Mizzen mast

“ Under the bos'n's orders a party of men set about repairing the damaged gig and the broken rail, while on examination it was found that the broken mizzen-mast was practically unstrained beyond the actual fracture, so that, by cutting through and restepping the longest portion, a serviceable though somewhat stumpy mast would do duty until we could obtain a new spar at the nearest port. ”

“ Her length was about thirty meters, and her width somewhere between seven or eight. She was rigged with three masts. Of these, the after two, the mainmast and the mizzen-mast, carried only fore and aft sails, whereas the foremast had two square sails. The ship was originally intended to be manned by a crew of five, besides the captain. There were now fifty of us aboard her. Provision for berthing the crew had been made in a special crew’s cabin in the extreme forward part of the ship. But here there was room for only six men at the most; the rest of my crew had to sleep in the hold. ”

“ Heave the mast in over the bulwarks; fit the trestle-trees and after chock; reeve girt-lines by which men may be hoisted when the mast is in; point the mast in, and lower away. Always take in the mizzen-mast first. Get in the main and then the foremast in the same manner, rousing the shears forward, with their shoes, by means of the heel tackles. Having stepped and secured the foremast, carry the forward guys aft and rake the shears over the bows; toggle the lower block of the main tackle to a garland lashed to the upper part of the bowsprit inside of the centre. ”

“ The deck was flush fore and aft, and there was a good-sized house just before where the mainmast should have been. This house was uninjured, though the galley was split up and to starboard stood up in splinters like the stump of a tree struck by lightning. No boats could be seen aboard of her. Her jib-boom was gone, and so were all three masts, clean cut off at the deck, as though a hand-saw had done it; but the mizzen-mast was alongside, held by the shrouds and backstays, and the port main and fore shrouds streamed like serpents from her188 chains into the water. ”

“ If the aftermost mast is not square-rigged, the order is foremast, main, mizzen and jigger. In some four-masters the masts are named fore, first-main, second-main and mizzen.
Should the vessel be three-masted, and have yards only on the two front masts, she is a "bark;" and, by-the-way, the spanker of a bark is her "mizzen." Should she have yards only, as the foremast, she is a "barkentine;" should she be a two-master, and have yards on both, she is a "brig;" should she have yards on the foremast only, she is a "brigantine." ”

“ Lower masts of large vessels are never formed out of one tree. They are found to be stronger when built up of several pieces, which are fastened together by strong iron hoops. Masts sometimes consist of three distinct parts. The lower-mast, top-mast, and top-gallant-mast. In most large ships there are three masts, each having three parts. The centre mast, being the largest, is the main-mast; the front one, which is next in size, is the fore-mast; and the one next the stern, the smallest, is called the mizzen. ”

“ The mainmast being in the centre of the ship is continually scraped, oiled, and varnished. The iron hoops are painted vermilion, which sets off the color of the spruce wood. It is pleasant42 to look on the manufactured masts which show what human skill can do; for example, a mainmast that can support those immense yards which when lowered to the deck you can scarcely believe are each of them itself less than a mast, for it supports a huge weight of canvas stretched upon it. ”

“ They also use stern-masts as mizzen-masts, which, like that at the bow, are changed from one side to the other, so that they do not need quadrants. They go from one side to the other with the wind which helps them. ”

“ The three names I have given you—fore, main, and mizzen—are applied to them, as to all the other masts above them.
"The next mast above is the topmast (13) ; then comes the topgallant-mast (15) ; above which is the royal-mast (17) . The mast above this is the skysail-mast (45) , when there is one. Now I shall point to the different masts, and you will give me the names of them," continued Captain Gildrock, as he placed his pointer on one of them.
"Main-topmast," promptly replied the scholar indicated (51) .
The principal moved his pointer.
"Mizzen-royal-mast" (69) . ”

“ The names of spars vary with their use and position. Chiefly, for ships of war, they divide into masts, yards, and booms.
A mast is an upright, and is in three connected pieces: the lower mast, the topmast, and the top-gallant-mast. Most ships of war had three such masts: fore, near the bow; main, near the centre; mizzen, near the stern.
The bowsprit is also a mast; not upright, but projecting straight ahead from the bow, approaching horizontal, but inclining upwards. Like the masts, it has three divisions: the lower, or bowsprit proper, the jib-boom, and the flying-jib-boom. ”

“ I replied. "I'll go aloft with a hand-saw and wound the mast. What do you think? Shall we let it carry away?"
"Yes," he replied promptly. "She'll be another ship with them masts out of her. If it comes on fine we'll make shift to bend59 on the new foresail, and get a jib on her by a stay from the lower mast-head to the bowsprit end. Then," he continued, calculating on his fingers, "we shall have the main-topmast stays'l, mizzen-topmast stays'l, main-topsail, mains'l, mizzen, mizzen-tops'l,—six and two makes height—height sails on her—a bloomin' show o' canvas!" ”

“ There were axes in the box from which I had procured the rope, and we equipped ourselves with them, waded thigh deep through the tangle of water and wreckage and attacked the maze of stays and rigging that united the dangling mizzenmast to the ship. Not a man helped us. There was not a living man in sight aft of the mainmast, and it was as much as a man's life was worth to try to work aft of that point, for on the one side there was a wide breach in the bulwarks through which the waves poured, and opposite was the gap the mizzenmast had crushed. ”

“ Corkery and Tom Horn came aboard, and Anthony went over the ship with them.
"As sound as a nut," said the mate, late in the afternoon, when they had done. "If her masts were in her I'd not hesitate to ship as her mate for a voyage round the world."
"A mast is needful," said Tom Horn. "A tall mast that will reach the high drifts of air. She'll be quick then, and this sea will slacken in power over her. She'll have life of her own, and, well guided, she'll escape." ”

“ The art of constructing made masts, like that of building wooden ships, is in process of dying out. In sailing men-of-war the mizen-mast often did not reach to the kelson, but was stepped on the orlop deck. ”

“ By hauling the reef-tackles chock-a-block we took the strain from the other earings, and passing the close-reef earing, and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting the sail, close reefed.
We had but just got the rigging coiled up, and were waiting to hear ``Go below the watch!'' when the main royal worked loose from the gaskets, and blew directly out to leeward, flapping, and shaking the mast like a wand. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must come in or be cut adrift, or the mast would be snapped short off. ”

“ A stock of masts was kept at each dockyard in a vat of pickle known as a mast-pond. For great ships, and indeed for nearly all the rates in the navy, the lower masts were “built,” or “made,” of two or more pieces of fir strongly hooped together with iron hoops. When a ship came alongside a sheer-hulk her lower masts and bowsprit were hoisted into her and stepped. The fore-mast was stepped at a distance of one-ninth the length of the lower gun-deck from the stem of the ship. The main-mast was stepped in the centre of the ship, or a little abaft the centre. ”

“ The loss of the Ship is to be ascribed to the early fall of the Mizen Mast which enabled our opponent to choose his position. I am sorry to say we suffered severely in killed and wounded and mostly whilst she lay on our Bow from her Grape and Musketry, in all 15 kill'd and 63 wounded, many of them severely ”

“ You’re always hanging out blue lights! You’re frightened by the ducking you got in the scuppers, and can’t take a joke! What’s the use in being always on the look-out for Davy Jones?” “Stand by!” says another, “and we’ll get an afternoon watch below, by this scrape;” but in this they were disappointed, for at two bells, all hands were called and set to work, getting lashings upon everything on deck; and the captain talked of sending down the long top-gallant masts; but, as the sea went down toward night, and the wind hauled abeam, we left them standing, and set the studding-sails. ”

“ It was a sort of little place or square, with an old ship's deck-house directly before her, set on low posts, forming one side. At the back of this place rose that long, lean rack, and against the rack, in the sun, lay an ancient ship's mast. It was a great mast that had journeyed over thousands of miles of ocean, and it lay now half buried in the seaweed and the earth, the upper side polished smooth and shiny with much sitting upon it. ”

“ The ships were rigged much as they were rigged two centuries later. The chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two after masts. Forward the ships had bowsprits, on which each set a spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward, almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but not always, it was made of a single tree (pine or fir) . If it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees, judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. ”

“ If they were to go into a warm climate, they would all die of the scurvy.
The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and most inconvenient fashion possible; running trusses on the yards, and large hawser cables, coiled all over the decks, and served and parcelled in all directions. The topmasts, top-gallant masts and studding-sail booms were nearly black for want of scraping, and the decks would have turned the stomach of a man-of-war’s-man. ”

“ These tempestuous blasts succeeded each other pretty quick, but they were of short duration, and in the intervals between them we had a perfect calm. According to the old proverb, Misfortunes seldom come single; the mizen was now the only mast on board the Resolution that remained rigged, with its top-mast up. The former was so defective, that it could not support the latter during the violence of the squalls, but gave way at the head under the rigging. About eight o'clock the gale abated ”

“ A gale seldom lasts long after he has come. Look at him, he is rather playful to-night.” He was indeed. Sometimes the light would ascend and then descend the masts, then run along the yards, and waiting a little at each yard-arm, would be back again and slip down one of the stays to the fore-mast, and mount up in a second to the fore-topmast head. Sometimes, when the ship rolled very much, the mast-head would leave it floating in the air, but as she rolled back again it would quickly re-attach itself. ”

“ While sheeting home, we saw the Ayacucho standing athwart our hawse, sharp upon the wind, cutting through the head seas like a knife, with her raking masts and sharp bows running up like the head of a greyhound. ”

“ I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore;
The sun is declining, I see it once more;
To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field,
To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield.
Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath,
With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death;
Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail
Has left her unaided to strive with the gale.
There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast,
That will light the dark hour till its danger has past ”

“ The mainmast is placed about 5 feet abaft the end of straight keel; it is 92 feet long, housing 8 feet: the diameter in the partners is 32 inches, tapering off to 23 inches at the hounds. The mast is made of white pine, the centre of it is bored out, for the lowest twenty feet about 12 inches diameter—the next 20 feet, 10 inches diameter—the next 20 feet, 8 inches, and the remainder 7 inches. This was done to make the mast lighter, and, by the circulation of air, enable it to season itself.
The main boom is 95 feet long [F] and made like a cask. ”

“ The heavy head sea was beating against her bows with the noise and force almost of a sledge hammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsail halyards had been let go, and the great sails were filling out topsoil and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors “singing out” at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains. ”

“ Our crow’s nest on our pole-foremast is the highest they can attain to on the St Ebba. The aftermast—or mainmast, I suppose I should call it, as we are schooner rigged—is of hollow iron cut short above the top (this is technical, not a bull) ; this forms the exhaust from the engine. You see only a little vapour, still, it does seem a trifle odd even to see faint smoke coming out of a mast! We will rig up topmasts in the South Seas, and have topsails in fine winds and the Trades, when we do not need the motor, and will then look quite conventional. ”