"Sprit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forward, and upper and lower stu'n'sails spread out to windward—she looked like some beautiful bird in full flight with outstretched wings, her motion through the water being so easy and graceful, while the sparkling spray was tossed up sometimes over the sprit-sail yard as she ever and anon dipped her bows, as if curtsying to Neptune. It seemed to me the most delightful thing in the world to be there, ship and sea and air and sky being all alike in harmony, expressing the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that were able to carry sail, leaving the rest, which were dismasted and crippled, at the mercy of their enemies. Upon the clearing up of the smoke, eight or ten French ships were seen, some totally dismasted and others with only one mast standing, endeavouring to make off under their sprit-sails. Seven of these were taken possession of; one, Le Vengeur, sank before the whole of her crew could be taken out, not more than 280 being saved. A distant and irregular firing was continued at intervals between the fugitive and British ships till about ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... me down the rickety wharf and into the salmon boat. Likewise they stretched my boom and sprit until the sail set like a board. Some feared to set the sprit; but I insisted, and Charley had no doubts. He knew me of old, and knew that I could sail as long as I could see. They cast off my painter. I put the tiller up, filled away before it, and ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... their Windward Bow, which confirmed the Sailors Opinion, that she would attempt to board them, as she did at the pretended Change of the Watch; there being little or no Wind, she lashed to the Bow-Sprit of the Victoire and enter'd her Men, who were very quietly taken, as they enter'd and tumbled down the Forehatch, where they were received by others, and bound without Noise, not one of the Privateers killed, few hurt, and only one Frenchman wounded. ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... and loading and unloading ships: it has various names, as a Ware barge, a west-country barge, a sand barge, a row-barge, a Severn trough, a light horseman, &c. They are usually fitted with a large sprit-sail to a mast, which, working upon a hinge, is easily struck for passing under bridges. Also, the bread-barge or tray or basket, for containing ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... and in a few minutes the launch was floating slowly away from the hospitable bank of sand. Paul hauled out the jigger, a small sprit-sail, that kept itself close-hauled from being fastened to a stationary boom, and a little mast stepped quite aft, the effect of which was to press the boat against the wind. This brought the launch's head up, and it was just possible to see, by close attention, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... spare gaskets; good rolling tackles upon the yards; squared the booms; saw the boats all made fast; new lashed the guns; double breeched the lower deckers; saw that the carpenters had the tarpawlings and battens all ready for hatchways; got the top-gallant-mast down upon the deck; jib-boom and sprit-sail-yard fore and aft; in fact every thing we could think of to make ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the fore-sail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizen. The ship lay very broad off, so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling. We reefed the fore-sail and set him, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... abroad, 'tis they (and not our home dwelling Freeholders) are most proper for it. Our War must now be an Offensive War; and what I am pleading for, concerns only the bare Defensive Part. Most of our present Generals and Officers are fill'd with the true Sprit of Liberty (a most rare thing) which demonstrates the Felicity of her Majesty's Reign, and her standing upon a true Bottom, beyond any other Instance that can be given; insomuch, that considering how great and happy ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... we waved good-by to our dusky attendants, as they stood on the bank, grouped around a little fire, beside the big, empty ox-carts. A dozen miles down-stream a rowboat fitted for a sprit-sail put off from the bank. The owner, a countryman from a small ranch, asked for a tow to Corumba, which we gave. He had with him in the boat his comely brown wife—who was smoking a very large cigar—their two children, a young man, and a couple of trunks ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... fainting man. Paul grasped this firmly and was hauled up till the light of the lantern revealed his blood covered face and glinting rubber head piece. The miller uttered a cry of terror, let go the rope and ran into the mill where he securely fastened himself, thinking no doubt that some evil sprit of the Danube had appeared to him. When the terrified miller loosened his hold on the rope, Paul now almost entirely exhausted dropped back into the current and floated away in a semi-conscious condition. With his half paddle ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the free-men Who scanned the stars and westward sung When a king commanded and the Atlantic thundered "Nay!" Hers as yours the pride is, for Drake our first of seamen First upon his bow-sprit hung That bunch of ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes |
