Coaster

“ I made short surveys along the trail, resting my raw posterior when I could. Then horseback again, clenching my teeth at every bump on the saddle-sores. Imagine a Coney Island roller coaster magnified a hundred times, and you have our slide and scramble, up and down, down and up, to attain an elevation of 3,000 feet. Down, down would go the coaster on a grade so steep that a fly, if he tried it, would fall over on his nose; and I marveled again at the adhesive footing of my horse. On the final upgrade I spared my buttocks and skinned my heels, for even the horse surrendered. ”

“ The dull roar grows louder and louder.
The rapids catch us up and bear us along like chips on the foaming tide of a mountain stream. Our staunch vessel rocks like a toy boat. The coaster lashed to one side creaks and groans in its wild efforts to break away.
Calling Bulger to me I pass the line around him and lash him firmly to the main-mast, for I was fearful lest a sudden lurch might hurl him overboard. On, on, we speed through the frightened waters. The roar is deafening. I glance at my seamen. Their bronzed faces are blanched. They cling to the shrouds and stays. ”

“ In accordance with my orders, every sail on the coaster had been set, and her helm lashed, so as to pass to the right of Thor’s Hammer.
“Courage, men!” I cried. “Stand by, all! Cut away the lashings! Cast off the tender!”
Then waving my hand to the skipper, our mainsail came down with a run. Everything worked like a charm. Our ship slowed up, while the coaster shot ahead to her destruction. See, how gallantly the doomed craft speeds on her way; for the breeze had freshened, and several gay streamers and flags, which my men had run up to the topmast, fluttered in the crisp morning air. ”

“ It is just the difference between the deep-sea steamer with twelve hundred people aboard, besides the poor beggars sweating and scorching in the stoke-hold, and the coastwise boat with a mixed cargo of ‘notions.’ And so, when the liner sees fit to salute the coaster in passing, that small boat is mightily encouraged. ”

“ Every now and then a tiny white speck would emerge from under the bluff into sight, and skim away until lost in the misty distance; and a coaster from the offing, as she hauled in for the bay, would as suddenly vanish for a time, until she again appeared, diminished in the distance to a sea-bird, gliding slowly along the glasslike surface of the small bay, when she would fold her white wings, and become stationary at anchor near the shipping-place, or Barquedier, as it is called. ”

“ The strain upon his physical strength, in thus by main force holding the tiller right, had for hours been unceasing—and one could see by his dripping face that he was deeply wearied. But sign of fear there was none.
Only a man brought up in the interior of a country, and who had come to the sea late in life, would have dared bring this tiny cockle-shell of a coaster into such waters upon such a coast. ”

“ There was a big four-masted coaster bound south, too, and light, and for the best part of the night we had a drifting match with her. Coasters as a rule are not great all-round 69 sailers, but some of them, with their flat bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and going light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of that kind. We had our work cut out to hold this one while the wind was light and astern, but in the morning, when it hauled and came fresher, we went flying over the shoals. So far as the looks of it went the big coaster might as well have been anchored then. ”

“ I used to lie in some creek on the coast. Sometimes we slept in any old hovel, in any cover, we could find near the shore, but generally under our awnings and sails in the boat; and by day we used to sally out, and board any suspicious coaster that was passing. ”

“ I'm speeding her to the limit. Faster than I ever did before, but I guess she'll do. She was built to stand a strain, and she's got to do it now!"
Then there was silence again, as they slid along through the air like a coaster gliding down a steep descent. ”

“ If a short cut can be taken, the coaster is sure to know it, and he can be followed through narrow channels with the greatest safety. A coaster rarely draws less than 6 feet when full up with cargo, or a barge less than 4 to 5 feet. ”

“ Great chains are used to pull the wagons, and when a camp is made the whole affair is stopped in the middle of the road and the harness is dropped right where the horse that bore it stood. Many freighters have what they call a coaster hitched to the last wagon. The coaster is almost like other wagons, but it is a home on wheels; it is built and furnished as sheep wagons are. This freighter had one, and as we drove past I was surprised to see the form of a woman and a small boy. ”

“ They keep the news so close that you never can tell when a transport might slip out. But I don't think she's quite big enough. She's probably just a coaster."
"It's too bad that we forgot the glasses," said Elspeth. ”

“ Then it was down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze.
And I left the master of the coaster there and went back to the Duncan, where the crew were standing along the rail or leaning over the house and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were 104 coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the seining fleet––this racing to harbor when it blows and then watching the others work in. ”

“ The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages within.
Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. ”

“ On the third day they were stretching off the land, to meet the first of the tide, under a light breeze and smooth water, when Newton perceived various objects floating in the offing. A small thing is a good prize to a coaster; even an empty breaker is not to be despised ”

“ That spot of shining white should be the canvas of some craft, hovering in the offing!”
“Nothing more probable, in so light a breeze. Your coasters are in and out, like water-rats on a wharf, at any hour of the twenty-four—and yet to me it seems the comb of a breaking sea.”
“’Tis snow-white duck; such as your swift rover wears on his loftier spars!”
“A duck that is flown,” returned the stranger drily, “for it is no longer to be seen. These fly-aways, Captain Ludlow, give us seamen many sleepless nights and idle chases. ”

“ The wind being light and variable, we drew very gradually inshore, till the mist suddenly lifting, as if at the command of a magician, disclosed to us the splendid and fantastic scenery of those rocky heights, as they rose proudly from the glittering ocean, which was dotted with numerous sails of fishing-boats and coasters, and here and there the canvas of some loftier merchantmen, making for the mouth of the Tagus. ”

“ The whole of the coasting trade passes within this barrier, and the houses and villages, of which there are many, lie hidden on the sheltered shores of the numerous channels; so that, however well peopled the coast may be—and in some places population is by no means scanty—neither house, nor boat, nor ship, except the foreign trade as it approaches or leaves the coast, is ever seen by the outside coaster. ”

“ The red-cheek'd coasters glide in youthful glee!
With magic notes his songs enchant our ears,
Revive the happy past, and melt the years.
May lesser bards compete with one whose Muse
Each year superior splendor can diffuse?
Who is so bold, that he can hope to gain
An equal skill, or chant an equal strain? ”

“ Bottles full of colored sand with skull-and-crossbones on them and directions against certain mixtures.
"The amusement-park roller coaster that seems dangerous—in fact someone knows someone who knows of a bad accident on it—but is, in fact, less dangerous than a ride in an automobile through traffic." ”

“ Paint the automobile a bright red when it will look like D and run like a fire engine.
How to Make a Swell Coaster. —This is a practical toy that every little tot will like immensely. It is just as simple as the automobile but it must be made very much stronger.
Fig. 98. plans for a swell coaster
Get a board, hardwood is the best, 7⁄8 or 1 inch thick, 53⁄4 inches wide and 14 inches long and saw it out so that one end is 21⁄2 inches wide as shown at A in Fig. ”

“ He has failed, despite the sinister sea-marks that litter the fairway. Down the river estuaries and out from the sea-harbour and roadstead, the coasters still join in company through the channels. An unending procession; the grey seascape is never free of their whirling smoke-wreaths. Passing and turning in the deeps, they steam close to the red-rusted, shattered hulls of their sister ships. The gaunt masses of tortured steel stand out as monuments to an indomitable spirit—or to an influence that calls their sea-mates out to steer by the loom of their wreckage. ”

“ It is from four to five feet long, twenty inches broad, and seven inches high at the middle. The lower edge of each runner is curved from end to end with a long, sweeping line, and it is grooved to receive a round runner of steel, which a blacksmith will make and attach.
The frame of the coaster should be made of hard-wood five-eighths of an inch in thickness, and the three cross-ribs are one inch and a half in width and one inch in thickness. Laps are cut in the top edges of the sides, and the cross-ribs are let into them and made fast with screws. ”

“ In proof of this, ever since the Colony has been founded, our coasters have been in the habit of going in and out at all seasons of the year, whenever freights have offered, and no accident has ever happened, or has any vessel ever been driven on shore, although furnished, as they generally are, with very inferior ground tackle. ”

“ Near these skiffs I was surprised by the sight of a steamer, similar in size and form to the coasters so much used in the German Ocean. The light green garlands of fir, with which it was profusely adorned, formed a strange contrast to its slanting smokestack and the damaged condition of the deck-rail. But I looked about me in vain for some person who might have told me how this craft, which must have once seen better days, had reached the quiet inland lake and been decked in its gay festal array, like a shame-faced old man holding a jubilee. ”

“ The captain of many a coaster eyed her sharply as she passed; and, now and then, one would let his own vessel veer half a point off its course, while he took his pipe from his mouth and remarked, “There’s a clean craft. ”

“ Green, but we've a fast boat to do it in. Here is an offing ready made to our hands. Nothing in sight to the westward; not so much as a coaster, even! It's too early for the outward-bound craft of the last ebb, and too late for those that sailed the tide before. I never saw this bight of the coast clearer of canvass."
"Ay, ay, sir; it does seem empty, like. Here's a chap, however, to leeward, who appears inclined to try his rate of sailing with us. Here he is, sir, a very little abaft the beam; and, as near as I can make him out, he's a fore-tawsail schooner, of about our own dimensions ”

“ And nature lay sleeping in calmness and light, Round the house of the truants, that rose on our sight.” MRS. HEMANS.
We had fallen on board an eastern coaster, called the Martha Wallis, bound from James' River to Boston, intending to cross the shoals. Her watch had seen us, because the coasters generally keep better look-outs than Indiamen; the latter, accustomed to good offings, having a trick of letting their people go to sleep in the night-watches. I made a calculation of the turns on board the Tigris, and knew it was Mr. Marble's watch when we passed the ship ”

“ Barges and coasters, especially small ones, should be watched. They, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, know the tides, currents, and eddies thoroughly, and the best course to be steered from one point to another. ”

“ They were riding cross-legged on curious low cars of about the size and shape of children's coasters—little wheeled vehicles, three or four feet long, a foot high, and a foot wide, which, with a buzzing of motors, darted back and forth nervously, frequently colliding with one another in their haste. ”

“ The city mounts a ladder whose lowest rung is the water-edge where He cable ships and Bermuda liners, cargo-boats flying the ensigns of many nations, tiny coasters that wend a perilous way to reef-bound havens up and down the Scotia shore, hulking steamers bound for England or just arrived with emigrants from Baltic ports, sailing vessels discharging fares of newly-caught herring and cod, tourist steamers on the way to Boston, or St. ”

“ The West Indiamen sail nobly along, like the very rulers of the ocean. There are the coasters, and the Irish traders, and packets, while the smart pilot-boat dashes along under easy sail, here, there, and everywhere almost at the same time. ”

“ Many of the nobles whose estates touched the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, fitted out small coasters—the yachts of the fifteenth century—and were met following the sinuosities of the glorious coasts of that part of the world, endeavoring to derive a satisfaction from a pursuit that it seemed meritorious to emulate. ”