"Seamanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English admiral and "Sea King," born at Bridgewater; successful as a soldier under the Commonwealth, before he tried seamanship; took first to sea in pursuit of Prince Rupert and the royalist fleet, which he destroyed; beat the Dutch under Van Tromp de Ruyter and De Witt; sailed under the great guns of Tunis into the harbour, where he fired a fleet of Turkish pirates; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of New England, the middle provinces, and the Virginias, sailing to the West Indies with their cargoes of salt fish, grain, and tobacco. Trading became almost as dangerous as privateering, and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... on the point of surrender, as often plucked up hope; as the minutes wore on and he kept above water, he began to believe that if he could stick it out his judgment and seamanship would be justified ... though human ingenuity backed by generosity could by no means contrive adequate ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Dixon had never made a mistake in seamanship he must have thought out the possibilities of this mistake in all their bearings. For the situation was quite clear and compact in his mind. The orders he gave came in their proper sequence and were given to ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... baffled them, as it had some of the bad people. The people whom circumstances had made good people were so sure of themselves. She had observed that it was from those who had never sailed stormy waters came the quickest and harshest judgments on bad seamanship in heavy seas. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his mind that they must ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a handsome young man, with a noble face, whom the pirates kept among them by force on account of his superior knowledge of seamanship; his gentle nature and kind heart were known to the whole band, for he protected all who fell into their hands, as far as lay in his power, frequently paying their ransom out of his own pocket; his entreaties ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... you suppose Rigby was appointed Paymaster of the Forces because of his fitness? Why was North himself made Prime Minister? For his abilities?" And he broke down again. "Ask Jack, here, how he got into the service, and how much seamanship he knows." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... He was a thorough English sailor;—could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated —— of Boston,—and left her, as he told her agent, "because he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... anchored, when soon afterwards it came on to blow very hard, and at eleven she began to drive. More cable was veered away, and this brought her up; but in the morning, it coming on to blow harder, she drove again. All the appliances of seamanship were put into operation, but still she drove, when topgallant masts were got down, and yards and topmasts struck; and now, at length, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... slow—rapid in comparison with the progress of the old stone age, but slow in comparison with this new age of systematic discovery in which we live. They did not very greatly alter the weapons and tactics of warfare, the methods of agriculture, seamanship, their knowledge of the habitable globe, or the devices and utensils of domestic life between the days of the early Egyptians and the days when Christopher Columbus was a child. Of course, there were inventions and changes, but there were also retrogressions; things were found out ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American merchantman was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972. A heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the master of the Brazilian permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last of a long series of outrages upon our commerce. God alone knows how many hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the roving steel ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with a dense spray, and the main deck was all afloat. There were no orders heard, none given, nothing but the monotonous beat of the paddles and the roar of the wind, and the crew were all under shelter, for it was no longer a question of seamanship, but of steam-power; only the commander pacing the bridge to and fro, like a polar hear in a cage, and the engineers changing their watch, broke the monotony of the merciless blue day, for, except a little flying scud, the sky was as blue as ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... stranger. "But surely you are somewhat late in following the paternal craft; you do not learn seamanship in ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the contrary, trusting to their superior seamanship, were formed opposite with their ships all in single line, with the special object of manouvring so as either to break the enemy's line or to wheel round them. Callicratidas commanded the right wing in person. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a grave, solemn old North-Sea whaler with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... these men, their marvelous seamanship, and their survival of all the perils of their thousands of miles' voyage were not lessened in interest or admiration by their personality. But one realized daily, as one saw them chewing their quids, devouring rudely the courses served by Lovaina, or talking ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... him. He commenced going to sea when only twelve years old, by shipping for a four months' trip in a banker; and in the space of fourteen years, which have since elapsed, he has not been on shore as many months. He is complete in every particular of seamanship, and is, besides, a tolerably scientific navigator. He knows the color and taste of the water all along shore from Cape Farewell to the Horn, and can tell the latitude and longitude of any place on the chart without consulting ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the ten officers who messed with Scott in the small wardroom of the Discovery was Lieutenant A. B. Armitage, R.N.R. He brought with him not only an excellent practical seamanship training in sailing ships, but also valuable Polar experience; for the P. and O. Company, in which he held a position, had in 1894 granted him leave of absence to join the ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... does not batter itself to pieces on the cliffs. The watchman sings himself to sleep with a most beautiful ballad. The sky darkens, the sea boils more furiously than ever, and the phantom ship arrives. With a prodigious uproar her anchor takes ground—another evidence of Wagner's seamanship—and Vanderdecken comes ashore in his turn. His seven years are up; now he has another chance of finding the faithful maiden. The opening of this scene is as fine as anything Wagner ever wrote; the later ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... was commanded by Captain William Bainbridge. Before this, he had done some feats of seamanship, but thus far in his career he had not been fortunate. As you remember, Captain Bainbridge, through no fault of his own, lost the Philadelphia off ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... enjoyed arguing and quarreling over the minister's visit to Come-Outer meeting, and, during the fracas, Keziah's parson might have been more or less battered. But Captain Nat's brilliant piloting of the old packet was a bit of seamanship which every man and woman on that foam-bordered stretch of sand could understand and appreciate, and the minister's indiscretion was all but forgotten in consequence. The "Daily Advertisers" gloated over it, of course, and Captain Elkanah brought ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... been called "The Navigator." He took up his residence on a lonely promontory in southern Portugal, and gathered about him learned men of all peoples, Arabian and Jewish mathematicians, and Italian mapmakers. Captains trained in this new school of seamanship were sent into the southern seas. Each was to sail farther down the western coast of Africa than other captains had gone. Before Prince Henry died in 1460 his captains had passed Cape Verde, and ten years later they crossed the equator without suffering the ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... Aven was fraught with all the dangers of the sea. We had secured another crew in Archangel but their seamanship was bad. When a sudden storm would strike us it required herculean efforts on the part of the captain and Donovan to prevent the ship from being driven ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... his sister's plans for him to Lord Ipsden, and affected to doubt their prudence. The bait took; Lord Ipsden wrote to his man of business, and an unexpected blow fell upon the ingenious Flucker. He was sent to school; there to learn a little astronomy, a little navigation, a little seamanship, a little manners, etc.; in the mysteries of reading and writing his sister had already perfected him by dint of "the taws." This school was a blow; but Flucker was no fool; he saw there was no way of getting from school to sea without ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... failed to answer her helm. It was more often the man at the helm than the sailing quality of the vessel that was at fault, and the marvel is that she was of sufficiently tough construction to be able to stand the stress incurred by indifferent seamanship. ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... however, the supernatural appearances are never explained away, and the ghostly agencies are introduced in the spirit of serious, if somewhat melodramatic, romance. Marryat's personal experience enabled him, with little research, to produce a life-like picture of old Dutch seamanship, and his powers in racy narrative have transformed the Vanderdecken legend into a stirring tale of terror. The plot cannot be called original, but it is more carefully worked out and, from the nature of the material at hand, more effective than most of Marryat's own. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was no doubt about it. He had allowed the schooner to lag when she could have been driven ahead. Whether this was due to Jarrow's deliberate contrivance, or was the result of a tacit acceptance of Peth's dilatory ways in seamanship, Trask had no means of determining with accuracy. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... I desired death as eagerly as he did at the time, yet now I would instinctively have resisted. Seamanship teaches scorn of death but still greater scorn for bad man?uvring. "Blockhead!" I cried out, hastily cutting the taut rope so that the sail fluttered out into the wind like a half-escaped bird. But ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... name, and constant watchfulness was necessary. The name "Lorton" had not yet become familiar to her ears. Often when addressed, she caught herself thinking that some one else was spoken to. But after all, as to the question of Windham's seamanship, that was a thing which was not at all wonderful, since every Englishman of any rank is supposed to own a yacht, and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... represented as a bluff, blunt, but cheerful sailor—fond of amusing his shipmates with acrostics on the names of their mistresses—with little learning except in seamanship, and what he had picked up in his travels. His smaller pieces scarcely deserve criticsm. His whole reputation now reposes on the one pillar of his one ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... a sinking heart that he stepped into the frail skiff, which seemed scarcely more than a nutshell upon the tempestuous deep. He was on the point of asking his servant, unacquainted though he was with seamanship, to be the third man in the boat; but the latter, anticipating his intention, had made haste to betake himself away. To venture out into this roaring darkness, with no beacon to guide them, and scarcely a landmark discernible, was indeed to ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... listened to some suggestions of mine and were re-organising the service down at the Porth. And it was now my hope that John Emmet might become coxswain of the boat as soon as he had local knowledge to back up the seamanship and aptitude for command in which I knew him to excel every man in the Porth. There were jealousies, of course: but he wrangled with no man, and in the end I had my way pretty easily. Within four years of his coming John Emmet knew more of Menawhidden than any man in the parish; possibly more than ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... great misfortune, and owing to the lack of foresight on the part of the master, who was obstinate, but little acquainted with seamanship, and trusting only his own head. He was a good carpenter, skilful in building vessels, and careful in provisioning them with all necessaries, but in no wise adapted to ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... and quite disproportioned to the importance of his antagonist. It was in fact the unimportance of the occasion that made him thus yield to his feeling. As soon as he saw that bad weather was coming, and that careful seamanship was wanted, his coolness returned, his language became guarded and careful, and passion, though it might increase the force of his oratory, never made him deviate a hand's breadth from the course ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... anything so precious, in his estimate of things, as a word; but he lifted a great brawny hand, and gave a snap with his finger and thumb that disposed of the mate's pretensions to seamanship more expressively than words could ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... to the first and second divisions marched down to the seamanship building, there to get their first lessons in seamanship. This began at eight o'clock, lasting until 9.30. During the same period the men who belonged to the third and fourth divisions received instruction in discipline and ordnance. In ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... pockets,—English Board of Trade certificates, too,—who could work a double altitude if you would lend them a sextant and give them a look at the chronometer, as well as many a man who commands a big square-rigger. Navigation ain't everything, nor seamanship, either. You've got to have it in you, if ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... trade or in warfare, good ships and good seamanship were indispensable to them. They became the boldest sailors of the early Middle Ages. No longer hugging the coast, as timid mariners had always done before them, the Northmen pushed out into the uncharted main and steered their course only by observation of the sun and stars. In this way the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... from his father. On one occasion when his father set his younger brother before him as a model of industry in the pursuit of science, he replied that he would make a very good archbishop of Canterbury. For one who was to wear the crown skill in arms and knowledge of seamanship seemed to him indispensable; he made it his most zealous study to acquire both the one and the other. His intention undoubtedly was to make every provision for the great war against the Spanish monarchy which was anticipated. He wished to escort ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... There is some question whether this was a blessing or the reverse. No doubt a thorough college training would have made Cooper incapable of the loose and turgid style which characterizes all his novels; but, on the other hand, he left college to enter the navy, and there gained that knowledge of seamanship and of the ocean which make his sea stories the best of their kind that have ever been written. His sea career was cut short, just before the opening of the war of 1812, by his marriage into an old Tory family, who insisted that he resign ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... the hurricane and suffered even more heavily. While mourning the brave officers and men who died facing with high resolve perils greater than those of battle, it is most gratifying to state that the credit of the American Navy for seamanship, courage, and generosity was magnificently sustained in the storm-beaten harbor ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... dangers of the situation, but he had been long accustomed to face all the dangers peculiar to his calling on the deep without flinching—strong in the confidence of his well-tried courage and seamanship, and stronger still in his trust in Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand. Many a time had he been becalmed in fog on the North Sea. He knew what to do, kept the fog-horn blowing, and took all the steps for safety that were possible ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... as what you please," answered the captain, with an ironical smile. "Our fathers, at any rate, were all good Catholics once. But seamanship and the altar are the best of friends, living quite independent ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a great deal; especially after the death of the 'patron.' He was of great assistance to me and to Hoel Grall, the second in command, by reason of his knowledge of seamanship." ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... are still somewhat small, I have asked Mr Oldershaw—one of the mates—to stand your friend, and he will give you a help also in navigation. And, Ben, mind, do not you be ashamed of asking him anything you want to know. You may live a long time on board ship, and still learn nothing about seamanship, if you do not keep your eyes open, and try to get others to explain what you do not understand." As Mr Schank spoke, he beckoned to a grey-headed old mate who just then came on deck. "This is the youngster ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... Malden of a ten-gun ship called the Detroit, which was to be added to his force, and he therefore put into that harbor.[1] Perry improved the delay to exercise his crews, largely made up of soldiers, in seamanship. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... had once been a merchantman brig; so much Anthony could tell, though he knew little of seamanship; but she had been armed heavily with deep bulwarks of timber, pierced for a dozen guns on each broadside. Now, however, she was in a terrible condition. The solid bulwarks were rent and shattered, as indeed was her whole hull; near the waterline were nailed sheets of lead, plainly in order ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... themselves and others. The method is summed up in the term "scoutcraft" and is a combination of observation, deduction and handiness—or the ability to do. Scoutcraft consists of "First Aid," Life Saving, Tracking, Signalling, Cycling, Nature Study, Seamanship and other instruction. This is accomplished in games and team play and in pleasure, not work, for the boy. The only equipment it needs is the out-of-doors, a group of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... dared to go she followed. Did I climb to the highest girder in the barn and balance myself on the dizzy height, she was with me. Did I venture to run the wildest rapids of the creek in the clumsy box which I called my canoe, she trusted her newest frock and ribbons to my seamanship. And better than all was the respect and admiration in which she held me. To her I was no longer the frightened, shivering boy of the mountain brook. I was in a land I knew and followed its familiar ways without fear. One ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... been necessary for us to attend to the defects of Arabic geography, in order to understand how in the long Saracen control of the world's trade routes and of geographical tradition, science and seamanship were so little advanced. Between Ptolemy and Henry of Portugal, between the second and the fifteenth centuries, the only great extension of men's knowledge of the world was: (1) in the extreme north, where the semi-Christian, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... (Fig. 57). The sailor's knot par excellence, however, is the "Bow-line" (Fig. 58), and wherever we find sailors, or seamen, we will find this knot in one or another of its various forms. When you can readily and surely tie this knot every time, you may feel yourself on the road to "Marline-spike Seamanship," for it is a true sailor's knot and never slips, jams, or fails; is easily and quickly untied, and is useful in a hundred places around boats or in fact in any walk of life. The knot in its various stages is well shown in Fig. 59 and by following these illustrations ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... efforts and good seamanship, Captain Davis with his officers and crew held their own. The land parties assisted in the general work, constantly tightening up the lashings and lending "beef," a sailor's term for man-power, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... numerous as to require the exclusive attention of all or nearly all the military force of England, appeared to him only a source of national weakness. His own achievements at Valdivia and elsewhere showed him that skilful seamanship on the part of an invader would render them much less sufficient for the defence of the country than was generally supposed. If all our soldiers were scattered along various parts of the coast, it would not be difficult for the enemy, by a bold and sudden onslaught, or ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... bless God that we have received no greater disasters this year than we have, though they have been the greatest that ever was known in England before, put all their losses of the King's ships by want of skill and seamanship together from the beginning. He being gone, comes Sir G. Carteret, and he and I walked together awhile, discoursing upon the sad condition of the times, what need we have, and how impossible it is to get money. He told me my Lord Chancellor the other day did ask him ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his discharges confirms his claim, slight as it is, to seamanship, and Duncan M'Innes, of Sleat, in Skye, after being cautioned as to his obligations, signs ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... agreement between us two, an' because I'm man enough to figger there's certain rights due you as owner o' the Maggie. But don't you forget that accordin' to the records o' the Inspector's office, I'm master of the Maggie, an' the way I figger it, whenever there's any call to show a little real seamanship, that gentleman's agreement ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... moneyless, determined to face whatever fate had decreed for me. Mr. King soon asked me what I could do; and at the same time said he did not mean to treat me as a common slave. I told him I knew something of seamanship, and could shave and dress hair pretty well; and I could refine wines, which I had learned on shipboard, where I had often done it; and that I could write, and understood arithmetic tolerably well as far as the Rule of Three. He then asked me if I knew any ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... ship, where the captain walks. His business is to carry the glass on the look-out for sails; hoist or lower the colors; and keep an eye on the helmsman. Picked out from the crew for their superior respectability and intelligence, as well as for their excellent seamanship, it is not unusual to find the quartermasters of an armed ship on peculiarly easy terms with the commissioned officers and captain. This birth, therefore, placed Israel in official contiguity to Paul, and without subjecting either to animadversion, made their public intercourse on ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... drawbacks, a source of pleasure. At Cowes she was always on deck, card in hand, to see the starts in the various matches. At sea she enjoyed the fair breezes, and took a deep interest in estimating the daily run, in which she was generally wonderfully exact. She had a great faculty for seamanship, and knew as well as anybody on board what should be done and what ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... and River St. Lawrence spell death to an incompetent sailor. The fogs, the numerous shoals and islands, make skillful seamanship necessary. It is a long journey from Boston to Quebec by water. For three weeks, however, all went well. On the 22d of August, Walker was out of sight of land in the Gulf where it is about seventy miles wide above the Island ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... combination of individual meannesses for the general good,"—he at least had sacrificed nothing of his convictions, had not worked for his own elevation, or smirched his hands. And, unproved though he was as to administrative power and seamanship in a cyclone, there was yet a singular and intrinsic fitness in his candidacy. His recognized quality was that which is basal and dear to the common people, honesty; honesty in thought, word and act. In his ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... one vessel, called the weakest of all, reached Spain. This ship carried four thousand pieces of gold, which were the property of the Admiral. Columbus's own little squadron, meanwhile—thanks probably to the seamanship of himself and his brother—weathered the storm, and he found refuge in the harbor which he had himself named "the beautiful," El Hermoso, in the western ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... was raised, commanding the principal harbours on the south coast; and a few ships, secretly prepared, were suddenly sent out under competent captains, to teach the channel pirates a lesson in English seamanship; ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... trade of England, but much of the commerce of the world. It is perhaps the port more intimately connected than any in Europe with the American continent. It is between your quays and those of New York, that a steam service is conducted with the certainty and regularity which tells of the ablest seamanship, and it is by your river that the fine Canadian vessels of the Allan Line come, the magnificent representatives of the prospering mercantile marine of the Dominion, and proud may that country be of such a fleet. Your address shows ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... R. H. Lee and John Adams. At a session of Congress on the 9th of November, 1775, a resolution was passed authorizing the creation of two battalions of marines. They were to be composed only of those acquainted with seamanship. This same committee on the 23d of November reported certain rules for the government of the navy, which were adopted on the 28th (see journal of Congress 1, page 255). On the 2d of December the committee was authorized to prepare a commission for the captains ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... Ten years has he been learning his soldier's trade in silence. He will take a lesson in seamanship next. The court may come in time: for by now the poor squire's younger son must have discovered—perhaps even too fully—that he is not as other men are; that he can speak, and watch, and dare, and endure, as none around him can do. However, there are 'good ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... regular gale. The wind and sea roared, the rain poured down in torrents, and the night seemed to me to be the darkest I had ever known. But on board the "Swallow" we had no fear. We trusted to the seamanship of our skipper and the goodness of our vessel, and went to bed with minds as free from fear as if the sea were ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer, exclaimed, "There's an end to seamanship." More correctly he might have predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges time and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic. Countries once distant and little known are at this day ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... is called. All the officers are present. The cadets are again inspected, and they are marched off to their various studies for the morning. Mathematics and navigation are learned with the naval instructors. Then there are French and drawing, English, seamanship, instruments and charts, natural philosophy and many difficult things which it is considered necessary for these little fellows to master before they are fit to go to sea. If we visit them in their class-rooms, we shall see very light cheery rooms built on the upper deck, so that ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... indifference. There were but fifty experienced seamen in the British ships, the remainder of the crews consisting of two hundred and forty soldiers and eighty Canadian volunteer sailors, who had no proper training in seamanship and gunnery. While Barclay was obliged to enter the contest with his fleet thus wretchedly equipped, Perry had a force of over five hundred men, hardy frontiersmen and experienced soldiers, and a sufficiency of trained seamen to work his squadron in any weather or circumstance. ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... himself the registered owner of his yacht, and acted as his own skipper when on board; and as his men had been with him in other yachts, of which he had been the owner, they had confidence in him, as they had seen his courage and seamanship again and again put ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... on board during the afternoon—men who, as Captain Cable had stated, had only one language and made singularly small use of that. Music and seamanship are two arts daily practised in harmony by men who have no common language. For a man is a seaman or a musician quite independently of speech. So the running tackle was successfully bent, and in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Hope,'" he said, in answer to Dormer Colville's question. "And it will take all Seth Clubbe's seamanship to save the tide. 'The Last Hope.' There's many a 'Hope,' built at Farlingford, and that's the last, for the yard is closed and there's no ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... at Genoa in 1446, of humble parentage, his father being a weaver. He seems to have obtained sufficient knowledge to enable him to study the works of the learned, and of the ancients in Latin translations. But in his early years he devoted his attention to obtaining a practical acquaintance with seamanship. In his day, as we have seen, Portugal was the centre of geographical knowledge, and he and his brother Bartolomeo, after many voyages north and south, settled at last in Lisbon—his brother as a map-maker, and himself ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... Newfoundland, and studying its mineral resources, he now found himself forced into flight for having defied the authorities of the island, embarked upon a doubtful trading venture into one of the wildest and least known portions of the continent, and, with but a slight knowledge of seamanship, engaged in navigating a small sailing vessel across one of its stormiest seas. What would his guardian and employer say could he know all this and see ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... several days they were driven about at the mercy of wind and wave, fearful each moment of shipwreck, and giving up each other as lost. The Adelantado, who commanded the ship already mentioned as being scarcely seaworthy, ran the most imminent hazard, and nothing but his consummate seamanship enabled him to keep her afloat. At length, after various vicissitudes, they all arrived safe at Port Hermoso, to the west of San Domingo. The Adelantado had lost his long boat; and all the vessels, with the exception of that of the admiral, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... picturesque narrators, Froissart. The modern rule of France is abruptly and almost grotesquely suggested amid such associations, by the figure of De Joinville on the deck of a man-of-war, well described by Talfourd, as "the type of dandified, melodramatic seamanship." The cycles of kingly sway is abruptly broken by the meteoric episode of Bonaparte: first he appears dispersing the Assembly, and then in his early victories, wounded at Ratisbon, at the tomb of Frederick the Great, distributing the Legion ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... infant navy. It was proposed to unite the Don and the Volga by means of a canal. A new appeal was made to the artisans and sailors of Europe. Fifty young nobles of the court were sent to Venice, England, and the Low Countries to learn seamanship and shipbuilding. But it was necessary that the Czar himself should be able to judge of the science of his subjects; he must counteract Russian indolence and prejudice by the force of a great example; and Peter, after having begun his career in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... affair devoid of excitement or peril. We were at war with France and Spain. Every white sail, therefore, that showed above the horizon meant the coming of a possible enemy; no day passed, in some part of which there might not chance to arise the necessity to employ every device of seamanship if escape were to be effected should the enemy prove too big to fight, or in which there was not at least the possibility of smelling ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of short, thick-set men. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... his seamanship was not equal to his courage! So badly did he steer, that the very act which was meant to carry him past the wreck, thrust him right ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... it is renewed. You do not alter facts by neglecting them, nor abrogate a divine decree by disbelieving it. The awful law goes on its course. It is not pre-eminent seamanship to put the look-out man in irons because he sings out, 'Breakers ahead.' The crew do not abolish the reef so, but they end their last chance of avoiding it, and presently the shock comes, and the cruel ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... with them, and the captain had a half-defined suspicion that neither he nor the pilot knew exactly where they were. That is a bad condition for a great ship to be in, and that, too, so near a coast which requires good seamanship and skillful pilotage in the best of weather. Not that the captain would have confessed his doubt to the pilot, or the pilot to the captain, and that was where the real danger lay. If they could only have permitted themselves to speak ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... watch the duel, shore and headlands crowded with spectators, the blue harbor-mouth gay with an immense flotilla of fishing boats and pleasure craft. The stake for which Haraden fought was to retake the Golden Eagle prize and to gain his port. His seamanship was flawless. Vastly outnumbered if it should come to boarding, he handled his vessel so as to avoid the Achilles while he poured the broadsides into her. After two hours the London privateer emerged ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... hermits people the "deserts of the ocean." All beings therein (save daemons and Cyclops) are Christians, even to the very birds, and keep the festivals of the Church as eternal laws of nature. The voyage succeeds, not by seamanship, or geographic knowledge, nor even by chance: but by the miraculous prescience of the saint, or of those whom he meets; and the wanderings of Ulysses, or of Sinbad, are rational and human in comparison with those of ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... enough," returned the captain. "Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is off-colour." ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a prejudiced man,' continued Joseph Finsbury. 'As a young man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the book of the piece, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... that Drake had for the sea was soon observed by the keen-eyed Hawkins, and before long Drake became his apprentice, and quickly learned the ins and outs of seamanship. He rapidly made a name for himself as a brave and skilful sailor, and before long accompanied Hawkins on his trips to Guinea after negro slaves—trips in which Drake was always in the fore when any adventure of a particularly dangerous nature was undertaken. ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... coasts of Ireland, pressing men. After thus raising as many as he could carry, he shaped his course for Liverpool, no doubt intending, on his arrival at that port, to sell his unsuspecting victims to the merchant ships in the Mersey at so much a head. Through bad seamanship, however, the vessel was run aground at Seacombe, opposite to Liverpool, and Capt. Darby, of H.M.S. Seahorse, perceiving her plight, and thinking to render assistance in return for perhaps a man or two, took boat and rowed across to her. To his astonishment ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... of his seamanship, the caravel was wrecked on the island of Cuba. They were forced to make their way along the shore, which was then unsettled by Spain. Under the leadership of Ojeda the party struggled eastward under conditions ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... thereabout) straightaway to the stake-boat, set far out in the lake—quite out of sight from the decks of the boats about the starting point—and turning that, to beat back. The wind was free, but not too strong. The out-and-return course would prove the boats themselves and the seamanship of their crews. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... were slain or groaning under their severe wounds, that the enemy were still numerous, and as they persevered after so dreadful a slaughter, that they were of unquestionable bravery and resolution. Good fortune, and our captain's superior seamanship had, up to the present, enabled us to make a good fight, but fortune might desert us, and our numbers were so reduced, that if the enemy continued resolute, we must be overpowered. Our gallant captain perceived the despondency that prevailed, and ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... an easier life than the stormy, freezing Banks, the young Gloucester-man would sign on for a voyage to Pernambuco or Havana and so be fired with ambition to become a mate or master and take to deep water after a while. In this way was maintained a school of seamanship which furnished the most intelligent and efficient officers of the merchant marine. For generations they were mostly recruited from the old fishing and shipping ports of New England until the term "Yankee shipmaster" had a ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... in marking my name on the clothes which constituted my kit, pumping water for the cooks' galley, helping to scrub the decks and wringing out swabs. On the Thursday, I, with other novices, was sent to the 'Impregnable' to commence my training in seamanship and gunnery. Every Thursday half a day's leave is given to the boys, and we were granted this privilege. How glad and thankful I felt! After landing, I hastened home with all possible speed. The sight of me in my uniform overcame my ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... Gaul the sea interposed a barrier which the Romans found annoying. In the state of seamanship in those ages a head-wind was an insuperable obstacle. As long as the wind blew the wrong way there was nothing to do but wait for the wind to change. High winds made navigation altogether impossible. Between storms ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... so, in regular service, but this is decidedly irregular. The fact is, that while I am the owner of this vessel, and technically in command, I am no navigator. I merely give my general orders, and trust the seamanship to Herman. He is perfectly trustworthy and capable, and I never interfere. The last voyage I doubt if I was on deck twice, although, of course," he added soberly, "my word goes if I should ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... bright examples, none is more worthy of careful study than Admiral Lord Exmouth. Entering the service a friendless orphan, the success which he achieved by merit alone is most encouraging to all who must rise by their own deserts. In his perfect seamanship, his mastery of all that relates to his profession, his zeal and energy, his considerate forethought, his care to make his crews thorough seamen, and the example by which he spurred and encouraged them, the secret may be found, not less available ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... her home, you spindly little shaver! She'd part her cable and go adrift in half a minute after you got under way. Come on, boys, we've got to convoy this craft into her home port. Make fast," and with the experience of three years' training in seamanship, Shortie and his companions proceeded to make fast the recalcitrate Sally, and amidst hoots and yells calculated to sober up the most hopeless inebriate, they led her to her barn where Cicero read her the riot act as he fastened her in her stall. Meanwhile Betsy ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... as far as seamanship was concerned, our work had gone on smoothly enough, even during these first difficult weeks. There were always willing and practised hands enough for what was wanted, even though the work to be done was frequently of a not very pleasant kind. Take washing decks, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... that I knew not enough of seamanship to take the place of an officer, and that I considered the condition of a common sailor as too base for ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... doted on native Brazilian honesty as well as national seamanship and skill in canoes but my dream of a perfect paradise is now unsettled forever. I find, alas! that even here the fall of Adam is felt: Taking in some long poles to-day the negro tallyman persisted in counting twice ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... your curious canine name, You shall never lack for plaudits in the golden hall of fame, For you fought as well with galleys as you did with burly men, And your deeds of daring seamanship are writ by many a pen. From sodden, gray Chioggia the singing Gondoliers, Repeat in silvery cadence the story of your years, The valor of your comrades and the courage of your foe, When Venice strove with Genoa, full ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... But the voyage had been most profitable, and Master Jonathan duly entered the amount of gain in an account book, with a reward of ten pounds to Captain Simmons, five pounds to the first mate, three pounds to the second mate, and one pound to every member of the crew for their bravery and seamanship. ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... which had made the Wolverine famous in the navy for the niceties of seamanship, the great cruiser let down her tackle as she drew skilfully alongside, and made fast, preparatory to lifting the dory gently to her broad deck. But before the order came to hoist away, one of the jackies who had gone down drew the covering back from the still figure forward, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sticks of sealing-wax, and cracking the solid live-oak of the floor-timbers as if they were made of willow. The captain stood aghast! For one moment despair was painfully depicted in his countenance; then he recovered his self-possession and seamanship. He gave the order to stand by to carry out to windward the stream-anchor in the launch, and to send a kedge to haul out by, in the jolly-boat. Marble answered with the usual "ay, ay, sir!" but before he sent us into the boats, he ventured to suggest that the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... that place itself, the civilizing influence which the arts of peace always engender would so pervade their minds in a very few years, that their habits would be changed, and the blessings of education, religion, and peace, might be expected to civilize and elevate their minds. Their energies and seamanship would then be in requisition as the navigators of all the Archipelago, and to carry in their native vessels the produce of the fertile inland districts of Mindanao, and of Northern Borneo, to the great mart which Zamboanga ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... he had provided for that also; he had organized exercises for them afloat, not only in harbor, but in smaller vessels near the coast, by which they might have been trained to go through, even in rough weather, the most arduous manoeuvres of seamanship, which he enumerated; and he mentioned among them the keeping a ship clear of her anchors in a heavy sea. The Austrian, who suspected Napoleon of talking in general upon subjects he imperfectly understood, acknowledging his own ignorance, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... here child a month or six weeks old, and I've been sweating along the way from Lun'non, and she yowlin' enough to tear a fellow's nerves to pieces." This said triumphantly; then in an apologetic tone, "What does the likes o' me know about holdin' babies? I were brought up to seamanship, and not to nussin'. I'd joy to see you, missus, set to manage a thirty-pounder. I warrant you'd be as clumsy wi' a gun as I be ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... discussion over a point of seamanship, the handling of a bark in a gale. It developed that the young author's knowledge of saltwater strategy was extensive and correct in the main, though somewhat theoretical. That of his critic was based upon practice and hard experience. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln |
