"Bitts" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he now mounted the pedestal of the main-top-sail sheet-bitts, imposing silence by a theatrical wave of his hand; meantime, his subordinates were rummaging the bags, and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... small jury-mast was rigged up aft, attached to the stump of the mizzen-mast, and one on the main-deck, close to where the main-mast bitts yet remained, as it was thought better not to step the jury-masts too far forward, for fear of the vessel plunging her bows under. After this, the mizzen-topsail and topgallant-sail, which had been cut off from the yards and saved from the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... of thirty thousand dollars. This was done on the night of the 9th, and on the morning of the 10th, they contrived to heave in the chain cable, and get the anchor up to the bows; and the ship was drifting finely towards the beach, when the cable, not being stopped abaft the bitts, began suddenly to run out with great velocity; but a bight having by accident been thrown forward of the windlass, a riding turn was the consequence, and the anchor, in its descent, was suddenly checked ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... sailors say. So far as they could see in the darkness about twenty feet of her bow had driven up onto the polar reef. The Brutus had stopped towing in response to the signal gun of the Southern Cross in time to prevent the towing-bitts being rooted out bodily or ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... checking the cable running out. When a ship has been given the necessary cable, the cable holder is eased up and the compressor "bowsed to"; in a heavy sea, a turn, or if necessary two turns, are taken round the "bitts," a strong iron structure placed between the hawse and navel ("deck") pipes. A single turn of cable is often taken round the bitts when anchoring in deep water. Small vessels of the mercantile marine ride by turns around the windlass; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... me kinder and kinder, giving me of the best bitts where lesse wormes weare. Then they layd [me] to the watter side, where there weare 7 and 30 boats, ffor each of them imbark'd himselfe. They tyed me to the barre in a boat, where they tooke at the same instance the ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... papers, which he did not open, were then passed on to the midshipman on duty on the quarter-deck, with orders to take them to the purser's office; and the commander then proceeded to muster the lot abaft the mainmast bitts. ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... trouble was little Lena, and in due course I perceived that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate. This object led a sort of "in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed against the starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by all the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby—Nicholas—looked on with a cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to another tribe ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad |
