SPRITSAIL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Spritsail

... our fishermen by carrying off baits and hooks, and appeared always on the alert, darting out in a body of twenty or more from under the ship's bottom when any offal was thrown overboard. Being quite a nuisance, and useless as food, Jack often treated them as he would a shark, by spritsail-yarding, or some still less refined mode of torture. One day some of us while walking the poop had our attention directed to a sucking-fish about two and a half feet in length which had been made fast by the tail to a billet of wood by a fathom or so of spun yarn, ...

— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray