"Starboard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of orders that savored of both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a ranking officer on his own quarter-deck. They were, however, well understood by Sandy's sons, who constituted the port and starboard watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old man-of-war's-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any missile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... Westward.] The 15 we sent the boat and pinesse into the riuer with the marchants, and after that we set saile, because we road in shallow water, and went Southsoutheast, and the starboard tacke aboord vntill we came to fiue fadom water, where we road with the currant to the Westward: then came our boat out of the harbour and went aboord the pinnesse. The West part of the land was high browed much like the head of a Gurnard, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... effects were seen in hencoops, casks, and chests floating on the surges and telling the fate of one or more of the fleet. The "Argonaut" was rolling helpless, without masts or rudder; the "Caribou" had thrown overboard all the starboard guns of her upper deck; and the vice-admiral's ship, the "Trident," was in ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... "Puaa hae!" She pointed to starboard. A gray fin moved slowly through the water twenty feet away. "A shark, and a wicked beast he is!" She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut and tossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease the demon. "Mako!" she ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... a shtrapping young fellow about eighteen, Oi wuz sailin' aboord a trader. Wan day we were layin' becalmed, as we air now, off Turk's Island. While we were quietly sittin' on the bulwarks, we saw a monstrous shaark off our starboard beam. The ould mon at the toime was snorin' away in his cabin, an' it was a foine chance to have a little fun. We out wid the shaark hook and havin' baited it wid a temptin' piece av junk, attached it to a shtrong line which ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... heel, or lay the ship a little on one side. To do this, the heavy guns on the larboard side were run out of the port-holes (those window-like openings which you see in the side of the vessel) as far as they would go, and the guns on the starboard side were drawn up and secured in the middle of the deck; this brought the sills of the port-holes on the lowest side nearly even with ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... and the sound of the droning surf behind us we turned to the starboard hand, and struck through the narrow strip of littoral towards the mountains. For the first mile or so our way was through a grove of pandanus-palms, nearly every one of which was in full fruit; on the branches were sitting hundreds of small sooty terns, who watched our progress beneath ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... I had great fun cruising for jackrabbits. Uncle Jim sat in the middle and drove while the kid and I hung our feet over the sides and constituted ourselves the port and starboard batteries. Bumping and banging along at full speed over the uneven country, we jumped the rabbits, and opened fire as they made off. Each had to stick to his own side of the ship, of course. Uncle Jim's bird dog, his head between our feet, his body under ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... the wheel, and the silver shining of the sea. There was a splash as the man on the platform released the whirling hand-lead. When he called the depth Mayne gave an order and the quartermaster pulled round the wheel. The swell was not so smooth now. It ran in steep undulations and in one place to starboard a broad, foaming patch appeared between the rollers. Kit knew the water was shoaling fast as the Rio Negro steamed across the inclined shelf. It was risky work to take her in, because the fire had vanished and there were no marks to ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... our small electric-lighting plant and placed lights for occasional use in the observatory, the meteorological station, and various other points. We could not afford to use the electric lamps freely. Hurley also rigged two powerful lights on poles projecting from the ship to port and starboard. These lamps would illuminate the "dogloos" brilliantly on the darkest winter's day and would be invaluable in the event of the floe breaking during the dark days of winter. We could imagine what it would mean to get fifty dogs aboard without lights while the floe was breaking ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... force of the gale was such that, while swinging the boats inboard, we were drenched and thoroughly chilled by the sheets of icy spray, which saturated us and instantly froze. The Roosevelt was blown over to starboard until the rails were submerged. To save her, she was steered into Buchanan Bay, under the lee of the cliffs, where she remained until the morning of ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... the fog lifted. Far away on the starboard hand the dim outline of a tall ship appeared standing across their course. "She will pass under our stern if she keeps as she is now steering," observed Harry; "the voices we heard must have come ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... veterans seemed at home again on the Fram's deck. Wisting's brave dog, the old Colonel, with his two adjutants, Suggen and Arne, at once took possession of the places where they had stood for so many a long day on the voyage south — on the starboard side of the mainmast; the two twins, Mylius and Ring, Helmer Hanssen's special favourites, began their games away in the corner of the fore-deck to port, as though nothing had happened. To look at those two merry rascals no one would have thought they had trotted at the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... had been stove in. She wasn't leaking any more, because the water inside of her was just as high as the water outside; so, if we could do anything, this was the time to do it. I looked down into the water on our starboard bow, and I soon found the place where the brig had been stove in, probably by some water-logged piece of wreckage. I located the hole exactly, and I reported to the captain, who was leaning over the side. Then I paddled around the brig to see ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... astern, Rum on the port, Eigg on the starboard bow; Glory of youth glowed in his soul: ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... was the after-cabin on the starboard side, was entered through the cuddy, had a door communicating with the quarter gallery, two stern windows and a dead-eye on deck. The maid's cabin was the port after-cabin; doors opened into cuddy and quarter-gallery. And a fine trouble Miss Rolleston had to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... which no more favorable position could be found for an exchange of civil words. Instead of so doing, the helm of the Phoebe was put down and the ship luffed up into the wind between the Essex and the Essex Junior, the latter lying now near the senior ship and on her starboard beam. Whether Hillyar counted upon his own seamanship to extricate his ship from the awkward position in which he had placed her, or whether, as the Americans believed, he intended to attack if circumstances favored, he soon saw that he had exposed himself to extreme ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... stem-post. The cushion and dislocation of water formed by a big and fast ship around its bows is usually sufficient to cause the mine to swing a few inches away from the bow and to return and strike the ship several feet back on the port or starboard side. A careful study of Fig. 30 will show how this is prevented by the deflecting wires ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... other cries of terror filled the air, for the wind seemed to have died down, though the sea still ran high, and sounds were now more audible. Off to the starboard side of the ship the boys perceived a mighty towering form, which they knew must be the iceberg they had encountered. The crew fought madly for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "Light on the starboard bow!" It was the light of a ship sailing in the opposite direction towards us. In a snowstorm, in a fog, we might have collided; then both might have gone to the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... Max Lautner has recently placed a small petard under the European world of Art, and given it a hoist to starboard, by asserting that Rembrandt did not paint Rembrandt's best pictures. The Professor makes his point luminous by a cryptogram he has invented and for which he has filed a caveat. It is a very useful cryptogram; no well-regulated ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... a sailor marching back and forth outside along the starboard tier. Everything's as dark ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... Chippy threw his skiff's nose over to port, for he was bearing straight for the Three Spires as she lay end on, and port or starboard was all one in point of distance as regarded sculling round her. But he threw his bow over to port, and thereby made a striking discovery. For beside the great bulk lay a small bulk, and the latter was a boat swinging to ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... had caught: it was in flames to port and starboard of the flaming hatch; only fore and aft of it was the deck sound to the lips of that hideous mouth, with the hundred tongues shooting out ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... naked we were, powder-blackened and streaming with sweat. The shell she sent burst above the Cumberland's stern pivot, killing or wounding most of her crew that served it.... We went on.... Through the port I could now see the Cumberland plainly, her starboard side just ahead of us, men in the shrouds and running to and fro on her deck. When we were all but on her, her starboard blazed. That broadside tore up the carriage of our pivot gun, cut another off at ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... their watch at midnight, they looked about for Nilsson, who was in the starboard watch, but he was nowhere to be seen. Thinking he might have slipped below unobserved, they made no remark, though they were very uneasy about him; but when the starboard watch came on deck at four ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the deck, the Zlotuhb drifting gently in a southerly direction. Land could be seen on the starboard bow, a faint strip along ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... saw the Esperanza's lights, and he wished that the boat could have been sent, if it were only to give him a little company. The rolling of the barque was awful at two in the morning, and, at last, one violent kick parted the mizen rigging on the starboard side. Then came one vast roll, and a ponderous rush of water, and with a tearing crash, the mast went ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... for him to go on watch now; for the loud-ticking marine-clock over the window of the clerk's office pointed to three minutes past twelve, and the striker hurried to his post at the starboard engine, with the bitterness of defeat and the shame of insult in his heart. He had sacrificed his place, doubtless, and risked much beside, and all for nothing. The third engineer complained of his ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on 15 board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they; "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... would be tame, day-laborer's work. But there was a breeze. Good! Come, kind Zephyr, fill our red blanket-sail! Cancut's blanket in the bow became a substitute for Cancut's paddle in the stern. We swept along before the wind, unsteadily, over Lake Chesuncook, at sea in a bowl,—"rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard," in our keelless craft. Zephyr only followed us, mild as he was strong, and strong as he was mild. Had he been puffy, it would have been all over with us. But the breeze only sang ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... thought that some unknown current was setting against us, and forcing the vessel back with the same power that the wind was forcing her forward, and he tried to put the ship about so as to have the wind on her starboard quarter; but as she hadn't any headway, or for some other reason, this didn't work. Then it struck him that perhaps one of the anchors had been accidentally dropped, but they were all in their places, and if one of them had dropped, its cable ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... broad Lough of Belfast upon our quarter. The moon was still shining with unabated lustre, and we could plainly discern the bold outline of the hills beyond; while the coast of Down and the two Copelands lay glistening in grey obscure over our starboard bow. No sail was within sight; we had a stiff breeze with a swinging swell from the open bay; and as the cutter lay down and showed the glimmer of the water's edge above her gunnel, the glee of the glorying sailor burst ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... funeral among barren mountains, where white bears in peers' robes were the pall-bearers, and a sea-dragon chief-mourner. When we came on deck again, the northern extremity of Iceland lay leagues away on our starboard quarter, faintly swimming through the haze; up overhead blazed the white sun, and below glittered the level sea, like a pale blue disc netted in silver lace. I seldom remember a brighter day; the thermometer was at 72 degrees, and it really felt more as if we were ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... not of the most pleasant character, and I found myself inwardly shrinking, when I was aroused by the voice of the bowman saying, "There she is, sir, two points on the starboard bow." There she lay, sure enough, with every sail hoisted, and a light was plainly seen, as we supposed, from her deck, it being too high for her cabin windows. We now held a consultation, and saw no good reason to ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... of that, sonny,' remarked Roy Horan, the big New Zealander who was standing with the two chums at the starboard rail. 'We ain't going home anyhow. I'll lay old man Hamilton's ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... him and speaking angrily but quite low. I fancy he was asking him why the devil he didn't go and stop the engines, instead of making a row about it on deck. I heard him say, "Get up! Run! fly!" He swore also. The engineer slid down the starboard ladder and bolted round the skylight to the engine-room companion which was on the port side. He moaned as he ran. . ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the pine-clad ridge as our sail flapped and partly filled, and I cast off, and began a long tack, east by south, to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... holes in the bottom. She sometimes absent-mindedly keeps the toothpick behind her ear while promenading the deck, and I have humbly thought that a woman promenading pensively back and forth in the national Greek costume, smoking a cigarette, and with a wooden toothpick behind her starboard ear, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and fired at the bear, as he passed but a short distance ahead of the schooner. The bear rose, made a growl or howl, but continued his course. As we scrambled up the port-aide to get our guns, the mate, with a crew, happened to have a boat on the starboard-aide, and, armed only with a hatchet, they pulled up alongside the bear, and the mate struck him in the head with the hatchet. The bear turned, tried to get into the boat, but the mate struck his claws with repeated blows, and made him let go. After several passes with him, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... wildly over the harbor. The jack-tars on the Intrepid seemed oblivious to danger, "commenting upon the beauty of the spray thrown up by the shot between us and the brilliant light of the ship, rather than calculating any danger," wrote Midshipman Morris. Then the starboard guns of the Philadelphia, as though instinct with purpose, began to send hot shot into the town. The crew yelled with delight and gave three cheers for the redoubtable old frigate. It was her last action, God bless her! Her cables ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... whole, the conversation of his friends did not tend to edification, Miles left them and went to one of the starboard gangways, from which he could take a contemplative view of Nature in her beautiful robe of night. Curiously enough, Marion chanced to saunter towards the same gangway, and ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... joy. Nearer and nearer came the schooner. The boys could see her crew staring curiously at them from along her rail. Fifty yards off she shot up into the wind and prepared to launch a boat. They could read the name on her starboard bow. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... with cheerfulness; but the following day it blew a severe storm of wind from the eastward, which continued till the 29th, in the course of which we suffered greatly. One sea broke away the spare yards and spars out of the starboard main chains. Another heavy sea broke into the ship and stove all the boats. Several casks of beer that had been lashed upon deck were broke loose and washed overboard, and it was not without great difficulty and risk that we were ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... midnight, in the second watch, they discovered an island, which they left on their starboard. About noon they found themselves in the height of 6 degrees 48 minutes. About three in the afternoon they passed between two islands, the westernmost of which appeared full of cocoa trees. In the evening they were about a mile from the south point of Java, and in the ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... Macey, and Vane began to work his crank and paddle on the boat's starboard side with the result that they began to move and curve round. Then, applying more force and working hard, he gave himself too much swing in working his lever, with the result that his side rose a little. In the midst of the cheering that had commenced the little horizontal paddle ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... two or three hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I must go back to Holland on account of my bills, which were so considerable, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... produce have the appearance of the action of the waves upon rocks. An officer of the navy informed me, that after sunset, when near the equator, he was not a little alarmed and surprised (because quite unexpected) at the cry of "rocks on the starboard bow:" looking forward through the dubious light (if the expression may be admitted,) he indistinctly saw objects which he and all on board took to be the pinnacles of several rocks of a black and white colour: in a short time, however he discovered this formidable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... sailors on shore, and they seem often harum-scarum, idle fellows, but at sea everything is done with the greatest order, and every man and boy has his proper duty, just as the servants in a large country-house. The crew are divided into watches, called the starboard and larboard, or port, watches; the chief mate commands one, the second mate the other. While one watch is on duty the other goes below to sleep, or take their meals, except when all hands are wanted on deck. Every hour a bell is struck to show how time goes. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... chart-room and has a good look all round, peeps over at the sidelights, glances at the compass, squints upward at the stars. That's his regular performance. By-and-by he says: 'Was that you talking just now in the port alleyway?' 'Yes, sir.' 'With the third engineer?' 'Yes, sir.' He walks off to starboard, and sits under the dodger on a little campstool of his, and for half an hour perhaps he makes no sound, except that I heard him sneeze once. Then after a while I hear him getting up over there, and he strolls across to port, where I was. 'I can't understand what you can find to talk about,' says ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I could see ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... sensations, that alternately evinced themselves in my stomach and my head, warned me of what was in store for me. The word was now given to tack; I was in the act of essaying a soft speech to Lady Agnes, when the confounded cry of 'ready about, starboard there, let go sheets and tacks, stand by, hawl.' The vessel plunged head-foremost into the boiling sea, which hissed on either bow; the heavy boom swung over, carrying my hat along with it—and almost my head too. The rest of the party, possibly better informed than myself, speedily changed their ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... good to see the fleet run into the breakfast room of a morning, with the Dowager leading, under full sail, Barbara close up to her starboard quarter, and Milo tailing out a couple of lengths astern. The other boarders looked like quahaug dories abreast of the Marblehead Yacht Club. Oh, the Thompsons won every cup until the Smalls arrived on a Monday; ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a close view of the Spanish brigantines, the Indians divided their fleet of canoes into three equal squadrons, plying up close to the bank on the starboard side; and when up with the brigantines, the van forming a long and narrow line a-head, crossed the river obliquely passing close by the brigantines, into which they all successively threw in a shower of arrows, by which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Jellicoe, Captain Kidd and Sinbad, and, after first warning MacTavish not to imagine he was ashore at Port Said riding the favourite in a donkey Derby, translated all his instructions into nautical language. For instance: "Right rein—haul the starboard yoke line; gallop—full steam ahead; halt—cast anchor; dismount—abandon ship," and so forth, giving his delicate and fanciful sense of humour full play and evoking roars of laughter from the whole house. It did not take MacTavish long to realise that, no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... saw her on board the Centurion one June morning, as the ship lay at dock in New York. He and Aileen were en route for Norway, she and her father and mother for Denmark and Switzerland. She was hanging over the starboard rail looking at a flock of wide-winged gulls which were besieging the port of the cook's galley. She was musing soulfully—conscious (fully) that she was musing soulfully. He paid very little attention to her, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... apparently were inclined to be hostile. Sturt, who was at the helm, was steering straight for them and made the customary signs of peace. Just before it was too late to avoid a collision, Sturt marked hostility in their quivering limbs and battle-lusting eyes. He instantly put the helm a-starboard, and the boat sheered down the reach, the baffled natives running and yelling defiantly along the bank. The river, however, was shoaling rapidly, and from the opposite side there projected a sand-spit; on each side of this narrow passage infuriated blacks had gathered, ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... two a heavy sea caught her on the starboard quarter, canted her round, and dashed her broadside on to the reef with terrific violence. Then, fortunately for our lives, two or three further rollers sent her crashing along till she brought up against two or three coral boulders, whose tops were revealed every now and ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... in for it, and found it equally beyond his report and our expectations; the entrance is about a mile over, and every part of it is perfectly safe, the depth of water, close to the shore, being from ten to seven fathom. We found this harbour to consist of two little bays on the starboard side, where ships may anchor in great safety, and in each of which there is a fine rivulet of fresh water. Soon after we entered an harbour of much greater extent, which I called Port Egmont, in honour of the earl, who was then first lord of the Admiralty; and I think it is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... they are not over-rated. I have seen just as bad, perhaps, but not from the deck of a destroyer. And while I am frantically calculating whether I shall have enough fuel to make port or not, there is a wild yell from the bridge that the rudder is jammed at hard-a-starboard and can't be moved. She, of course, at once fell off into the trough of the sea, and the big green combers swept clear over her at every roll, raising merry hob. All the boats were smashed to kindling-wood; chests, and everything on deck not riveted down, went over the side. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... the sweet night passes in splendour, until all save one or two home-sick lingerers are happy. It never occurs to any of these passengers to glance forward and see whether a streak of green fire seems to strike out from the starboard—the right-hand side of the vessel—or whether a shaft of red shoots from the other side. As a matter of fact, the vessel is going on like a dark cloud over the flying furrows of the sea; but there is very ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Miss Polly. From that time forth no man saw her nor woman, either, except perhaps her maid, and maids are dark and discreet persons on occasion. If this particular one kept her own counsel when she saw a trim but tremulous figure drop lightly over the starboard rail of the Polly far forward, pick up a small traveling-bag from the pier, step behind the opportune screen of a load of coffee on a flat car, and reappear to view only as a momentary swish of skirt far away at the shore end; if this same maid told Mr. Thatcher Brewster, ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a bloke," Johnson said, "he'll be too much fur me in a trade; I'll have to stifle him!" Then, ordering the mulatto man astern, Johnson gave him the tiller, and sat near, nodding, till the second wharf on the starboard was passed. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... legend of the sea, So hard-a-port upon your lee! A ship on starboard tack! She's bound upon a private cruise— (This is the kind of spice I use To give ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... aft, but halfway from forward, through the open doors of the forecastle, two streaks of brilliant light cut the shadow of the quiet night that lay upon the ship. A hum of voices was heard there, while port and starboard, in the illuminated doorways, silhouettes of moving men appeared for a moment, very black, without relief, like figures cut out of sheet tin. The ship was ready for sea. The carpenter had driven in the last wedge of the mainhatch ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... and the cadets all troop down to the middle deck, where they form in line, two deep, all along the deck; the port watch in the fore part of the ship, and the starboard watch farther aft. This division into two parts, starboard watch and port watch, is to accustom them to the idea of the whole ship's company being always ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... south-southwest for her destination, was crossing the "Guerriere's" bows, her course was changed, in order to learn the character of the stranger. By half-past three she was recognized to be a large frigate, under easy sail on the starboard tack; which, the wind being northwesterly, gives her heading from west-southwest to southwest. The "Constitution" was to windward. At 3.45 the "Guerriere," without changing her course, backed her maintopsail, the effect of which was to lessen her forward movement, leaving just ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... sweeps. But I had been ready for this. I luffed suddenly. Putting the tiller hard down, and holding it down with my body, I brought the main-sheet in, hand over hand, on the run, so as to retain all possible striking force. The two starboard sweeps of the junk were crumpled up, and then the two boats came together with a crash. The Reindeer's bowsprit, like a monstrous hand, reached over and ripped out the junk's chunky mast and ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the ship's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones, winked on the butterfly clamps of burnished brass and small rods from which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, affixed to white enamelled ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was most unusual—something that had ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... needed the presence of their captain to cheer them on to further exertion. The red-hot shot of the "Confiance" had twice set fire to the American ship. The raking fire from the "Linnet" had dismounted carronades and long guns one by one, until but a single serviceable gun was left in the starboard battery. A too heavy charge dismounted this piece, and threw it down the hatchway, leaving the frigate without a single gun bearing upon the enemy. In such a plight the hearts of the crew might well fail them. But Macdonough was ready for the emergency. He still had his port broadside ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the yards square and rigging taut. Semaphore signalling was not then used, as later; and his stentorian lungs conveyed to us distinct sounds, bearing meanings we felt could never be compassed by us. "Haul taut the main-top bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop, there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said one of the admiring listeners, "there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say many thought we might as well give it up ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... don't you ever let yourself have a good time?" she asked. "Everybody else is going except the captain. He's got the gout. Says he's carrying his grandfather's cocktails around in his starboard toe." ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... and yet under the necessity of fishing out his ticket by the way; but it ended at length for me, and I found myself on deck under a flimsy awning and with a trifle of elbow-room to stretch and breathe in. This was on the starboard; for the bulk of the emigrants stuck hopelessly on the port side, by which we had entered. In vain the seamen shouted to them to move on, and threatened them with shipwreck. These poor people were under a spell of stupor, and did not stir a foot. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... believe it an established fact. My next proposition is that after she struck the short and long pier and before she got back to the short pier the boat got right with her bow up. So says the pilot Parker—that he got her through until her starboard wheel passed the short pier. This would make her head about even with the head of the long pier. He says her head was as high or higher than the head of the long pier. Other witnesses confirmed this one. The final stroke was in the splash door aft the wheel. Witnesses differ, but the majority ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... yard wide and grunts his news to his companions, some of whom—there is evidently a large herd—get up and stroll towards us with all the flowing grace of Pantechnicon vans in motion. We put our helm paddles hard a starboard and leave ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... isn't plainly meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the intention of hunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he shall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... stands, As starboard as may be; And pipes on deck the topsail hands To reef the topsail-gallant strands ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the early sun lighted the newly painted, slanting deck of the Charming Lass as she snored through the gentle sea. On every side the dark gray expanse stretched unbroken to the horizon, except on the starboard bow. There a long, gray flatness separated itself from the horizon—the coast of southern ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... navigable for large vessels for more than two hundred miles. Large numbers of the Fuchou junks were moored here, which differ in construction from all other junks on the river Yangtse in having their great sterns twisted or wrung a quarter round to starboard, and in being steered by an immense stern sweep, and not by the balanced ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... small boat going away from the landing. It is rowed by one man, with one oar, which he works near the bow on the starboard side. He has set the helm hard a-port, and tied it there, and that keeps his boat from being pulled round. I never ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... of Pilots toward a land where glory never fades, and where the True Light never grows dim, our passage may continually be lit up by the reflecting rays of the Sun of Righteousness." As she finished speaking a bright light flashed on the starboard shore, quickly followed by the report of a musket. The Captain, starting at the report, remarked, "perhaps that Indian (Paul) has been watching and following." Here the Captain's words were cut short by a loud cry from one of the children and the sound of a splash. Little Jack, the fourth child, ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... mate yelling, like a hyena, in the waist. The ship is lying over half upon her beam-ends; lee scuppers under water, and forecastle all in a smother of foam. Rigging all let go, and washing about decks; topsail yards down upon the caps, and sails flapping and beating against the masts; and starboard watch hauling out the reef-tackles of the main topsail. Our watch haul out the fore, and lay aloft and put two reefs into it, and reef the foresail, and race with the starboard watch to see which will mast-head its topsail first. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... within twenty yards (they were standing starboard side on), and I prepared to get my picture. To do so I would either have to step quietly out into sight, trusting to the shadow and the slowness of my movements to escape observation, or hold the camera above the bush, directing it by guess work. It was a little difficult ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... way from the south. Seventeen days ago we scraped over the bar at the mouth of D'Urban harbor, spread our sails, and fled away before a fair wind toward the north end of Madagascar, meaning to leave it on the starboard bow and so fetch "L'Ile Maurice, ancienne Ile de France," as it is still fondly styled. The fair wind had freshened to a gale a day or two later, and bowled us along before it, and we had made a rapid and prosperous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... were beaten back so far that, in the dark whirlwind of dawn, I saw a fire-ball go whirring aloft and spatter the eastern horizon. Then, through the shrilling of the tempest, a gun roared to starboard, and at the flash a gun to port boomed, shaking our decks. We had beaten back within range of the British lines, and the batteries on Cock Hill opened on us, and a guard-ship to the west had joined in. Southeast a red glare leaped, and died out as Fort Tryon fired a mortar, while the Wind-Flower, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the Bay a steam schooner, loaded until her main-deck was almost flush with the water, was putting out to sea, and Shirley heard the faint echo of her siren as she whistled her intention to pass to starboard of a wind-jammer inward bound in tow of a ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... quiet uneventful day; colder than yesterday in the Atlantic. I find that all along we have sailed with only two lights showing, both faint, one on either end of the bridge, red to port and green to starboard. In the last twenty-four hours we covered 286 miles, and going east fast, the clock being now advanced twenty-three minutes daily. We left Avonmouth with 1500 tons of coal on board, and we use sixty-five tons daily. We carry a poultry yard and get fresh eggs for breakfast, one some ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... after the norther. While waiting for dinner to be brought on deck (the meals had been served under the awnings since the storm, for the cabin was too hot to permit even of their eating there), Teddy lay near the after starboard boat lazily wondering why that thin curl of blue smoke should come from the planking directly over the kitchen, instead of through the pipe as ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... the water close to her stern. The four guns of the Tarifa had been brought over to the side on which the enemy was approaching, and these were now discharged. One of the shots carried away some oars on the starboard side of the galley, another struck her in the bow. There was a slight confusion on board; two or three oars were shifted over from the port to the starboard side, and, she ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... hand with the hat in it, using it to point towards the spot where one folding-chair stood, dimly seen, close up to the starboard bulwark. ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... the saddle from childhood, and had ridden "across country" on many an occasion, it was not long before he became satisfied with the saddle of a maherry. The rocking, and jolting, and "pitching," as our adventurers termed it, from larboard to starboard, fore and aft, and alow and aloft, soon caused Terence to sing out "enough"; and he descended into the soft sand with a much greater desire for walking than the moment before he ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... skin, half-frightened, but wildly excited and determined to see out, what a landsman has but seldom a chance of seeing, a great gale of wind at sea, I clung tight to the starboard bulwarks of Mr. Richard Green's new clipper, Sultan, Captain Sneezer, about an hour after dark, as she was rounding the Horn, watching much such a scene as I have attempted to give you a notion of above. And as ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... end of the butt. All these little points I distinctly remembered, and I was confident that my position was somewhere near the middle of the ship, on the side which sailors would call the "starboard beam." To go through the cask, therefore, would lead me too far aft of the main-hatchway, which was that by which I had come down. Moreover, there was still the difficulty of broaching the side of the cask—greatly exaggerated, of course, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... not settled until, for the sake of peace, an agreement was made among them, with many outcries that those from one island should do their buying on the port side of the vessel, and those from another island, on the starboard side. Thereupon they subsided, and bought and sold to their hearts' content. Then in payment for this good treatment, when they took their departure from us, they hurled their darts at the ship, wounding a number of men who were on deck. But they did not boast of this, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... water; the good-natured sailors give an extra jerk, and up she comes, with baskets tied round her waist, and her feet acting as fenders against the side of the ship. Fortunately the Teutonic is bulky enough to resist heeling over under this extra weight on the starboard side. She is shipped like a bale of goods, and is immediately engaged in discharging some more of her loquacity in directing the acrobatic performances of her daughter, who ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... flagship, which led the transport fleet, was the first to encounter the submarine. At least the officer on deck and others on the bridge saw a white streak about fifty yards ahead of the ship, crossing from starboard to port at right angles to the ship's course. The ship was sharply turned 90 degrees to starboard at high speed, a general alarm was sounded, and torpedo crews were ordered to their guns. One of the destroyers called A and one of the transports ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... skill of the pilot, and the strength of the sailors. They were received at the side of the vessel by a shout of triumph. The Duke of Norfolk, a handsome young man, from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age, advanced to meet them. De Guiche and Bragelonne lightly mounted the ladder on the starboard side, and, conducted by the Duke of Norfolk, who resumed his place near them, they approached to offer their homage to the princess. Respect, and yet more, a certain apprehension, for which he could not account, had hitherto restrained ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... p. m. is divided into two "dog watches" called "first dog watch" and "last dog watch," so as to change the watches daily; otherwise starboard or port watch would be on deck the ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens |
