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Mainmast   Listen
noun
Mainmast  n.  (Naut.) The principal mast in a ship or other vessel.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mainmast" Quotes from Famous Books



... Lord guided them to a port, where a ship was never known to have entered. There they anchored, and fearing that the wind with which they entered might shift to that which generally prevails in that season and with greater fury, they determined to run the said ship into the mud, and to cut away the mainmast, in order to render them less liable to drag, and to leave the port again and encounter the enemy. Accordingly, all possible haste was displayed in disembarking the men, and the silver and reals of your Majesty and of private persons, and the most ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... hull a nicely laid band of white ran sheer from stem to stern; her bows swelled to meet the seas in a gentle curve that hinted the swift lines of our clippers of more recent years. From mainmast heel to truck, from ensign halyard to tip of flying jib-boom, her well-proportioned masts and spars and taut rigging stood up so trimly in one splendidly cooerdinating structure, that the veriest lubber must have acknowledged her ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... including Saxtorph, were scraping the poop rail. The fifth sailor, rifle in hand, was standing guard by the water-tank just for'ard of the mainmast. I was for'ard, putting in the finishing licks on a new jaw for the fore-gaff. I was just reaching for my pipe where I had laid it down, when I heard a shot from shore. I straightened up to look. Something struck ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... quiet; no noisy children, no slatternly, slipshod women rolling about the decks, no slush, no washing of dirty linen in dirtier water. There was the old mate in a clean shirt at last, leaning against the mainmast, and smoking his yard of clay; the butcher close—shaven and clean; the sailors smart, and welcoming us with a smile. It almost looked like going home. Dined in Lyttelton with several of my fellow-passengers, who evidently thought it best to be off with the old love before ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... under the Larboard bow I got people to go under the Ship's bottom, to examine all her Larboard side, she only being dry Forward, but abaft were 9 feet water. They found part of the Sheathing off abreast of the Mainmast about her floor heads, and a part of one plank a little damaged. There were 3 people who went down, who all agreed in the same Story; the Master was one, who was positive that she had received no Material Damage besides ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... not idle upon deck; the carpenter was busy fixing a step for one of the spare topmasts instead of a mainmast, and the men were fitting the rigging; the ship unfortunately had sprung a leak, and four hands at the pumps interfered very much with their task. As Ready had prophesied, before night the gale blew, the sea rose again with the gale, and the ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the honest Dutchman, who, upon breaking his Leg by a Fall from the Mainmast, told the Standers-by, It was a great Mercy that 'twas not his Neck. To which, since I am got into Quotations, give me leave to add the Saying of an old Philosopher, who, after having invited some of his Friends to dine with him, was ruffled by his Wife ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... indeed, that within a quarter of an hour we found ourselves within easy range of the chase—a fact which was brought home to us by a shot from her passing within a foot of our hammock rail and whizzing between our fore and mainmast. ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... on the mainmast, in the manner in which another might drop a palm on the shoulder of a departing faithful companion, and the wind in the rigging vibrated through the wood like a sentient and affectionate response. Then he went resolutely down into the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Ebba's boats awaited them. The schooner was anchored two cable lengths from the shore, her sails neatly rolled upon her yards, which were squared as neatly as those of a pleasure yacht or of a man-of-war. At the peak of the mainmast a narrow red pennant was gently swayed by the wind, which came in fitful puffs from ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... to the end of the farther cabin, which seemed to be deserted. Presently the captain and my father came down the stairs and I heard the officer say in a hoarse whisper. 'I will not deceive you, Mr. Hunt; the mainmast is down, the steering gear useless, the crew is not up to its business, and I fear we cannot weather the night!' I almost screamed aloud in my fright, but just then a long, lanky figure rose from the floor where it had been lying. It was one of ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... the wavetops in shimmering, mellow orange. Up in the bow of the Hoonah silhouetted against the glow, old Kayak Bill stood alone. In his hazel eyes was the wistful look that crept there sometimes when he watched the domestic happiness of those about him. A-top the cabin by the mainmast Jean and Gregg stood looking back over the lengthening stretch of water. Kon Klayu lay, an oblong of jade in the amber light, ringed with a wreath of foam. A single gull winnowed across the vision calling a wistful ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... opportunities of power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber. So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended more strictly to the laws of health, and when death ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... the New England fleet. The ketch, often referred to in early annals, was a two-master, sometimes rigged with lanteen sails, but more often with the foremast square-rigged, like a ship's foremast, and the mainmast like the mizzen of a modern bark, with a square topsail surmounting a fore-and-aft mainsail. The foremast was set very much aft—often nearly amidships. The snow was practically a brig, carrying a fore-and-aft sail ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... to the orlop (and mighty thankful) and so to the upper deck, to find a wondrous fair night breathing a sweet and balmy air and with a round moon uprising against a great plenitude of stars. The moon was low as yet and, taking advantage of the shadows, I got me into the gloom of the mainmast where the boats were stowed; and here (being well screened from chance view) I sat me down to drink in the glory of sea and sky, and to wait for chance of speech with Adam. And huge joy was it to behold these vast ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... when the sky above seemed to open, with a crash. A roar of thunder, louder than ten thousand pieces of artillery, pealed around them while, at the same moment, a blinding flash of lightning struck the mainmast, shivering it into splinters, and prostrating to the deck five seamen who were standing round its foot. As if a signal had been given by the peal of thunder, a tremendous blast of wind smote the vessel and, stripped though she was of sails, heaved her over almost ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... job, but doesn't like to show funk, either—and he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was getting dark, too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm. Stafford. He wasn't thinking of Stafford at all. Captain Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn't much. Cloete doesn't recognise him ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... though she must have found me considerably heavier than Quacko. However, as I never played her any tricks, which he constantly had done, she had no objection to carry me. I consequently took my daily ride round and round the deck, sweeping close round the mainmast and forward again. ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Dick and a few others. "We will have to stay here for a time until I can get in connection with the outside world. Then, perhaps, some one may know about this place, and a way out of it. One vessel has gone down here, and I don't care to be the next, and leave my mainmast sticking up out of the water to show folks the way ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh

... with considerable violence, the bowsprit was carried away close to the gammoning, and the foremast and main-topmast immediately followed it over the side. The wreck was quickly cleared; and, by the greatest activity and energy on the part of the officers and men, the mainyard and mainmast were saved, the latter having been endangered by the foremast falling across the stay, and the former by the wreck of the main-topmast and top-sail-yard lying upon it. Notwithstanding the continuance of the gale, and the uneasy motion ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... had been regarding Cap'n Abernethy, who in turn was looking at the mainmast. There seemed to be something in the very way Cap'n Abernethy looked at the mainmast which jarred on Mr. Watkins. Mr. Watkins dropped his voice, indicating the Cap'n with a curved, disparaging thumb, as ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then the mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean under the moon's ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... prosperous, has been marred to-day by a sad accident. Mr. Wilkins, the mate, was standing almost directly under the mainmast at about 4.30 this afternoon, when Railton, who was aloft, let slip a block, which descended on the mate's head, striking it with fearful force and killing him instantly. He was an honest, kindly man, to judge from ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... who kept up a sharp fire on him, he held his post till the battle was over. The admiral praised him for his gallantry, and, I believe, would have been very sorry if he had been killed, much as he was annoying us. A shot now struck our mainmast, sending the splinters flying on every side. I saw the admiral smile. 'This is hot work,' he observed to one of the officers; 'in another moment not one of as may be alive, but, mark you, I would not be anywhere else for ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... those days there must have been many discomforts, even in a pleasant season, and no doubt some of the people were seasick. An old record of that time says, "We fetched out the children and others that lay groaning in the cabins, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the mainmast, made them stand some on one side and some on the other and sway it up and down till they were warm. By this means they soon grew well and merry. ... When the ship heaved and set more than usual a few were sick, but of these such as came upon deck and bestirred themselves ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... and then he ups with the tiller at his noddle, and sends him floundering across the boat's thwarts like a flat-fish. I thought, your honour, seeing as how I have got the command of the schooner, of tying him up to the mainmast, and giving him two or three round dozen or so, and then sending him to swim among the mascannungy with a twenty-four pound shot in his neckcloth; but, seeing as how your honour is going among them savages agin, I thought as how some good might be done with him, if your honour could ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. Lord, how beautiful was Thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... on board the Polynesia, the moon had barely cleared the horizon, as we have stated, and the top of the mainmast just reached the uppermost portion of the periphery, while spars, rigging and hull were marked against the yellow disk as distinctly as if ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... in a state of dull and languid repose. Suspended between the two masts, in an Indian hammock, lay Featherstone, with a cigar in his mouth and a novel in his hand, which he was pretending to read. The fourth member of the party, Melick, was seated near the mainmast, folding some papers in a peculiar way. His occupation at length attracted the roving eyes of Featherstone, who poked forth his head from his hammock, and ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... clipper had drifted athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the vessel ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... schooner. Both of the workers saw that they must slacken the line a little to get it into the proper place. Now was the critical time; if the line was too much slackened it might slip under the vessel and upset it that way. Gently they lowered it until it lay against the mainmast below ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... ironclad, which was presently engaged by a British cruiser. The two ships fought for three hours, circling and driving southward as they fought, until the twilight and the cloud-drift of a rising gale swallowed them up. A few days later Bert's ship lost her rudder and mainmast in a gale. The crew ran out of food and subsisted on fish. They saw strange air-ships going eastward near the Azores and landed to get provisions and repair the rudder at Teneriffe. There they found the town destroyed and two big liners, with dead ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... 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 ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... that mainmast! Look at the rake of it! More like a yacht than a deep-water bark, she is enough sight. And the fust mate's got a uniform cap on, like a purser on a steamboat. Make that artist feller take that cap off him, Jim. He's got to. I wish he could have seen ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... of forked lightning at times rushing like large serpents through the air." Another says that "Krakatoa appeared to be alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud." A third recorded that "the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or six times," and that "the mud-rain which covered the decks was phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... continued for over an hour and a quarter, for the other ships of the British fleet were unable to get up to support the fast-sailing Bellerophon. She was severely handled by her large antagonist, and was hampered in her ability to manoeuvre by a shot which injured her mainmast. Pasley therefore, on a signal from the Admiral, bore up. The Revolutionnaire was now attacked from a distance by the Russell, the Marlborough and the Thunderer, and endeavoured to make off, but was blocked by the Leviathan. The Audacious (74) took up the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... at this time, in all the excitement of action, pacing the quarter-deck. A shot through the mainmast knocked the splinters about; and he observed to one of his officers with a smile, "It is warm work, and this day may be the last to any of us at a moment:"—and then stopping short at the gangway, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... even declined to do so; but, at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto of adherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron of eleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having on the mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting them to rally round the national standard: an address that was received with enthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago where the Turks were not numerous enough to restrain ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... were found erected in the fissures of the rocks at the projections of the cape, evidently placed there by the crew to attract the attention of vessels passing. The mizen mast and main topmast had been cut away, and there were a few marks of the axe upon her mainmast. The natives appeared to have taken notice of the ironwork, for some spike nails were found about their fireplaces; these traces, however, were not very recent, nor was it probable that any natives were upon the island at the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... load! Let's forge a goodly anchor—a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode; And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road,— The low reef roaring on her lee; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners—the bower yet remains! And not an inch to flinch he deigns—save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... quickly followed her, but before she could reach her proper station, the tide of ebb unfortunately made down the river, which occasioned her anchor to drag, so that before she brought up she had fallen abreast of the south-east bastion, the place where the Salisbury should have been, and from her mainmast aft she was exposed to the flank guns of the south-west bastion also. The accident of the Kent's anchor not holding fast, and her driving down into the Salisbury's station, threw this last ship out of action, to the great mortification of the captain, officers, and crew, for she ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... two old Dutch words which have resounded through the world, "Neen nimmer," "No, never." The fleets of Spain heard it, and understood it fully, when they saw the sinking Dutch ships with the flags nailed to the shattered mainmast, crying, "Neen nimmer," which indicated that they would ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... only one who had noted the falling barometer. Captain Hamilton was already standing at the foot of the mainmast, shouting orders that were taken up by Ditty and Rogers and ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... captain of the vessel you sailed in goodbye?' I fell into her plot so far as to walk down to the quays on the river-side and reconnoitre the ship. But there I saw my prison. I kissed my hand to Captain Welsh's mainmast rather ironically, though not without regard for him. Miss Goodwin lifted her eyelids at our reappearance. As she made no confession of her treason I did not accuse her, and perhaps it was owing to a movement of her conscience that at our parting she drew me to her near enough for a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hat, and took three or four steps, in obedience to the order—and then returned and made his best bow—inquired of Captain Wilson whether he wished him to go to the fore or to the mainmast head. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... "nothing handsomer will ever be seen than an East India-man in the northeast trades with the captain on the quarter-deck in a cocked hat and sword, the shoals of flying fish and albacore skittering about a transom as high and carved and gilded as a church, the royal pennant at the mainmast head. Maybe it would be the Earl of Balcarras with her cannons shining ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... high, blow low, let tempests tear The mainmast by the board; My heart, with thoughts of thee, my dear, And love well stored, Shall brave all danger, scorn all fear, The roaring winds, the raging sea, In hopes on shore to be once more Safe moored ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... and then, of a sudden, the thing struck the Halfmoon, ripping her remaining canvas from her as if it had been wrought from tissue paper, and with the flying canvas, spars, and cordage went the mainmast, snapping ten feet above the deck, and crashing over the starboard bow with a noise and jar that rose above the bellowing of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... (there was no landing-place) we could see an unwonted commotion in the clean streets, and a flag was run up to the top of a white staff that stood in the midst of a plaza. Captain Booden returned the compliment by hoisting the Stars and Stripes at our mainmast head, but was sorely bothered with the mingled dyes of the flag on shore. A puff of air blew out its folds, and to our surprise disclosed ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... heavy thunderstorm on the 12th, a Dutch East Indiaman, about two cables away from the Endeavour, had mainmast "split all to shivers." The Endeavour ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... away. He immediately went with his family on board of the vessel commanded by the Adelantado, and, sending back the damaged ship to port, continued on his course. Throughout the voyage he experienced the most tempestuous weather. In one storm the mainmast was sprung in four places. He was confined to his bed at the time by the gout; by his advice, however, and the activity of the Adelantado, the damage was skillfully repaired; the mast was shortened; the weak parts were fortified by wood taken from the castles or cabins which the vessels ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... the first I had ever witnessed, and was undoubtedly a more formidable one than I have ever since encountered in eighteen passages across the Atlantic. I was told, after it was over, that the vessel had sprung its mainmast—a very serious injury to a sailing ship, I suppose, by the mode in which it was spoken of; and for three days we were unable to carry any sail whatever for the fury ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... There was a flapping of sails and a rattling of blocks, and then a broadside was fired; but it is no easy matter for angry and excited men to hit a mast at the distance of nearly half a mile. One of the shots ploughed up the deck within a yard of the foot of the mainmast, another splintered a boat, three others added to the holes in the sails, but no damage of importance was done. By the time the Spaniard had borne round and was again in chase, the Good Venture was over half a ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... mainmast" at a table that was splotched already with abundant perspiration, and the acting engineer who stood in front of him shifted from foot to foot in attitudes expressive of increasing agony of mind. It grew obvious ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... immediately,—everything on deck was swept away; and, as our only chance of safety, we took to the main-rigging. This was about seven o'clock in the evening. Towards morning, by reason of the continual thumping, the mainmast began to work through the vessel, and to settle in the sand, so that it became necessary for us to make our way to the fore-rigging; which we did, not without danger, as one of the men was twice ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... finger on his nose, and winked at the mainmast. "There's few can show me the way, Jack," he answered softly; "very few. Now I want you to help me too; I want you to talk to ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... which, by its building, was Spanish, stuck fast, jammed in between two rocks; all the stern and quarter of her were beaten to pieces with the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her mainmast and foremast were brought by the board, that is to say, broken short off; but her bowsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm. When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, who, seeing me coming, yelped and cried; and as soon ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... began to cry out and entreat the favor of our blessed Father Ignatius, then the vessel ceased to drift. Thus invoking him in every danger—as they frequently did, both religious and laymen—the Lord again bestowed upon them a special favor; for when the mainmast fell, which they were obliged to cut, its fall was not, as they feared, such as to sink the vessel, inasmuch as the yard and the topsail, falling upon the rocks, served as a support, and on that side held back the ship so that it could not drift ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... wounded in this last attack, but none killed; and the mainmast was much damaged, and ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... or four hours' sail Geoffrey and Lionel acquired much nautical knowledge. They learned the difference between the mainmast and the mizzen, found that all the strong ropes that kept the masts erect and stiff were called stays, that the ropes that hoist sails are called halliards, and that sheets is the name given to the ropes that restrain the sails at the lower corner, and are used ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... low poop, no more than three feet high, and extending forward to the mainmast. She had none of the Ariadne's bright-work, as the polished teak was always called on that ship. Her rails and deck-houses had been painted in green and white, and I made out the remains of stencilled ornamentation in ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... coast of Ireland, and we put in at Kinsdale. We remained there about thirteen days, got some refreshment on shore, and put to sea again, though we met with very bad weather again, in which the ship sprung her mainmast, as they called it, for I knew not what they meant. But we got at last into Milford Haven, in Wales, where, though it was remote from our port, yet having my foot safe upon the firm ground of my native country, the isle of Britain, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... describing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... than superstitious or religious? The hamper of ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf calling "Woe to you! Woe for ever! Darkness is coming, and I and Death await you with ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... A creaking from the mainmast told that it might fall at any moment. Passengers and crew redoubled their shouts to Poseidon and to Zeus of AEgina. A fat passenger staggered from his cabin, a huge money-bag bound to his belt,—as if gold were the safest spar to cling ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... mainmast head was broken out, and sheet and downhaul pulled flat, amid a scattering rifle fire from the boats; and the Mary Rebecca lay over and sprang ahead faster ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... purpose. In addition to the ordinary fore-and-aft sails we had two movable yards on the foremast for a square foresail and topsail. As the yards were attached to a sliding truss they could easily be hauled down when not in use. The ship's lower masts were tolerably high and massive. The mainmast was about 80 feet high, the maintopmast was 50 feet high, and the crow's-nest on the top was about 102 feet (32 m.) above the water. It was important to have this as high as possible, so as to have a more extended view when ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... into her by which fifty men were killed. Drawing off from this assailant, the galley found herself close to the Dutch admiral in the Half-moon, who, with all sail set, bore straight down upon her, struck her amidships with a mighty crash, carrying off her mainmast and her poop, and then, extricating himself with difficulty from the wreck, sent a tremendous volley of cannon-shot and lesser missiles straight into the waist where sat the chain-gang. A howl of pain and terror rang through the air, while oars and benches, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... there was nothing but a whirl of scudding flakes of white. A mass of sand-laden foaming water appeared then suddenly to rise before her with a towering crest; she heard one loud cry of terror from different voices; the brig seemed lifted high in the air; the mainmast tottered; and a suffocating deluge of water came crashing down upon her, nearly carrying her with it down the cabin stairs, where she was clinging. Again and again it came, and her one thought ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... for so long had been due south from the Bermudas, no land should be in sight. But not a speck, however minute, broke the clearly-defined line that joined sea and sky. After a time Curtis made his way along the netting to the shrouds, and swung himself quickly up to the top of the mainmast. For several minutes he remained there examining the open space around, then seizing one of the backstays he glided down and rejoined ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... that her starboard shaft is partially fractured, and that to reduce the strain upon it the floats of her starboard wheel have been shortened five inches, the strain being further reduced by giving her a decided list to port; that her crank is "bandaged," that she is leaky; that her mainmast is sprung, and that with only four hours' steaming many of her boiler tubes, even some of those put in at Auckland, had already given way. I cannot testify concerning the mainmast, though it certainly does comport itself like no other mainmast I ever saw; but the other statements and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... storms did arise, Attended by winds and loud thunder; Our mainmast being tall Overboard she did fall, And five of our ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... bake bread. We couldn't go below much, fur there was a pretty good swell on the sea, an' things was floatin' about so's to make it dangerous. But we fished out a piece of canvas, which we rigged up ag'in' the stump of the mainmast so that we could have somethin' that we could sit down an' grumble under. What struck us all the hardest was that the bark was loaded with a whole cargo of jolly things to eat, which was just as good as ever they was, fur the water couldn't git through ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... breath of air, and the ocean seemed to be in one of its profoundest slumbers. The hard-breathing of Spike could be heard through the open windows of his state-room, and this was positively the only sound that was audible. The common men, who lay scattered about the decks, more especially from the mainmast forward, seemed to be so many logs, and from ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... attack the 'Monmouth,' at that time engaged with another of the enemy's ships, making room for the ships in his rear to come up to the attack of our centre, where the engagement was hottest. At three the 'Monmouth' had her mizzen-mast shot away, and in a few minutes her mainmast, and bore out of the line to leeward (C, c); and at forty minutes past three the wind unexpectedly continuing far northerly without any sea-breeze, and being careful not to entangle our ships with the land, I made signal to wear and haul by the wind ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... moment the tide turned, it was impossible to enter. They were therefore compelled to stand off, for even if he had wished to do so, Pencroft could not have gained the mouth of the Mercy. Hoisting the jib to the mainmast by way of a storm-sail, he hove to, putting the head of ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... new sense of safety. She saw her husband settled in a place not too wet, and got about the venerable boards of the Judy, looking at the old gear with curiosity, glancing, with her head dropped back, into the dark intricacy of rigging upheld by the ponderous mainmast as it swayed back and forth. Every time the men went hurriedly trampling to some point of the running gear she watched what they were at. For hours we beat about, in a great noise of waters, waiting for that opportunity at the entrance to home ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... windward; the small boat was launched out of the lee gangway; lines with life-buoys attached were drifted towards the boat, and in less than half an hour the crew was taken off and put aboard the Yarmouth fisherman. Succour came none too soon, as in less than an hour the brig's mainmast went by the board. She cocked her stern up and went down head first. The smack reached close across the stern of the Blake, and the shipwrecked crew exchanged salutes with her. Her speaking-trumpet was used in trying to communicate that she was ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... in their arms and legs, others in their breasts, so that they voided blood for two days: some were as it were drawn out in length, as if racked. But, God be praised, they all recovered, except the four men who were struck dead. With the same flash of lightning our mainmast was terribly split from the head to the deck, some of the spikes that went ten inches into the wood being melted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... Canton, and Bill Bunce, the first mate, took his place. After that we had a hard time enough. I thought it was bad at first, but it wasn't nothing to that. He was always walloping us boys, and swearing and kicking and cuffing us about. Then we had a storm, and lost our mainmast, and came near foundering; and then we were stuck in a calm for three weeks, and the water aboard ran short. That was the time I had the fever. I'd have died, I know, if it hadn't been for Tad Brice. He was one of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... men, (constructed of lines for limbs and a dot for the head,) looking through telescopes, were taking observations in different quarters; but perhaps this may be allowed—two men formed the crew. There were no sails, and the mainmast had one yard-arm, the rest had none. Up in the air, near the ship's masts, were two Arabs on horseback carrying spears; the whole tableau was coloured, as such works in the East always are, of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... comedy. It was supplied by a negro roustabout on one of the large transports. This darky throughout the trip had been very fearful of submarines, and when the actual moment of danger came he acted upon a predetermined course, and shinned up the mainmast as though Old Nick himself were at his heels. When the excitement was over an officer called up ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn, he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,—her stately spars seemingly rising out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;—it seemed an age to him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail in a reef-topsail-breeze ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... hold, decided Charley. Everybody was in high feather at the prospects of being on the way to the "diggin's." They pressed against the weather rail, mounted atop the cook's galley and the cabin roof, and several of the boldest even climbed aloft to the cross-trees of fore-mast and mainmast, where they cheered and whooped. Yes, it seemed to be a sort of pleasure ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... the foaming crest. The little mermaid thought it was a merry journey, but the sailors were of a different opinion. The ship strained and creaked; the timbers shivered as the thunder strokes of the waves fell fast; heavy seas swept the decks; the mainmast snapped like a reed; and the ship lurched heavily, while the water rushed into the hold. Then the young princess began to understand the danger, and she herself was often threatened by the falling masts, yards, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... favourite rig of that period. A snow was similar to a brig, except that she carried upon a small spar, just abaft the mainmast, a kind of ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... metal as weren't rusted to pieces. He read the catalog. Then he telegraphed to me to wire him a loan of one hundred dollars. For the catalog gave the date of one schooner's building as 1804. He knew it used to be a hard-and-fast custom of ship-builders to put a silver dollar under the mainmast of every vessel they built, a dollar of that particular year. He bought the schooner for $70. He spent ten dollars in hiring men to rip out her mast. Under it was an 1804 dollar. He ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... unquestionable discipline, Luke FitzHenry could be made a first- class officer and a brilliant sailor. No one quite understood him, not even his brother Henry, usually known as Fitz. Fitz did not understand him now; he had not understood him since the fatal notice had been posted on the broad mainmast, of which some may wot. He did not know what to say, so, like the wise old ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... mainmast was struck by the lightning, which split a piece off it from top to bottom, but fortunately did not disable it; but a sad mishap befell one of our men while sitting at mess at the time, for he was ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... test occurred in February, 1902, when a receiving station was installed on the steamship Philadelphia, proceeding from Southampton to New York. The receiving aerial was rigged to the mainmast, the top of which was 197 feet above the level of the sea, and a syntonic receiver was employed, enabling the signals to be recorded on the tape of an ordinary Morse recorder. On this voyage readable messages were received from Poldhu up to a distance of 1551 miles, and ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... Magnificent weather. The gentlemen have all turned boys. They play boyish games on the poop and quarter-deck. For instance: They lay a knife on the fife-rail of the mainmast—stand off three steps, shut one eye, walk up and strike at it with the fore-finger; (seldom hit it;) also they lay a knife on the deck and walk seven or eight steps with eyes close shut, and try ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... most galling fire from the Danish ships, two hundred and twenty of the crew were killed or wounded. "There was not a single man standing," wrote a young officer on board of her, "the whole way from the mainmast forward, a district containing eight guns a side, some of which were run out ready for firing, others lay dismounted, and others remained as they were after recoiling.... I hastened down the fore ladder to the lower deck and felt really relieved to find somebody ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... government, not permitting ships bearing a Greek flag to come into its harbours, Byron was obliged to pass to Zante in a small vessel, and to join the Greek brig afterwards, which was waiting for him near Zante. Hardly was Byron on board when he kissed the mainmast, calling it "sacred wood." The ship's crew astonished at this whimsical behaviour, regarded him in silence; suddenly Byron turned towards the captain and the sailors, whom he embraced with tears, and said to them, "It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... run to the waist of the ship when he saw the inevitable collision and had called all hands from the poop and quarter. The Mary Rose was provided with an elevated quarter-deck and above that a high poop. Massing his men in the gangways just forward of the mainmast and on the forecastle itself, with the hardiest spirits in the front line and Morgan himself in advance of all sword in hand, the two parties contemplated each other for a little space ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... long and narrow to begin with. She has been lengthened since. Nevertheless, though nobody could call her a dry boat, she will behave herself in any ordinary sea, and come about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans—I put this into her myself—cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... alone upon his watch, shuts his eyes to his duty and tolerates the beautiful girl on deck, when he is told by her that she cannot sleep for the rats. Make the weather fair, to keep the picture at its best, and let her pass the hours till the coming of the dawn, watching the mainmast-truck sway to and fro against the Southern Cross, as the breeze falls and rises, and the bulwark-plash is soft or ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... engagement from shore, the Emden was cut off rapidly. Her forward smokestack lay across the ship. She went over to circular fighting and to torpedo firing, but already burned fiercely aft. Behind the mainmast several shells struck home; we saw the high flame. Whether circular fighting or a running fight now followed, I don't know, because I again had to look to my land defenses. Later I looked on from the roof of a house. Now the Emden again stood out to sea about 4,000 to 5,000 yards, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the bubbles glide away from her could you detect her progress. There were no waves, no ripples, nothing but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle breeze, unnoticeable on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been lowered and stowed except the large square sail bent on a yard to the mainmast and never used except with such a wind. The Ariadne had a strong flood tide under her, and her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there was no tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... shouted; "we shall finish with her before the other can come up." As he spoke a shot from the long-tom struck the cutter's mainmast, which tottered for a moment and then fell over her side towards L'Agile, and the sails and hamper entirely prevented the crew from working her guns. For another five minutes the fire was kept ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... a manner as circumstances would admit. When the weather permitted, the flags of the ship were hung up as an awning or screen, forming the quarter-deck into a distinct compartment; the pendant was also hoisted at the mainmast, and a large ensign flag was displayed over the stern; and lastly, the ship's companion, or top of the staircase, was covered with the FLAG PROPER of the Lighthouse Service, on which the Bible was laid. A particular toll of the bell ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the bottom having been evidently stirred up. The adjacent land seemed eroded in a remarkable manner. It has its floods, which excavate these valleys and ravines, and leave those singular ridges behind. Towards evening I climbed the mainmast, and, standing on the cross-trees, saw the sun set amid a blaze of fiery clouds. The wind was strong and bitterly cold, and I was glad to slide back to the deck along a rope, which stretched from the mast-head to the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... orders to the mate to summon all hands on deck, and one of the first proceedings was to call the men to attention, the next to send them to the small-arms chest, from which each returned with cutlass buckled on and carrying a boarding pike, which were placed in a rack round the mainmast. ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... smouldering mutiny the ship's gunner died, and probably because the gutter boy, Greene, was the most poorly clad of all, Hudson gave the dead man's overcoat to the London lad. Instantly there was wild outcry from the other men. It was customary to auction a dead seaman's clothes from the mainmast. Why had the commander shown favour? In disgust Hudson turned the coat over to the new mate—thereby adding fresh fuel to the crew's wrath and making Greene a real source of danger. Greene was, to be sure, only a youth, but small snakes sometimes ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... against the rebels: hence it was set in the Holiest of the Tabernacles (Heb. ix. 14) as a lasting memorial. I have described (Pilgrim. i. 301) the mark of Moses' rod at the little Hammam behind the old Phoenician colony of Tur, in the miscalled "Sinaitic" Peninsula: it is large enough to act mainmast for a ship. The end of the rod or rods is unknown: it died when its work was done, and like many other things, holy and unholy, which would be priceless, e.g., the true Cross or Pilate's sword, it remains only as a memory around which a host of grotesque ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... gold, representing their youngest son, William, had been placed on the prow, with the face towards England. Being a better sailer than the others, this ship was soon a long way ahead; and William had a mariner sent to the top of the mainmast to see if the fleet were following. "I see nought but sea and sky," said the mariner. William had the ship brought to; and, the second time, the mariner said, "I see four ships." Before long he cried, "I see a forest of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... ship. Human courage and resolution have seldom been more severely tried than in the exigencies of this terrible night on board the Richard. Jones continued to ply his feeble cannonade from the deck, levelled at the mainmast of the adversary. Both vessels were on fire, when, at ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... just before nightfall. Dark had come with the suddenness of the tropic seas. There was a puff of wind, followed by a steady breeze, and the schooner once more sped southward. Robert, anxious to breathe the invigorating air, came upon deck, and standing near the mainmast watched the sea rushing by. The captain paused near him and said to ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... looked out that way, coming from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French plums—provision ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... he could not forbear taking me up in his right hand, and, stroking me gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, whether I was a whig or a tory? Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign[60]," he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet, says he, I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honor; they contrive little ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... was inconsiderable, having only seven guns, and ten or twelve muskets, and very ill provided with victuals, necessaries, and fresh water, having no more sails than the uppermost of the mainmast. This account the pirates received from some one who had spoken with seven mariners belonging to the galleon, who came ashore in the cockboat for fresh water. Hence they concluded they might easily have taken it, ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... till a light as intense for one moment annihilated it, and the succeeding darkness seemed shattered with the sharp reports of the thunder that cracked without reverberation. He who had shrunk from battle with his fellowmen, rushed to the mainmast, threw himself on his knees, and stretched forth his arms in speechless energy of supplication; but the storm passed away overhead, and left him kneeling still by the uninjured mast. At length the vessel reached her port. He hurried on shore to bury himself in the most secret ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... as we looked ahead, All for'ard, the long white deck Was growing a strange dull red,... Red from mainmast to bitts! Red on bulwark and wale,— Red by combing and hatch,— Red o'er netting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... daybreak 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

... 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 sheet was drawing and the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... set to make three partners with a step cut in each, these being intended to take the heels of the three masts, and when these were completed, they bolted them securely to the decks at the fore part of each one of the stumps of the three lower-masts. And so, having all ready, we hove the mainmast into position, after which we proceeded to rig it. Now, when we had made an end of this, we set-to upon the foremast, using for this the foretopmast which they had saved, and after that we hove the mizzenmast into place, having for this the ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... westward in the Nicholas Channel, off the northerly coast of the Island of Cuba. There was a high sea running, but the ship stood up well, and the few men who were on deck could get about easily. Even a boy of apparently not over seventeen, who came to a halt near the mainmast, managed to keep his balance with some help from a rope. That he did so was a credit to him, and it helped to give him a sailor-like and jaunty air. So did his blue trousers, blue flannel shirt with a wide collar, and the sidewise pitch of his tarpaulin hat. He might as well ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... her immense size and terrific guns, which, well aimed, low on the water, to gain the ricochet, did fearful mischief among the attacking galleys. Two galleons were burnt to the water's edge, and their crews took to the boats; a third, Boccanegra's, lost her mainmast, and staggered away crippled. What was Doria about? The wind was now in his favour; the enemy was in front: but Doria continued to tack and manoeuvre at a distance. What he aimed at is uncertain: his colleagues ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... to Hellenic custom, to the rowers was allotted a musician, with whose harmony their oars, when first putting forth to sea, kept time. And on this occasion Alcman superseded the wonted performer by his own more popular song and the melody of his richer voice. Standing by the mainmast, and holding the large harp, which was stricken by the quill, its strings being deepened by a sounding-board, he chanted an Io Paean to the Dorian god of light and poesy. The harp at stated intervals was supported by a burst of flutes, and the burthen of the verse was caught ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... explained to persons not familiar with ships, that the sailors' quarters are in the forward part of the ship where they (the sailors) are supposed to be found after working-hours, in port, coming never abaft the mainmast; hence the term ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... with expression, and every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst the central steeple towers proudly up like the mainmast of some great Indiaman among a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the ship broke up, this man was standing on the lee bulwark, holding by the shrouds of the mainmast, the lower part of which was still standing. A lady and gentleman clung to each other, and to the rigging close beside him. They were husband and wife. Both were comparatively young, and up to that night had been full of hope and ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... time I was told to go and 'grease the saddle.' Not knowing that this was a block of wood spiked to the mainmast to support the main boom, and thinking this a trick too, I refused to go, and came again near getting my head broken by the red-faced mate. I did not believe there was anything like a ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... near Cagayan one fair morning at dawn, they found themselves near a Japanese ship, which Juan Pablo engaged with the admiral's galley in which he himself was. With his artillery he shot away their mainmast, and killed several men. The Japanese put out grappling-irons and poured two hundred men aboard the galley, armed with pikes and breastplates. There remained sixty arquebusiers firing at our men. Finally, the enemy conquered the galley as far as the mainmast. There our people also made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... again come closer, but not so as to prevent the guns from being handled. While the cannon roared and the flames shot up, the two crews again met in desperate hand-to-hand strife, for it was evident that one of the two vessels must be lost. By the light of the flames Jones saw that the mainmast of the Serapis was cut almost in two. Quickly he gave the order, and another double-headed shot finished the work. Captain Pearson, who had commanded his ship most gallantly, hauled down his flag and surrendered. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... Vandevelde ought to have done with the shadow of his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm, we should in nature, if we had looked for the reflection, have seen it clear from the water-line to the flag on the mainmast; but in so doing, we should have appeared to ourselves to be looking under the water, and should have lost all feeling of surface. When we looked at the surface of the sea,—as we naturally should,—we should have seen the image of the hull ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... towards the kitchen, intending to look for matches and a lantern. Although the sea was very rough, he noticed that the ship did not move, a fact which astonished him very much. But when he came to the mainmast, he was even more astonished to find himself walking on a parqueted floor, partly covered by a strip of carpet of a small blue and white checked pattern. He walked and walked, but still the carpet stretched before him, and still he came no nearer to the kitchen. It was certainly uncanny, ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... family had the means to wear green dresses in the winter as well. But then the woodcutter came, like a great revolution, and our family was broken up. The head of the family got an appointment as mainmast in a first-rate ship, which could sail round the world if necessary; the other branches went to other places, and now we have the office of kindling a light for the vulgar herd. That's how we grand people came to ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... a shivered, shorn, and helpless wreck, rolling like a log in the trough of the sea. Hull sent an officer on board to inquire of Dacres whether he had struck his flag. Looking up and down, Dacres coolly replied, "Well, I don't know: our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone, and, upon the whole, you may say we have struck ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... smugglers had become alarmed. The longboat gun, which worked on a slide abaft all, was cleared, and the two little cohorns, or hand-swivel guns, which pointed over the sides, were trained and loaded. A man swarmed up the mainmast to look around. "The cutter's bearing up to close," he called out. "I see she's the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... the maintop aloft to take a reef in the tops'le. Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top afore Cap'n Crang comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not troublin' to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'. Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when—sock at his very feet—there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold, an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says the Cap'n, 'an' where the devil might you come from?' ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... her work daintily, Captain Ratlin," said he who was evidently an officer, and who had been standing by the mainmast, but now ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... embalmed, the famous ship Pelican, in which Drake had sailed round the world. There she stands, drawn up high and dry upon the sedgy bank of Thames, like an old warrior resting after his toil. Nailed upon her mainmast are epigrams and verses in honor of her and of her captain, three of which, by the Winchester scholar, Camden gives in his History; and Elizabeth's self consecrated her solemnly, and having banqueted on board, there and then honored Drake with the dignity of knighthood. "At which ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... sweeps through them, the decks one mass of wreckage in hopeless confusion, cordage and rigging, splintered yards, and shattered deck-house—all alike had suffered a sea change. The foremast and the mainmast were gone, and their stumps stood up jagged and torn, but the mizzen lower mast still remained, and the men—those of them that were left—were in the rigging, for the deck every moment was becoming more untenable. The wheel was broken and the ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... brig beside us dipped and dipped White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock, Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped; Her cable-swivels clanged at ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... right under the bows of the 'Maid,' flinging up a fountain which rose as high as the mainmast, and deluging the decks for ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... pulling the others ashore. Dr. Geddie, Mr. Mathieson, Mrs. Paton, and I were perched among the boxes on the John Knox, and had to hold on as best we could. On sheering off from the F. P. Sage, one of her davits caught and broke the mainmast of the little John Knox by the deck; and I saved my wife from being crushed to death by its fall, through managing to swing her instantaneously aside in an apparently impossible manner. It did graze Mr. Mathieson, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... resolved to cut away the mainmast, which they did, and this augmented the shock, neither could they get clear of it, though they cut it close by the board, because it was much entangled within the rigging; they could see no land ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... diver pick up the burden he had brought from the cabin. He hastened to the rail of the wreck. In a moment he had clambered overboard, letting himself down by means of a line secured to a belaying pin at the mainmast. ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... very natural that when Minnie paced the quarterdeck between the stern and the mainmast, and Ruby paced the forepart of the deck between the bows and the mainmast, the two should occasionally meet at the mainmast. It was also very natural that when they did meet, the girl who had been rescued should stop and address a few words of gratitude to the man who had saved ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... this was done. There were two doors opening into the cuddy, one on each side of the mainmast, with a slide over each. Outside of these doors were two round holes, which I had sawed in the bulkhead for ventilation. By reaching the arm through one of these apertures the slide could be locked. I fastened Kate into the cuddy, and then gave her the key, with which she opened the door ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... was increased by the accidental ignition of a cartridge of powder near one of the lower deck-ports, and the flames spreading from cartridge to cartridge all the way aft, blew up the whole of the officers and people that were quartered abaft the mainmast. In this state Captain Pearson was compelled to strike his colours, and Captain Piercy was under the necessity of following his example. The "Bon Homme Richard," however, was in a still more pitiful condition than the "Serapis." Her quarters and counter ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... King must stand up tall, If he would be head over all; Mainmast of Battle! when the plain Is miry-red with bloody rain! And grip his weapon for the fight, Until his knuckles grin tooth-white, The banner-staff he bears is best If double handful for the rest: When "follow ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby

... been rigged upon the mainmast, and this morning, after breakfast, Mr. Whitney, three Esquimos, and myself started in Mr. Whitney's motor-boat to hunt walrus. The motor gave out very shortly after the start, and the oars had to be used. We were fortunate in getting two walrus, which I shot, and then we ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson

... ships had cut their masts on board, and another was foundered; two more that had lost their anchors, were forced out to the mercy of the ocean; and to save our lives we were forced to cut our foremast and mainmast quite away. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... one of the ships, which had suffered most, hauled off and abandoned the fight. That of the admiral had fared little better, and now her condition grew desperate. With her rigging torn, her mainmast half cut through, her mizzen-mast splintered, her cabin pierced, and her hull riddled with shot, another volley seemed likely to sink her, when Phips ordered her to be cut loose from her moorings, and she drifted ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... of them succeeded; and our fellows spent a merry morning and afternoon with the other, boarding her and running the king's flag to the top of her mainmast. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... we had ever been ashore. The sails blew away, she lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the ocean poured over her, and we did not care. We turned those handles, and had the eyes of idiots. As soon as we had crawled on deck I used to take a round turn with a rope about the men, the pumps, and the mainmast, and we turned, we turned incessantly, with the water to our waists, to our necks, over our heads. It was all one. We had forgotten how it felt to ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... added uncle Hapgood. "If he hadn't been as cool as cowcumber, and as stiff as the mainmast of a frigate, we should have been taken, every one ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed upon, that they should strictly go halves; the lady, however, laying special claim to certain valuables, more particularly fancied. But as a set-off to this, she generously renounced all claims upon the spare rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and all claims upon the captain's arms and ammunition. Of the latter, by the way, Dame Antonina stood in no need. Her voice was a park of artillery; her talons a ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... given each one his part, and pledged our obedience, though he bade us walk the plank blindfold to the sea. Two men were set to transferring powder and arms from the forehold to our captain's cabin. One went hand over fist up the mainmast and signalled the Ste. Anne to close up. Jackets were torn from the deck-guns and the guns slued round to sweep from stem to stern. With a jarring of cranes and shaking of timbers, the two ships bumped together; and a more surprised looking lot of men than the crew of the Ste. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... a quarter of a mile from the Stags when down came her mainmast. It must have knocked over the man at the helm and injured others standing aft, for her head fell off and she ran on directly for the rocks. Still her crew did their best to save her. The wreck was cleared away, and once more she stood up as close ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston

... "My brother Charley, cap'n o' th' Cambria, sir, in th' 'Amburg-American Line, 'e learned me to kill sea sorpints, w'en I was jest a l-little bit of a—a piker, sor. An' I n-never forgot 'ow 'e told me to do it. You climb up th' mainmast, sor, w'ere you can git at their 'eads, cross your fingers for luck, an' blow tobacco smoke in their eyes. They 'ate tobacco ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... settling by the stern before the termination of the conflict. Her crew had jumped into the sea, supporting themselves by portions of the wreck, spars, and other accessible objects, the water swept over the stern and upper deck, and when thus partially submerged, the mainmast, pierced by a shot, broke off near the head, the bow lifted from the waves, and then came the end. Suddenly assuming a perpendicular position, caused by the falling aft of the battery and stores, straight as a plumb-line, stern first, she went down, the jibboom being ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... beheld such a scene as I trust I may never see again. The mainmast had fallen, tearing a great gap in the bulwark, and crushing two sailors under its weight. Hiram Bunker and some of his men were rushing to and fro, shouting and yelling; others were gazing as though stupefied at the wreckage ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... cutlasses, powder and shot were got up, and every preparation made for the fight. The enemy approached, but as he had run to leeward, it was some time before he could work up to pass us to windward. We had carried a stay from the mainmast to the bowsprit, and on this we managed to set a sail, so that the ship was tolerably under control. When the enemy, therefore, at last passed under our stern, we were able to luff up and avoid the raking fire he poured in. No damage was done to any of our people, but a shot struck ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... Swim, Sir."—During a terrible naval battle between the English and the Dutch, the English flag-ship, commanded by Admiral Narborough, was drawn into the thickest of the fight. Two masts were soon shot away, and the mainmast fell with a fearful crash upon the deck. Admiral Narborough saw that all was lost unless he could bring up his ships from the right. Hastily scrawling an order, he called for volunteers to swim across the boiling water, under the hail ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... at the taffrail as it came up out of the breakers, wet but welcome. "Pass it around the mainmast, Scraggsy," Mr. Gibney cautioned. "If we make fast to the towin' bits, the first jerk'll pull the anchor bolts up ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne



Words linked to "Mainmast" :   mast



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