"Foremast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tremendous sea came rolling toward the sloop, struck it with terrific force, lifted it high on its crest and carried it forward toward the breakers. In another instant the vessel was driven with a crash on the sandy bottom. At the same moment down came the foremast, taking with it the jib-boom and bowsprit, all disappearing into the sea. Wave after wave washed over them in quick succession. The mainmast was split, and the noise made by it, as it was beaten about by the gale was deafening. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... deg. or 38 deg. south, and a little to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, when suddenly one night, when running before a strong gale, she came crushing into ice. The shock was so severe that her fore and main topmasts and mizzen-topgallant masts went by the board, and the foremast-head sprung. The hull was considerably shattered, and the main covering-board split up from forward as far aft as ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... not the least doubt; but let it be remembered; that it is something more than mere animal courage which I expect in the behaviour of my officers. If nothing more were required, the command of these boats might be as safely intrusted to any of the foremast men, who, like the bulldogs of our country, will thrust their heads into the lion's jaw ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fire from the Su-chen, the junks had redoubled their own, and the gunboat was rapidly becoming as riddled as a sieve, while men were falling fast in every direction. The ship's funnel was as full of holes as a cullender, the shrouds of the foremast were cut to pieces on both sides, the mainmast had long since been shot away, and the wooden deck-houses were mere heaps of splintered wood, while the bulwarks were in a perfectly ruinous condition. Clearly something must be done, and done quickly, or the Su-chen would ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line, He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine; He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas, He has taken my grinning heathen gods—and what should he want o' these? My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats; He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... a child. The lanterns were lit and hoisted, the ship's bell was kept constantly tolling, and the captain ordered up two "look-outs" besides himself; but the fog grew thicker and thicker, till those on the forecastle could barely make out the foremast. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... or angry when it was declared, after a thorough survey by Captain Hazard, Coffin, and himself, to be absolutely necessary to procure a new foremast and bowsprit for the ship before she sailed—the first being rotten, and the other badly sprung. As Captain Hazard placed the most implicit confidence in Morton's capacity to purchase and superintend the making of the requisite ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... muzzle burst in the faces of the men at the bow of the junk, and the ball, mainly by chance, I suppose, hit her foremast and brought down mast and sail. Then the junk came about and bumped into us abreast, with a terrific crash that stove in the larboard bulwark and showered us with fragments of carved and gilded wood broken ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... tearing them away and slamming over gun and carriage, that slid a space, grinding the gunners under it. One end of a bowline whipped over us; a jib dropped; a brace fell crawling over my shoulders like a big snake; the foremast went into splinters a few feet above the deck, its top falling over, its canvas sagging in great folds. It was all the work of a second. That hasty flight of iron, coming out of the air, thick as a flock of pigeons, had gone through hull ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... dresses of brilliant hue and many wore the fez. All were burned as dark as an old penny. Owing to our being supposed to have had measles on board, although it was proved to every one's satisfaction that there was no reason for this suspicion, we had to enter with the yellow flag flying at the foremast. We had visits from official boats, one with the police flag, very likely expecting to hear that we had cholera or smallpox among us. At any rate the objectionable flag was soon hauled down and we half expected to get permission to ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... gloomy black clouds. It was a pleasure to come out of the deep darkness, and he observed with interest the increase of the light. While he was watching the east, the lookout man in the foretop hailed the deck. He listened and moved forward to the foremast to hear what passed between him and the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... as they were rigged two centuries later. The chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two after masts. Forward the ships had bowsprits, on which each set a spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward, almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but not always, it was made of a single tree (pine or fir). If it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... of the fog, curling wisps of it reached out, twining over the bowsprint and headsails, enveloping the foremast, swallowing the schooner as a hurtling shell crashed into the stern. The next instant the mist had sheltered them. Lund released the girl and jumped ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... they shamed the paralyzed Lascars into activity. A sail was rigged on the foremast, and a sea anchor hastily constructed as soon as it was discovered that the helm was useless. Rockets flared up into the sky at regular intervals, in the faint hope that should they attract the attention of another vessel she would follow the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... seemed stove in, and I believe that more than half of those gathered forward were killed, either by the fall of the mast or by the breaking up of the bows. The bowsprit was driven aft, through the bits against the stump of the foremast, and did its share in the work. I was standing in the fore-chains, having got over there to avoid the fall of the mast. Though I was holding tight to the shrouds I was well-nigh wrenched from my hold. There was one terrible cry, and then the ship seemed to break up as if she were glass, and I was ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... the want of that regular alternation of work through the day, and repose through the night, which is enjoyed by ordinary mortals. This is a matter on which so little is known, that we are induced to expatiate upon it. Dear landsmen! would you like to know how idly and jovially a foremast Jack gets through his twenty-four hours at sea? Listen; and when we have 'said our say,' envy poor Jack his romantic calling, and begrudge him his L.2, 10s. or L.3 per month, as much as you can find in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... deviations, it is recommended to direct all the guns to be pointed to strike somewhere between the fore and mizzen masts of an enemy; when quite near, the guns of the forward divisions should be pointed in preference to that part of the hull about the foremast, and one or two of the after guns at the rudder, if ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... would give "that ——- gun's crew a bellyful of practice," and he certainly did. As soon as the first shot was fired, she backed her topsails, and when our fourth shot struck her, somewhere near the foot of the foremast, her crew could be seen hastily abandoning ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... was far from remaining silent, and Royson, never at a loss when rapidity of thought and action was demanded, took the lead. He woke up the crew with a string of orders, rushed from foremast to mainmast and back to the bows again to see that the men hauled the right ropes and set the sails in the right way, and, had the Aphrodite bowling along under canvas in less than two minutes after the stopping of the screw. Not until every ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... each division of the edifice. Nevertheless, I have been indisputably the man, who, in placing my name at the head of the undertaking, have rendered myself mainly and principally responsible for its general success. When a ship of war goeth forth to battle with her crew, consisting of sundry foremast-men and various officers, such subordinate persons are not said to gain or lose the vessel which they have manned or attacked, (although each was natheless sufficiently active in his own department;) but it is forthwith ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... in Bushy Park, had a part of the foremast of the Victory, against which Lord Nelson was standing when he received his fatal wound, deposited in a small temple in the grounds of Bushy House, from which it was afterwards removed, and placed at the upper end of the dining-room, with a bust of Lord ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... as usually applied, has reference to a vessel furnished with a bowsprit and three masts—a mainmast, a foremast and a mizzenmast; and these three masts are each composed of three parts, namely, a lowermast, a topmast, and a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... gale of wind came on, which obliged us to double reef the topsails, and get down the top-gallant yards. On the 8th, at day-break, we found that the foremast had again given way, the fishes, which were put on the head, in King George's, or Nootka Sound, on the coast of America, being sprung, and the parts so very defective, as to make it absolutely necessary to replace them, and, of course, to unstep ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the location of the center boards, or other equivalent devices for the same specific purpose, in the extreme bow and stern of vessels, that is to say, the placing of the said boards forward of the foremast or aft of the mainmast, in two masted vessels, and forward of the foremast and aft of the mizzen mast in three masted vessels, substantially as shown and described, and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... then of a sudden stopped, quivered, as though struck by a violent adverse wind. Her main topsail blew out suddenly and went streaming forth in the gale, a jib split to ribbons before their eyes, and spar after spar was carried away. She careened, as though before a hurricane, her foremast came down with a soundless smother of sail and wreckage. Further and further she tilted, and then suddenly she had vanished and there was nothing left but the March sunshine ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... 24th of January, there was a sudden swelling of the river. The waters came rushing from the interior like a vast torrent; the ships were forced from their anchors, tossed from side to side, and driven against each other; the foremast of the admiral's vessel was carried away, and the whole squadron was in imminent danger of shipwreck. While exposed to this peril in the river, they were prevented from running out to sea by a violent storm, and by the breakers ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... we must take our leave of you," said the pirate. "If I had half a dozen of my brisk boys at my heels I should have had your cargo and your ship, but Roaring Ned could not find a foremast hand with the spirit of a mouse. I see there are some small craft about, and we shall get one of them. When Captain Sharkey has a boat he can get a smack, when he has a smack he can get a brig, when he has a brig he can get a barque, and when he ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... harbour, hill-enclosed. Only small coasting craft were there, mostly ketches; but we had topsail schooners also and barquantines, those ascending and aerial rigs that would be flamboyant but for the transverse spars of the foremast, giving one who scans them the proper apprehension of stability ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... bow-on upon a cliff. There was deep water to its sheer foot, so that our sky-aspiring bowsprit crumpled at the impact and snapped short off. The foremast went by the board, with a great snapping of rope-shrouds and stays, and fell forward ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Guard vessel was a converted whaler, it had never fixed itself in his mind that the Bear was a sailing vessel with auxiliary steam, and that she was handled as a sailing vessel. Barkentine-rigged, with square sails on the foremast and fore-and-aft rig on her main and mizzen, Eric found later by experience that her sailing powers were first-class. His delight in the handling of the ship added to his popularity with his brother officers, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sent to Melbourne. She has, however, been patched up for this trip, and eight passengers, including myself, have trusted ourselves to her. She is a huge paddle-steamer, of the old- fashioned American type, deck above deck, balconies, a pilot-house abaft the foremast, two monstrous walking beams, and two masts which, possibly in case of need, might serve ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... through the fog which enveloped the broad Bay of San Francisco early on the morning of May seventh. The soft, white mist crept through the Golden Gate among the masts and funnels of the ships made fast to the docks, enveloped the yellow flame of the lanterns on the foremast in a misty veil, descended from the rigging again, and threatened to extinguish the long series of lights along the endless row of docks. The glistening bands of light on the Oakland shore tried their best to pierce the fog, but ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... you interfere between me and one of my crew? But I'll waste no words with you," replied the captain. "Tie him to the foremast." ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... navigating officer of the ship, and his first mate, a New Englander, as dry as salt cod, named Darius Green. The fourth stateroom was empty. The steward bunked forward in a little cabin rigged up in the same deck-house as the galley which snuggled up to the foot of the foremast. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... rail dipped, and green seas lolloped aboard and swirled, foam-flecked, aft. He saw the long jib-boom, now stabbing the leaden sky, now plunging into the depths. He saw the pyramid of bellying canvas on the foremast, the great foresail, the topsails, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... A human figure, glowing like a diamond ablaze, leaped out from it; another shot down from the foremast. I don't know how many I saw go. It was like a theatric effect, unreal, unconvincing, incredible. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was not easy to get English sailors—that is to say, so many as were necessary to govern the voyage and manage the sailors which we should pick up there. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner, English; a Dutch carpenter, and three foremast men. With these we found we could do well enough, having Indian seamen, such as ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... that the door on the port side was closed; but on applying my ear to the chink I fancied I could detect, through the steady swish of the rain, the sounds of regular breathing, as of a slumbering man. Forward of the galley was the foremast, and on clearing this a faint gleam of light indicated the position of the fore-scuttle; and whilst I was still glancing round in an endeavour to discover the presence of a possible anchor-watch the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the Manby's mortar lumbering behind us in a cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from headland to headland.—The maddening excitement of expectation as she ran wildly towards the cliffs at our feet, and then sheered off again inexplicably;—her foremast and bowsprit, I recollect, were gone short off by the deck; a few rags of sail fluttered from her main and mizen. But with all straining of eyes and glasses, we could discern no sign of man on board. Well I recollect the mingled disappointment and admiration ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... woman; "no, no—why, a foremast man would come down with more than that. And you a lieutenant? Five guineas, now, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wounded men crawled the deck; and up and down among them the living reeled. One man, turned cur, crouched under the bulwark with ghastly face uplifted, and met his death, whimpering. Another, strangely quiet amid the dance of devils, stood against the foremast, nursing a broken arm. Nobody heeded ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... suspecting that this innocent-looking article could be full of tobacco, lying as it was under the very eyes of the Customs officers of the port. And in 1820 three other boats were seized in one port alone, having concealed prohibited goods in a square foremast and outrigger, each spar being hollowed out from head to foot and the ends afterwards neatly plugged and painted. Another boat was seized and brought into Dover with hollow yards to her lugsails, and a hollow keel composed of tin but painted to look like wood, capable of holding large quantities ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... why his state-room had grown so small. Turning, he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... still some distance to pull, and their progress against the heavy seas was but slow. At length dawn began to break, and the wreck rose clearly before them. She was a large ship. The foremast had gone by the board, but the main and mizzen-masts, though the topmasts had been carried away, were ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... continue in that position for some moments, apparently conversing with those who were grouped along the nearest gangway. Then were observed rapid movements on the decks; and men were seen hastening aloft, and standing out upon the foremast yards. This, however, had offered no interruption to the exertions of the boatmen, who still kept plying with a vigour that set even the sail-less vessel in motion, as the foaming water, thrown from their bending oar-blades, dashed angrily against her prow. Soon afterwards both the boat and her ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... miniature, would look exceedingly well on the front of a uniform cap; for he now made up his mind to enter one service and stick to it until his abilities should receive their inevitable reward. To ship as a foremast hand and rise to captain would be a proud record; so Matt throttled his pride and faced the future with confidence, and a stomach quite filled with ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... masts, as above; they told us, they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then driven away again to the south-east by a strong gale of wind at N.N.W. the same that blew now, and having no sails to work the ship with, but a main-course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury-foremast, which they had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to stand ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... and his hanger fell into the hands of the natives. As soon as this was reported, the boats were recalled from the bay, and a strong reinforcement was sent to Mr. King with orders to strike his camp and get the Resolution's foremast off to the ship. The Indians were seen to be assembling to the right of the tents, so the guns were turned on them, and a party was posted on the Morai to cover the place where the mast lay. About one o'clock everything was got away from the shore, only a few stones being ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the other ships, which were following closely. As the ship rolled over on her beam ends, huge, thundering seas leapt upon and smothered her, and the darkness of the night was accentuated by the white foam and spume of the leaping surf. In a few moments the foremast went, the bottom was stove in, and all hope was abandoned; and then during a momentary lull in the crashing breakers they saw the Cato and Bridgewater running directly down upon the Porpoise. For ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... we clear when the foremast dropped down on the fastenings, dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... corresponded frequently since my brother's death. In his book "Poenama," written for his children, there is a picture of the Palmyra, with an account of the voyage and the only sensational incident in it. We had a collision in the Irish Sea, and our foremast was broken, so that we had to return to Greenock for repairs, and then obtained the concession of white biscuit for the second class for one day in the week. Sir John Campbell's gift of a beautiful park to the citizens of Auckland was made while my brother John was alive. Just recently he has given ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... enjoyed recording one piece of talk, in which Old Rogers was evidently trying to move a more directly religious feeling in the mind of Dr Duncan. I thought I could see that THE difficulty with the noble old gentleman was one of expression. But after all the old foremast-man was a seer of the Kingdom; and the other, with all his refinement, and education, and goodness too, was but a child ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... something of the dull sickness which is the fear of death. He retreated continually, and Cleggett was smitten with the fancy to force him backward and nail him, with a final thrust, to the stump of the foremast, which had been broken off some ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... resolution was so great, that they never went aside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether just before the mid-watch. At sunrise I found him butted like a battering-ram against the immovable foot of the foremast, and still striving, tooth and nail, to force the impossible passage. That these tortoises are the victims of a penal, or malignant, or perhaps a downright diabolical enchanter, seems in nothing more likely than ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... then stationed, and were anchored inside the New Mole. The Santa Maria, the flagship of Columbus, was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle" and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... the Mary of the Tower, and she had a frightful list to starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its course, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope that it would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleon ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house, Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand was Hephzy. And yet, so far as "running" that house was concerned the foremast hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free woman. She worked from morning until ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... intrepid offered to make the attempt for fifteen guineas; and to the astonishment and fear of all the beholders, he embarked during the height of the tempest. With great difficulty and imminent danger he succeeded in reaching her. She lost her bowsprit and foremast, but escaped further injury. He was now ordered to Quebec, where his surgeon told him he would certainly be laid up by the climate. Many of his friends urged him to represent this to Admiral Keppel; ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... Everything was made taut and trim for them by the brig's crew. The English prisoners had already been disarmed and battened down in the hold, and the prize crew then hoisted sail and prepared to take her under mizzen and foremast only to a French port. This, if she had luck, she would reach in safety, but if on the way she fell in with a British privateer or cruiser she would of course fall ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... and, thoroughly aroused, seconded the Athenian intelligently and promptly. The lurches of the merchantman told how close she was to her end. One of the seamen's axes lay on the poop. Glaucon seized it. The foremast was gone and the mainmast, but the small boat-mast still stood, though its sail had blown to a thousand flapping streamers. Glaucon laid his axe at the foot of the spar. Two fierce strokes weakened so that the next lurch sent it crashing overboard. It swung in the maelstrom by its ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... passed on deck was my only solace, and yet even there I found little to interest, except a continuous new hope. We were herded well forward, a rope dividing us from the main deck, which space the passengers aft used as a promenade. Here, between the foremast and the cabin, someone was strolling idly about most of the time, or lounging along the rail out of the sun. In time I came to recognize them all by sight, and learned, in one way or another, something of their characteristics, and purpose in taking this voyage. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... full expectation that we should now get under way and proceed among the various historic sights of Kings Port harbor, but of this I saw no signs anywhere on board the Hermana. Abeam of the foremast her boat booms remained rigged out on port and starboard, her boats riding to painters, while her crew wore a look as generally lounging as that of her passengers. Beverly Rodgers told me the reason: we had no pilot; the negro Waterman engaged for this excursion in ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... that ship; and I stayed on deck to see it executed, too. I had felt the need of asserting myself without loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized the opportunity of having a good look at the face of every foremast man as they filed past me to go to the after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad to escape from the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the time the dual working of my mind distracted ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... but grewsome. The brigantine was not a Turks Islands boat, but a coaster from Jamaica. She had sailed with a small cargo for Savannah. Two days out and the smallpox made its appearance on board. The sufferer, a negro foremast hand, died. Then another sailor was seized and also died. The skipper, who was the owner, was the next victim, and the vessel was in a state of demoralization which the mate, an Englishman named Bradford, could not overcome. Then followed ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... from the eastward, draped in deep folds the higher zones of the sky, with here and there a few stars peeping through. The wind was rising. The white light of the steamer clicked as it swung on the foremast. The red and green lights rolled with the ship, and projected their long colored rays onto the ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... which it was sung afloat was harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore. This example of the old 'fore-bitters' (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts, a convenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate in the repetitions of its shore-going rival: With a comb and a glass in her hand, her ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... left his arms. When strength came back he mounted to the bowsprit, crept in to the topgallant forecastle, and sprang down on the main-deck, to the consternation of two men at the weather fore-rigging. These were foremast hands, and Scotty had no present use for them. He ran past them in his stocking-feet—and they gave room to the wild-eyed apparition—and aft to the poop, where, besides the helmsman, was a man who might be captain or mate, but who could ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... entered the tropics, an awful storm burst upon our ship. The first squall of wind carried away two of our masts, and left only the foremast standing. Even this, however, was more than enough, for we did not dare to hoist a rag of sail on it. For five days the tempest raged in all its fury. Everything was swept off the decks except one small boat. The steersman was lashed to the wheel, lest he should be washed ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... I'm sailing on the Adriaticus" he said. He looked out at that vessel, at the Blue Peter flying from her foremast, and grinned. "In just ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... in a squall, she is driven out of her course from Candia, and four seamen are lost off the lee main-yardarm. A fearful storm greatly distresses the vessel and the captain gives command "to bear away." As she passes the island of St. George, the helmsman is struck blind by lightning. Bowsprit, foremast, and main-topmast being carried away, the officers try to save themselves on the wreck of the foremast. The ship splits on the projecting verge of Cape Colonna. The captain and all his crew are lost except Arion (Falconer), ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... we saw the vessel, and the timber-ship it was. She lay wallowing in the trough of the sea, her foremast and her mainmast both gone—a water-logged wreck. The yacht carried three boats; one amidships, and two slung to davits on the quarters; and the sailing-master, seeing signs of the storm renewing its fury before long, determined on lowering the quarter-boats while the lull lasted. Few as the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... night without seeing any sail, but on the morning of the third day a fleet of five big ships appeared to the eastward, and shifting our course we bore down upon them with amazing swiftness. Then when we were near enough to the foremast to see her English flag and the men aboard standing to their deck guns for a defence, our old Moor fires a gun in the air, takes in his sails, and runs up a great white flag for a sign of peace. And now with ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... you let my habits alone, and look out for your own fore-top-mast. Why, in the name of seamanship, is that spar stayed forward in such a fashion, looking like a xebec's foremast?" ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... up on the rocky cliff, where only the fullest tides reached it. The deck careened at a small angle, and the stern projected several feet beyond the rocks hanging over the sea. The bow pointed toward the house. The brig's foremast only was standing, to the head of which old Mugford used to hoist, on all grand occasions, or on such as he chose to consider grand, a Union Jack or a red ensign, which had been saved from the wreck. The bowsprit was but little injured, and the cordage of that and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... fire. Vast clouds of smoke were rising up from her decks, and rolling away over her stern, illuminated by columns of bright flame that jetted up forward of her foremast, almost to the height of her lower shrouds. No man unaccustomed to such a sight could have looked upon that ship without supposing ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... necessity, we decided on touching at the Cape Verd island named St. James. Knowing that we were in an enemy's country and among suspicious persons, on sending the boat ashore to get provision of victuals, we charged the seamen to say to the Portuguese that we had sprung our foremast under the equinoctial line—although this misfortune had happened at the Cape of Good Hope—and that our ship was alone, because while we tried to repair it our captain-general had gone with the other two ships to Spain. With these good words, and giving our ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... off the wind, while the corvette was too much crippled to work with her usual rapidity. This was convenient to both parties, as the last broadside had been very mischievous. The Frenchman, low in the water, had suffered less in her hull and ship's company, but more in her spars and rigging. The foremast was nearly cut in half by the carronade shot of her antagonist; her main-yard was badly wounded, and her wheel knocked to atoms, which obliged them to steer on the lower deck. The Windsor Castle had received ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... loose clue of sail—the foresail's starboard leach—flew up into the air; the boom swung after it; the gaff toppled over from above; we saw the topmast dive like a lunging rapier into the sea. We had torn the foresail in two, and the shot passing on had smashed the foremast just below the cap. All her sails lay in a confused heap just forward ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... themselves with fresh water. After leaving these islands, they sailed on, till on the 18th of July they reached the coast of Nova Francia, under 44 degrees, where they were obliged to run in, in order to get a new foremast, having lost theirs. They found one, and set it up. They found this a good place for cod-fishing, as also for traffic in good skins and furs, which were to be got there at a very low price. But the crew behaved badly towards the people of the ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... (Eden's tender), arrived this afternoon with only her foremast standing, having lost her mainmast in a tornado. Mr. Craig has just opened his general store, which, with Captain Smith's, forms the second mercantile establishment in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... which not producing the desired effect, orders were given to stave the water in her hold and pump it out, throw overboard the lumber and heavy articles of every kind, cut away the anchors... and throw over all the guns, except a few for our defence.... As a last resource the foremast and main-topgallant mast were cut away, but without any beneficial effect, and the ship remained a perfect wreck, exposed to the constant fire of the gunboats, which could not ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... government, and half of the remainder was divided among the three officers, Beardsley getting the lion's share, I bet you. The sixteen members of the crew get an equal share of the other fourteen thousand, the difference in rank between the petty officers and foremast hands being so slight that Beardsley did not think it worth while to give one more than another; but he hints that he has got ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... another cheer, for, as the rope was drawn upon, the marlin-spike caught somewhere on the far side among the broken stays of the foremast. ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... cabins, the doors of which opened into the hold and were lighted by glazed portholes. In stowing the cargo a passage was left between the packages of which it consisted. These vessels had a mast on each deck. The foremast was called Paul, the mainmast Peter—the ship being sailed by these two masts, as the Church was guided by her two apostles. A gangway was thrown, like a Chinese bridge, from one deck to the other, over the centre of the hold. In bad weather, both flaps of the gangway were lowered, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... stuff. And then, suddenly, one of the men cried out that there was a vessel in among the weed. At that, as may be imagined, we were very greatly excited, and stood upon the thwarts that we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... alleging that stress of weather had parted him from his comrades, but his excuses were felt to be lame and improbable. However it may have been with his excuses, there was no doubt as to the lameness of his foremast; it had been too badly sprung to carry much sail, so that the Pinta could not again run away from ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... in front of the foremast, or if a vessel without a foremast, then in the fore part of the vessel, at a height above the hull of not less than 20 feet, and if the breadth of the vessel exceeds 20 feet, then at a height above the hull not less than such breadth, so, however, that the light need not be carried at ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... castle turned to a man-of-war in full sail. 'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard alee, and man the guns!' roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast. 'Go in and win, my hearties!' says the captain, and a tremendous fight began. Of course the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... great resource, as the tea and coffee are abominable. Avery brings it me at six, in a tin pannikin, and again in the evening. The chief officer is well-bred and agreeable, and, indeed, all the young gentlemen are wonderfully good specimens of their class. The captain is a burly foremast man in manner, with a heart of wax and every feeling of a gentleman. He was in California, 'HIDE DROGHING' with Dana, and he says every line of Two Years before the Mast is true. He went through it all himself. He says that I am a great help to him, as a pattern of discipline ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... sorr," promptly replied Tim Rooney, showing himself from behind the deck-house between the mainmast and foremast, which had previously hidden him from the view of the poop. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the companion and darted forward while they talked. The sounds of the planks going in his boat told him that his case was desperate; his retreat was cut off. He found the stump of the foremast, and crouched behind it, and lay still. Twice the man in search of him crept round the vessel in the darkness, and Chippy shifted noiselessly from side ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... purpose. He went with a hired crew to Annapolis, and from thence proceeded to the steamer by means of a tug, a distance of about forty miles. When they arrived they found the Ulunda with her head to sea, and her stern in only 2 ft. of water at low tide, with a list of 30 deg. to port and her foremast broken short off. At high tide the water flowed over the upper deck. On examination, the engine room was found full of water, which did not rise and fall with the tide, showing that it had been filled at high tide through its skylight. No. 3 hold was also full, but had a slight ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... mainly of a steering-boom, two bollards, two fair-heads, and four life-buoys mounted on the bridge. The main-deck is equipped with six bollards and two covered ventilators, each 1/2 inch in diameter. The foremast is properly stayed in the deck, and should be fitted with rat-lines. The rat-lines can be made with black thread and finished with varnish, which when dry will tend to ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... now lies, looking huge enough in the little village, wedged for ever, smashed in at the nip like a frail match-box, a most astonishing spectacle: her bows forty feet up the street, ten feet above the ground at the stem, rudder resting on the inner edge of the quay, foremast tilted forward, the other two masts all right, and that bottom, which has passed through seas so far, buried in every sort of green and brown seaweed, the old Speranza. Her steps were there, and by a slight leap I could catch them underneath and go ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... the advice of the master, I wore, and brought to under the mizen, with her head off shore, until we could get the courses and other sails taken in, not having then a brace or bowline left, and being fully determined to renew the action in a few minutes. We had scarcely wore, when his foremast, main-top-mast, main-yard, and main-top fell, leaving his mainmast without rigging; and the ship at the same time took a large heel, which made us all conclude she had struck the ground. It was then half-ebb, and ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... the phosphorescent ostrich feathers curling from our bows. Behind me, in the darkened chart-room, the Filipino quartermaster gently swung the wheel from time to time in response to the direction of the needle on the illuminated compass-dial. So lifeless was the sea that our foremast barely swayed against the stars. The smoke from our funnel trailed across the purple canopy of the sky as though smeared ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the number saved were his father and himself. The former jumped overboard from the fore-channels with the latter, who was only seven years of age at the time, on his back, and swam to the Frenchman's foremast, which was floating at a short distance, having been shot away by the English frigate. He added that had not this unfortunate accident occurred, the French frigate must have struck her colours in less than ten minutes. He spoke most indignantly of the conduct of an English cutter that was in sight ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... finally persuaded to take the job of mate when his canny New England mind grasped the fact that the mate's share of the profits is much bigger than a foremast hand's. He was as good as his word, however, and, when the Janet Barry, with her flag at half mast but her hold full of fine skins, docked at St. Johns after the season was over, Shavings drew his money and vanished. I suppose he is ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... mast on the mizzen for a spanker; he illustrates these as having royal poles, but with no royal yards crossed.[9] The smokestack is described as pivoted. The mainstay is double, setting up at deck, near rail, and forward of the foremost shrouds of the foremast to ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... at McCord. He came pounding along behind me, still protesting that it was of no use. Abreast of the foremast I took the lantern from him ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... of the 26th we set sail to get near the Aernem and speak to her crew, who were engaged in repairing the rigging and replacing the foremast; we both drifted with the current in the teeth of the wind, and thus ran 3 miles, when the Aernem cast anchor 11/2 mile from us on the weather-side; in the evening there was a strong current from the W.S.W. with rain, which lasted ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... say, so many as were necessary to govern the voyage, and manage the sailors which we should pick up there. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner, English; a Dutch carpenter, and three Portuguese foremast-men: with these we found we could do well enough, having Indian seamen, such as ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... how we prepared the vessel for the work. This was done by reducing her spars to a light pair of lower masts, without any yards across them; the only break in their sharp outline being a small crow's-nest on the foremast, to be used as a look-out place. The hull, which showed about eight feet above water, was painted a dull grey colour to render her as nearly as possible invisible in the night. The boats were lowered square with the gunnels. Coal was taken on ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... to misuse the black bottle in this unkind way. 'Twas the passage from Spain—and the rocks of this and the rocks of that—and 'twas the virtues of a fore-and-after and the vices of an English square rig for the foremast. He'd stand by the square rig; and there were Newfoundlanders at his table to dispute the opinion. The good Lord only knew what would come of it! And the rain was on the panes, and the night was black, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... head of the South-west Pass [which we had but just passed], killing and wounding about twenty-five in number, seven of whom belonged to the boat, the balance to a barque she had alongside; carrying away the foremast of the barque close to her deck, and her mainmast above her cross-trees, together with all her fore-rigging, bulwarks, and injuring her hull considerably. The ship 'Manchester,' which she had also alongside, was seriously injured, having ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... schooner came drifting into Lewes harbor—shattered, wounded, her forecastle splintered, her foremast shot half away, and three great tattered holes in her mainsail. The mate with one of the crew came ashore in the boat for help and a doctor. He reported that the captain and the cook were dead and there were three wounded ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... handling ropes. The three ships, on leaving Darien, had three hundred each, including officers, crew and colonists. On August 13th, the Unicorn, commanded by Captain John Anderson, came into New York in a distressed condition, having lost her foremast, fore topmast, and mizzen mast. She lost one hundred and fifty men on the way. It appears that Captain Robert Pennicuik of the St. Andrew knew of the helpless condition of the Unicorn, and accorded no assistance.[14] As might be expected, passion was engendered amidst this ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged. Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... violence, and driftwood was seen more frequently. Nearing the coast offered many dangers at an epoch in which icebergs were so numerous; the commander caused some of the sails to be furled, and the Forward glided away under her foresail and foremast only. The thermometer sank below freezing-point. Shandon distributed suitable clothing to the crew, a woollen jacket and trousers, a flannel shirt, wadmel stockings, the same as those the Norwegian country-people ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... We sailed with a fair wind to the Cape of Good Hope, where we staid only to take in fresh water. On the 10th of April, 1710, we arrived safe at Amsterdam, having lost only three men by sickness in the voyage, and a fourth, who fell from the foremast into the sea, not far from the coast of Guinea. From Amsterdam I soon after set sail for England, in a small vessel belonging to ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the foremast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for I was too much ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... this place another thunder clap, which shivered our foremast very much, which we fished and repaired with timber from the shore, of which there is abundance, the trees being about forty feet high, the wood red and tough, and, as I suppose, a kind of cedar. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... century, such has been the revolution worked in man's method of trafficking with the sea, that the life and conditions described in Dana's book have passed utterly away. Gone are the crack clippers, the driving captains, the hard-bitten but efficient foremast hands. Remain only crawling cargo tanks, dirty tramps, greyhound liners, and a sombre, sordid type of sailing ship. The only records broken to-day by sailing vessels are those for slowness. They are no longer built for speed, nor are they manned before the mast by as sturdy a sailor ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... miles off. It drew nearer, always moving toward the phosphorescent glow that signaled the Nautilus's presence. I saw its green and red running lights, plus the white lantern hanging from the large stay of its foremast. Hazy flickerings were reflected on its rigging and indicated that its furnaces were pushed to the limit. Showers of sparks and cinders of flaming coal escaped from its funnels, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Martin Holt were hoisted on board; the latter was laid down at the foot of the foremast, and the former was quite ready to go to his work. Holt was speedily restored by the aid of vigorous rubbing; his senses came back, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... to the name of Adelbert P. Gibney. Mr. Gibney had spent part of an adventurous life in the United States Navy, where he had applied himself and acquired a fair smattering of navigation. Prior to entering the Navy he had been a foremast hand in clipper ships and had held a second mate's berth. Following his discharge from the Navy he had sailed coastwise on steam schooners, and after attending a navigation school for two months, had procured a license as chief mate of steam, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Doddridge's stateroom, and wrecked it badly. The explosion set a fire which was quickly put out. Another shell struck the port hammock netting, where it burst, setting fire to the hammocks. This was also soon extinguished. Still another shell struck the Boston's foremast, cutting a great gash in it. It came within twenty feet of Captain ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis |
