"Spanker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the opening of the battle the spanker gaff of the Alabama and the ensign were brought down by the fire of the Kearsarge, whose crew burst into cheers, but the Confederates quickly hoisted the colors to their mizzen. When the two ships were within a third of a mile of each other the fire ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... execution; but they only retired to the next room, whence they could overhear the whole conversation: my wife artfully introduced it, by observing, that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a very good match of it in Mr. Spanker. To this the 'squire assenting, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: "But heaven help," continued she, "the girls that have none. What signifies beauty, Mr. Thornhill? or what signifies all the virtue, and all the qualifications ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the next room, whence they could overhear the whole conversation. My wife artfully introduced it, by observing, that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a very good match of it in Mr. Spanker. To this the Squire assenting, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: "But heaven help," continued she, "the girls that have none! What signifies beauty, Mr. Thornhill? ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... the 14th, and the temperature fell from 31 Fahr. to -1 Fahr. At midnight the ship came free from the floe and drifted rapidly astern. Her head fell off before the wind until she lay nearly at right-angles across the narrow lead. This was a dangerous position for rudder and propeller. The spanker was set, but the weight of the wind on the ship gradually forced the floes open until the 'Endurance' swung right round and drove 100 yds. along the lead. Then the ice closed and at 3 a.m. we were fast again. The wind died down during the day and the pack opened for ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Mizzentopmast. A2. Mizzentopgallant and royalmast. B. Mainmast. B1. Maintopmast. B2. Maintopgallant and royalmast. C. Foremast. C1. Foretopmast. C2. Foretopgallant and royalmast. D. Spanker boom. E. Spanker gaff. F. Bowsprit. G. Jib boom and flying ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a great error, for, upon the brig righting (she was thrown upon her beam ends, and her spanker boom carried away), he commanded to furl the fore-top sail, strike top-gallant yards, furl the main course, and take a reef in the maintopsail, leaving her to scud under single-reefed maintopsail and fore-sail. This caused the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... blue and that danced and sparkled in the sunshine. For it was a beautiful afternoon and there was just a gentle wind blowing, so that the Industry had every bit of sail set that could be set: mainsail and foresail and spanker, main-topsail, and fore-topsail, main-topgallantsail and fore-topgallantsail and main-royal and fore-royal and main-skysail and fore-skysail and staysails and all her jibs and a studdingsail on every yard, out on its boom. She ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... be: rising from the crouching posture she had taken, like a panther about to leap, the cutter dashed onward, and at the next instant she was glancing past the stern of her enemy, just clearing the end of her spanker-boom with her ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... now; that 'ere horse goes etarnal fast, he near about set my axle on fire twice. He's a spanker you may depend. I had him when he was a two-year-old, all legs and tail, like a devil's darnin' needle, and had him broke on purpose by father's old nigger, January Snow. He knows English real well, and can ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... your wireless messages all week, my dear Mary, and not one was an S. O. S. Good! The fair ship MARY MILLER is safe. Hurrah! She never has been staunch, but she was the gayest thing on the sea, and when her sails were all set from jib to spanker she made a gladsome ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... beings on board; but the deck appeared to be deserted; no gleam of light showed either forward or aft; and no sound broke the silence save the wash of the water along the bends, the choking gurgle of the scuppers, and the monotonous jerk-jerk of the spanker-boom at its sheet with the roll of the ship. Under these circumstances I considered that my companion might safely venture aboard, and I accordingly assisted her up the side and in on deck, afterwards dropping the boat astern and carefully securing her by her painter. This done, I conducted ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... to enter the tropics, everything grew warm and bright. Flannels were doffed, and an awning spread over the after-deck. The wind, though it still blew strongly, was now in their favor; and foretopsail and mainsail, jib and spanker, were set to catch it, till the ship staggered under her press of canvas, and careened as if about to dip her ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... southwest. We were, in a measure, prepared for it, however, as the weather had been holding out threats for some time. Everything was made snug, alow and aloft; and as the wind steadily freshened, we lay to, at length, under spanker and ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... in July, Myrtella Flathers sat just inside the screen door of the summer kitchen, armed with a fly-spanker and a countenance of impending gloom. She was evidently rehearsing a speech, for her lips moved in scornful curves, and her bristling black locks were tossed in defiance. Mike, venturing out of a shady corner and catching a glimpse of her face, thought ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... thinks I have no more stuff in my body than a dried haddock, to turn me adrift in the dark with such a spanker. D'ye think he don't, my dear?" To this question his fellow-traveller replied, "Swanker anan!" And the lover resumed his suit, saying, "Oons! how you tickle my timber! Something shoots from your arm, through my stowage, to the very keelstone. Han't you got quicksilver in your ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Mate,' said the pilot, as he come over the side; 'some of these galoots makes us chase 'em half a day afore we can board 'em. Fill away the head-yards, put your helm up, run up the flyin' jib, brail up the spanker check in the arter yards,' and as she swung off he comes aft to the wheel where I was a-steerin', and says, 'Keep her east-sou'east, my man; giv' us a chew of terbacker.' We soon had the muslin piled onto her ag'in, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... we found the rest of the crew just coming down the fore rigging, having furled the tattered topsail, or rather, swathed it round the yard, which looked like a broken limb bandaged. There was no sail now on the ship but the spanker and the close-reefed main-topsail, which still held good. But this was too much after-sail, and order was given to furl the spanker. The brails were hauled up, and all the light hands in the starboard watch sent out on the gaff to pass the gaskets; but they could do nothing with it. The ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Clarke, either as the ghost in "Hamlet," or as Prospero in "the Tempest," with Mrs. Austin as Ariel, and Peter Richings as Caliban. Then other dramas, and fine players in them, Forrest as Metamora or Damon or Brutus—John R. Scott as Tom Cringle or Rolla—or Charlotte Cushman's Lady Gay Spanker in "London Assurance." Then of some years later, at Castle Garden, Battery, I yet recall the splendid seasons of the Havana musical troupe under Maretzek—the fine band, the cool sea-breezes, the unsurpass'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... morning when Harry went on deck he saw that the reefs had been shaken out of the topsails and the spanker hoisted. There was still a fresh wind, but it had backed round more to the south, and there was so sharp a nip in it that he went below and put on a pea-jacket. Then he beckoned to Bertie, who was off duty, to join him ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... so you could break it to the old man gently. The Grace liner Ecudorian arrived at Victoria this morning and reports speaking the Retriever eight hundred miles off the coast of Formosa. The vessel was under jib, lower topsail, foretopmast staysail, mainsail and spanker. She was flying two flags—an inverted ensign and the yellow quarantine flag. The Ecudorian steamed close alongside of her, to windward. Captain Peasley ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... disuse, but what were then known by the names of cohorns and patteraroes; they turned round on a swivel, and were pointed by an iron handle fixed to the breech. The sail abaft the mizen-mast (corresponding to the driver or spanker of the present day) was fixed upon a lateen-yard. It is hardly necessary to add (after this description) that the dangers of a long voyage were not a little increased by the peculiar structure of the vessels, which (although with such top hamper, and so much wood ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... steamboat at noon, that his presence at the catastrophe might not seem suspicious. At sunset I bade farewell to dear little Ellen, who was indeed as pale as death, and in an hour afterward was on board the ship, where I found every thing in readiness for a hasty departure, the top-sails, jib and spanker were loosed, the anchor at the bows, and its place supplied by a small kedge, attached to the ship by a hawser, easily cut in case of need; the awnings were struck, and the decks covered with rigging and sails. The boat's crew who were to go on the expedition of the evening had already been ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... (save the mark) were very forbidding. Ugly-looking rocks showed up here and there, the surf over them frequently blinding the whole entry. But we came along, in our usual leisurely fashion, under two topsails, spanker, and fore-topmast staysail, and took that ugly passage like a sailing barge entering the Medway. There was barely room to turn round when we got inside, but all sail had been taken off her except the spanker, so that her way ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... from the deck of the United States cruiser. A shot had struck the spanker-gaff on the enemy and her ensign had come down ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... I went over and taxed her with it, and she stood off and pointed her shotgun at me and said that yes, she was a witch, and if I didn't get away and keep away she would turn me into a caterpillar and kill me with a fly-spanker. There! When a woman says that about herself, what be ye goin' to do—tell her she's a liar, or be a gent and believe her?" Mr. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... grew just above the beach, the brave ship dropped anchor once more in Samatau Bay amidst a scene of the wildest confusion. For Raymond, as he had stood on the verandah with his wife, watching her sailing in, and wondering what had brought back Frewen so soon, saw this signal flying from her spanker gaff. ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky—for the sun was just rising—the broad back and red hair of the captain, and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on to the mizzen spanker-boom. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... one kilo of nails. The same kind of coins, called dumps, cut into diamond-shaped pieces, with holes punched through them, entered into the fastenings as burrs for the nails. A number of small eyebolts from the spanker-boom of the wreck were turned to account for lashing bolts in the deck of the new vessel. The nails, when too long, were cut to the required length, taking care that the ends which were cut off should not be wasted, but remelted, along with the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... the tide was light enough, and our Pilot twisted her about with the skill and nonchalance of a master hand. One of our passengers, a young woman who had enthused over everything, from the shark's tail on the spanker-boom end ("Waal—I never!") to the curl of the bo'sun's whiskers ("Jest real sweet!"), seemed greatly interested at the frequent orders to ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... girls were tastefully dressed— but more to catch admiration than fish; two very showy handsome girls they were and I could not help thinking in my secret soul that there were not much odds to be risked on the late favourite Alice, against such a spanker as Monimia Smith. As for Sibylla, she despised gold and acres in comparison with genius and mustaches; and therefore, I concluded, she intended to be the second horse to her sister, and keep out the rest of the field. A clever, dashing, creature Monimia certainly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... been fairly well replenished. Lickford and Cash had gone round on a general raid; recovering by force, where persuasion failed, their outstanding loans, and in other cases borrowing additional supplies in the same genial manner. Among other booty, they secured a tin of pressed beef from Spanker, who had to be clouted on the head before he would "lend it," and some sardines from another boy, who was thankful to find any one to take them off ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... there were guilty approaches and rencontres, she in her boat, I in mine, both being slight clinker-built Montreux pleasure-boats, which I had spent some days in overhauling and varnishing, mine with jib, fore-and-aft mainsail, and spanker, hers rather smaller, one-masted, with an easy-running lug-sail. It was no uncommon thing for me to sail quite to Geneva, and come back from a seven-days' cruise with my soul filled and consoled with the lake and all its many moods of bright and darksome, serene and pensive, dolorous and despairing ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... in hoisting out, were stove, and immediately swamped, no less than thirty men perishing with them. Several of the crew had been killed by the falling of the masts, and others were severely injured. Two midshipmen were crushed to death between the spanker boom and the bulwarks. ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... gently and the sea seemed to wake up, murmuring drowsily. "Here's a little wind comin'," said some one very low. Jimmy turned over slowly to face the breeze. The voice in the night cried loud and commanding:—"Haul the spanker out." The group before the door vanished out of the light. They could be heard tramping aft while they repeated with varied intonations:—"Spanker out!"... "Out spanker, sir!" Donkin remained alone with Jimmy. There was a silence. Jimmy opened and ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... her scheme in execution; but they only retired to the next room, from whence they could over-hear the whole conversation: My wife artfully introduced it, by observing, that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a very good match of it in Mr Spanker. To this the 'Squire assenting, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: 'But heaven help,' continued she, 'the girls that have none. What signifies beauty, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... bowline; the cook, ex officio, the fore sheet, and the steward the main. The second mate had charge of the after yards, and let go the lee fore and main braces. I was stationed at the weather cross-jack braces; three other light hands at the lee; one boy at the spanker-sheet and guy; a man and a boy at the main topsail, top-gallant, and royal braces; and all the rest of the crew— men and boys— tallied on to the main brace. Every one here knew his station, must be there when all hands were called to put the ship about, and was ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... there was an entertainment announced at the 'Rooms,' and to pass away the time I looked in. It was an elocutionist one, entitled 'Merry-Making Moments, or, Spanker's Wallet of Varieties,' with a portrait of Spanker on the bills opening the wallet with an expression of delight or surprise. This was his 'Grand Competition Night,' when a 'magnificent goblet' was competed for by all comers, which I had already seen in a shop window, a blue ribbon reposing ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... rain. All the small sails were stored, and the royal yards sent down. At noon the sun was obscured. Saturday, the 9th, the breeze increased, with every appearance of bad weather. Took in the top-gallant sails, and reefed the topsails, and took in the jib and spanker. At noon the sun was obscured. Sunday, 10th, the barometer falling fast, with the gale increasing, close reefed the topsails. At noon heavy gusts. The courses were taken in and furled. At 6 the fore-topsail ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... spanker was imperfectly bent; that is to say, it was bent on the upper leach. The boom was got in under cover of the hurricane-house, and of the bundle of the sail; the out-hauler was bent, the boom, replaced, the sail being hoisted with ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... and beats in my recollection many others of fevered enjoyment. Little by little I stropped a tall, fine, stout, healthy, country woman, a regular spanker; with white flesh, firm, soft satiny and smelling like new milk. She was bashful without affection, ashamed to expose her charms, yet proud to do so to me. She was clad in snow-white coarse linen, neat and clean from ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... before there was a hand at the downhaul. The men liked them for that, and because they didn't blow about what they could do. I remember one day in a reefing job, the downhaul parted and came down on deck from the peak of the spanker. When the weather moderated, and we shook the reefs out, the downhaul was forgotten until we happened to think we might soon need it again. There was some sea on, and the boom was off and the gaff was slamming. One of those Benton boys was at the wheel, and before ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... they were speaking a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the corvette's peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker; while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himself loose, he chews Spanker loose." ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... huntress—and so loud in the praises of her dogs and horses, that she intimidated even sportsmen and jockeys. She talked so much of her favourite horse Spanker, that she acquired amongst a particular set of gentlemen the appellation of my Lady Di Spanker. Lady Augusta perceived that the soft affectations remarkable in her own manners were in agreeable contrast in the company of this masculine dame; she therefore cultivated her acquaintance, and Lady S—— ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... good enough for them. Whacking handsome gals—three! used to be called the Three Graces of Lymport. And one day Burley comes and visits Mel, and sees the girls. And he puts his finger on the eldest, I can tell you. She was a spanker! She was the handsomest gal, I think, ever I saw. For the mother's a fine woman, and what with the mother, and what with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... regular spanker!" he cried, rushing at the slide. A "spanker" it certainly was: six yards from the commencement his legs flew from under him, he soared into the air like a bird, and did not touch the ground again until he sat down heavily within twenty paces of the bottom ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery |
