy mast carrying a lantern cage near the top, and still farther forward, almost ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... this place, which I once rather despised, looked most attractive when we came down towards it from the hills. I could see the beautiful, white Snowbird at anchor, looking very small, and the sunlight played on the brass binnacle which shone like a burning light. Near it, very lowly and humble, rode the poor little fishing smacks that are far more important to the world's welfare than our expensive plaything. The crop of drying cod was spread out on the flakes, as usual, and tiny specks of women and children ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... barge, which was decorated with wondrous richness. In the centre stood a cabin, its entablature surmounted with a row of uraeus-snakes, the angles squared to the shape of pillars, and the walls adorned with designs. A binnacle with pointed roof stood on the poop, and was matched at the other end by a sort of altar enriched with paintings. The rudder consisted of two huge sweeps, ending in heads of Hathor, that were fastened with long strips ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... began to feel the sea and swing to it. She was a dark and secret ship: not a light save for the glare of the binnacle-lamp; the only sound the creak of a block, the mutter of canvas, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... sleeping in binnacle; unfortunate discovery—no binnacle on board. Half-the-crew turn over, and suggest that the Irrepressibles take night-caps, and retire anywhere. Moved and seconded, That the Irrepressibles take two night-caps, and retire in a body—item: two heads better than one, two ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... arose like the purring of an enormous cat, and, sure enough, it was nothing else: chained to the foot of the forward binnacle stood a panther, a dark yellow creature with black spots, bigger than Pummy, swinging his tail. Clare turned at the noise he made. The panther made a bound and a leap to the height and length of his chain, and uttered a cry like ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... against the darkening sky, Minot's Light shone. The vessel was heeling slightly in the crisp evening wind, her full, rounded sails rustling overhead, her cordage creaking, foam at her forefoot and her wake stretching backward toward the land she was leaving. Her skipper stood aft by the binnacle, feeling, with a joy quite indescribable, the lift of the deck beneath him and the rush of the breeze ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... assistance of God I kept my feet when they three and one more did strive to throw me down. Feeling the Frenchman which hung about my middle hang very heavy, I said to the boy, 'Go round the binnacle, and knock down that man that hangeth on my back.' So the boy did strike him one blow on the head which made him fall.... Then I looked about for a marlin spike or anything else to strike them withal. But ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... after we were at sea, I saw a group of savages lying round the binnacle, all intently occupied in observing the phenomenon of the magnetic attraction; they seemed at once to comprehend the purpose to which it was applied, and I listened with eager curiosity ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... we driving through these dark waters, and this impenetrable, and seemingly boundless, gloom? The eye rests on the light in the binnacle. We stoop to examine the compass; the card marks S.S.E. Imagination expands the dark horizon. It is not boundless: the island mountain-tops loom in the distance. They beckon us on; we realise them now; at dawn the grey peaks of Cape Corso will ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the mate stood leaning over the rail and uttering directed curses from between sweat-beaded lips. There the big man roamed aimlessly on what seemed to be a tour of casual inspection. Once he stopped to breathe on the brass binnacle and to rub it bright with the dirtiest red bandana handkerchief I ever want ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... tremendous sea broke over the ship, tearing away all her upper works, and sweeping the captain and six of the sailors overboard. The water poured in torrents into the cabins, and drove every one from the berths. The bulwarks, boats, and binnacle were carried clean off, and the mainmast had to be cut away. The sailors then turned the ship about, and after a long and dangerous voyage, succeeded in bringing her, dismasted as she was, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... steer by facts sometimes, than by yarns. It's jest like v'yagin'; yew do'no' sumtimes what's to pay with a compass; it'll go all p'ints to once; mebbe somebody's got a hatchet near by, or some lubber's throwed a chain down by the binnacle, or some darned thing's got inside on't, or it's shipped a sea an' got rusted; but there's allers the Dipper an' the North Star; they're allers true to their bearin's, and you can't go to Davy Jones's locker for want of a light'us so long's they're ahead. I calk'late ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... violent wakefulness by a cannonade of canvas aloft, and found the ship in the wind. I looked aft; the wheel was deserted—at least I believed so, till on rushing to it, meanwhile shouting to the watch on deck, I spied the figure of the helmsman on his face close beside the binnacle. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... is that it adjusts itself to all relations without effort, true to itself always however the manners of those around it may change. Self-respect and respect for others,—the sensitive consciousness poises itself in these as the compass in the ship's binnacle balances itself and maintains its true level within the two concentric rings which suspend it on their pivots. This thorough-bred school-girl quite enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could not understand ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the severe tenue du bord requires that the seaman should be always furnished with those ferocious weapons, which in sundry maritime manoeuvers, such as going to sleep in your hammock for instance, or twinkling a binnacle, or luffing a marlinspike, or keelhauling a maintopgallant (all naval operations, my dear, which any seafaring novelist will explain to you)—I doubt, I say, whether these weapons are ALWAYS worn by sailors, and have heard that they are commonly and very sensibly too, locked ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... never get you round the ship," he said, in an ill-used tone. "Now look here," he began, "this is the saloon-deck, that's the mizzen-mast, and come along here and I'll show you the binnacle." ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... was businesslike and solid even my untrained eye could see. Many of the deck fittings seemed disproportionately substantial. The anchor-chain looked contemptuous of its charge; the binnacle with its compass was of a size and prominence almost comically impressive, and was, moreover the only piece of brass which was burnished and showed traces of reverent care. Two huge coils of stout and dingy warp lay just abaft the mainmast, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... took one of the small lamps from the binnacle, and, holding it aloft, walked boldly up to the cause of alarm. In the little patch of light we saw a ghastly black-bearded man, dripping with water, regarding us with unwinking eyes, which glowed red in the light of ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... bulwarks close to the gangway, watching their operations. I was surprised to find that there were no guns or carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more the appearance of a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth. The masts were clean-scraped and varnished except ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail from Jerry in the hope of verifying his first hasty bearing. But not long he waited. Despite the fact that by his manoeuvre the Arangi had been hove to, he knew that windage and sea-driftage would quickly send her away from ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... with the Milo. I couldn't say when the danger ceased; but I found myself looking at Madame across the binnacle lamp and she was looking at me. My hand went out and I rang down for half-speed, then for dead slow. We stood there and listened while the engines changed their beat from one to the other. In the saloon they had started ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... out on deck, selected a small head of cabbage from a broken crate and hurled it forward. Then he sprang back into the pilot house and straightened the Maggie on her course again. He leaned over the binnacle, with the cuff of his watch coat wiping away the moisture on the glass, and studied the instrument carefully. "I don't trust the danged thing," he muttered. "Guess I'll haul her off a coupler points an' try the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... floating in through the pilot-house windows—all of which the professor thereupon closed— and, seizing the tiller, the lone watcher thrust it gently over, fixing his gaze meanwhile upon the illuminated compass card of the binnacle. Presently a certain point on the compass card floated round opposite the "lubber's mark," whereupon the professor pulled toward him a small lever upon which he had laid his hand, and two slender steel arms forthwith slid in through a slit in the side of the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... but the matches in the ship hung fire; and when a passenger at length produced a light, it was discovered that the lamp in the binnacle was without that essential article, oil. Meanwhile no one had ascertained what had caused the heavy smash at the outset, and certain timid persons, in the idea that a hole had been knocked in the ship's side, were in continual apprehension ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... to say good-bye. There he is over there," and she pointed to the old man polishing the brass work of the binnacle in front of the steering wheel. "I'm going over and speak ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... kept at Coutts's. Then he explained the circumstances of the bet with Bagnigge. Parliament was to adjourn in ten days; the season would be over! Bagnigge was lying ill chez lui; and the five-and-twenty thousand were irrecoverably his. And he vowed he would buy Lord Binnacle's yacht—crew, captain, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... waste of tumultuous water; but when she was borne up on the summit of the enormous waves, you then looked down, as it were, upon a low, sandy coast, close to you, and covered with foam and breakers. "She behaves nobly," observed the captain, stepping aft to the binnacle, and looking at the compass; "if the wind does not baffle us, we shall weather." The captain had scarcely time to make the observation, when the sails shivered and flapped like thunder. "Up with the helm; ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... column were wheel, self-starter switch, spark, throttle and clutch, making it easily possible for one person to operate the boat if necessary. Two seats were built against the after bulkhead, chart boxes flanked the forward hatchway and the binnacle was above the steering column. Forward, the compartment was glassed in, but on other sides khaki curtains were depended on in bad weather. When not in use the curtains rolled up to the edge of the awning, which was set ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... mere courtesy. It was always hungry, even for green wood; and in cold, wet days off the coast of Tierra del Fuego it stood me in good stead. Its one door swung on copper hinges, which one of the yard apprentices, with laudable pride, polished till the whole thing blushed like the brass binnacle of ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the Ocean's cabins were on the main deck, and also on the raised half-deck at the stern, near the wheel, the binnacle and the officers' corned-beef tubs, swinging in their frames. From this upper deck two flights of steps led down to the main deck below. At the top of one of these flights stood young Pearson, cool and alert. Behind him half crouched the Japanese steward, evidently very much frightened. At ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... afterwards. It is a great improvement on the older instrument, being steadier, less hampered by friction, and the deviation due to the ship's own magnetism can be corrected by movable masses of iron at the binnacle. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... care, launching our patched shallop from the stocks—for the ship-boat was too small to carry six safely—we got quietly away. Rowing with silent stroke, we came alongside the sloop. No light burned save that in the binnacle, and all hands, except the watch, were below ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... climbed the poop. In the lee of the chart-house Captain West and the pilot were pacing slowly up and down. Passing on aft, I saw steering at the wheel the weazened little old man I had noted earlier in the day. In the light of the binnacle his small blue eyes looked more malevolent than ever. So weazened and tiny was he, and so large was the brass-studded wheel, that they seemed of a height. His face was withered, scorched, and wrinkled, and ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... changed my clothes I went up on to the platform, and, a prey to conflicting emotions, I sat down near the binnacle. Captain Nemo joined me. I rose ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... through the ship, seeing that all the candles were extinguished, or that the hoods were drawn over the sky-lights, in such a way as to conceal any rays that might gleam upwards from the cabin. At the same time attention was paid to the binnacle lamp. This precaution observed, the people went to work to reduce the sail, and in the course of twenty minutes they had got in the studding-sails, and all the standing canvas to the topsails, the fore-course, and a forward stay-sail. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... same, azimuths gave 24 deg. 12' and an amplitude 23 deg. 43' west; the mean 5 deg. 35' less than off the Start. The same compass was always used, and the ship's head was at west (magnetic), or within one point of it, in all the cases; but in the first observations the compass was placed on the binnacle, and in the last, was upon the booms. In order to ascertain clearly what effect this change of place did really produce, I took observations a few days afterward [MONDAY 27] with every compass on board, and Mr. Thistle did the same ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... trust too much to that Dillon, sir," returned the anxious boy, in a whisper; "if you had seen his face, as I did, when the binnacle light fell upon it, as he came up the cabin ladder, you would put no ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and saw, as the professor had stated, that with every movement of the tiller, right or left, up or down, the propeller inclined itself at a corresponding angle. A handsome binnacle compass stood immediately in front of the tiller, but the professor did not call attention to it, rightly assuming that his companions were fully acquainted with its ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sulphurous smell in the atmosphere; and the air was so full of electricity that a quite perceptible shock was to be felt if the bare hand were placed on metal, especially upon the copper fittings of the binnacle. A feeling of vague uneasiness seemed to have taken possession of every man on board; and tempers were short almost to the point of acerbity. The petty officers could be heard snarling at the men, the officers grumbled at their subordinates, and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... if he had been baptised at all. He stood so motionless at the helm, that you might have imagined him to have been frozen there as he stood, were it not that his eyes occasionally wandered from the compass on the binnacle to the bows of the vessel, and that the breath from his mouth, when it was thrown out into the clear frosty air, formed a smoke like to that from the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... near the binnacle talking to the steersman, a sturdy middle-aged sailor, whose breadth appeared to be nearly equal to ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... his cabin, and Scott walked aft to the compass abaft the mainmast. The binnacle was lighted, and he looked into it. The course was all right, though the ship yawed a good deal in the trough of the sea, the gale pelting her squarely on the beam. Though it was not an easy thing even for a thorough seaman to preserve his centre ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... to Comox with a strong northerly wind. If the sloop would face the sea that was running he might return with assistance before his comrade's scanty store was exhausted. Getting out the mildewed chart, he laid off his course, carefully trimmed and lighted the binnacle lamp, and going up on deck hauled in the kedge-anchor. He could not break the main one out, though he worked savagely with a tackle, and deciding to slip it, he managed to lash three reefs in the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... of the paddle wheels began to turn; and La Luz, long, low, narrow, and a racer, moved noiselessly out into the bay. A few yards only, and the loungers on the wharf could neither see nor hear her. Except for the muffled binnacle light, there was neither a ray nor a spark. The anthracite gave almost no smoke. The hull, hardly three feet above water amidships, was "Union color," and invisible at night. The waves slipped over her like oil, without the sound of a splash, almost without breaking. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... gale! It's a typhoon!" the sailing-master shouted to Chris at eleven o'clock. "Too much canvas! Got to get two more reefs into that mainsail, and got to do it right away!" He glanced at the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding on for dear life. "There's only you and I, Chris—and the cook; but ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... believe I may be said to be constant. I don't know how it is with you, Sir Wycherly, but every thing I am accustomed to I like. Now, here I have sailed with both these gentlemen, until I should as soon think of going to sea without a binnacle, as to go to sea without 'em both—hey! Atwood? Then, as to the ship, my flag has been flying in the Plantagenet these ten years, and I can't bear to give the old craft up, though Bluewater, here, would have turned her over to an inferior after three years' service. I tell ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper |
