Ship hold

“ The whole of the main-deck ports and dead-lights being stove in, and the ship labouring so much as to render it almost impossible for the people to remain at the winches, the water in the hold gained upon the pumps for a very considerable period ”

“ It is the calm that brings ships mysteriously together; it is your wind that is the great separator.
The taller the ship, the further she can be seen; and her white tallness breathed upon by the wind first proclaims her size. The tall masts holding aloft the white canvas, spread out like a snare for catching the invisible power of the air, emerge gradually from the water, sail after sail, yard after yard, growing big, till, under the towering structure of her machinery, you perceive the insignificant, tiny speck of her hull. ”

“ The sea is flying heavily over the weather rail of the prostrate ship, and adding its peculiar bursting noise to the din of the furiously-shaken canvas, to the deafening booming of the wind, and the hoarse long-drawn cries of the sailors hauling upon the ropes. ”

“ I say again, give me tough masts, sound spars, well set-up rigging, and stout canvas, with a properly built ship under my feet, and I’ll keep the sea in all weathers, and carry her safely round the world. ”

“ Captain MacWhirr and Jukes kept hold of each other, deafened by the noise, gagged by the wind; and the great physical tumult beating about their bodies, brought, like an unbridled display of passion, a profound trouble to their souls. One of those wild and appalling shrieks that are heard at times passing mysteriously overhead in the steady roar of a hurricane, swooped, as if borne on wings, upon the ship, and Jukes tried to outscream it. ”

“ An hour has passed,—and what a change!—The ship close hauled on a wind, no longer rolls listlessly over the swell; but, laboring slowly up each coming wave, she staggers and shivers from stem to stern, as the crest of the watery mountain dashes against the weather bow,—then, rushing down into the trough of the sea and plunging deep into the succeeding billow, she strains every shroud and back-stay with the sudden jerk of the masts, and sends a broad sheet of crackling foam to leeward from beneath the bows. ”

“ As before, the sea received the tumbling maze of spars, rigging, and sails; the vessel surging at the same instant, from its recumbent position, and rolling far and heavily to windward.
"She rights! she rights!" exclaimed twenty voices which had been mute, in a suspense that involved life and death.
"Keep her dead away!" added the calm but authoritative voice of the young commander. "Stand by to furl the fore-top-sail—let it hang a moment to drag the ship clear of the wreck—cut, cut—cheerily, men—hatchets and knives—cut with all, and cut off all!" ”

“ The gallant ship spreads her broad wings one by one, and gracefully bending to the power of the breeze, glides, like a fleet courser, over the fathomless depths of the sea, while the mind that controls her motions again assumes his reverie on the quarter-deck. ”

“ The ship, in trending to the wind, lay quite down on her broadside, and as it then became evident to all that nothing held her, each man instinctively took his station, while those at the leads, having secured themselves as well as was in their power, repeated their soundings, on which our preservation depended, with as much composure as if we had been entering a friendly port. ”

“ The mast and rigging stand out in clear black outline against lingering daylight as we swing south four points. The look-out aloft turns from his post and scans the wake curving to our sheer; anon, he wonders at the coming of a mate to share his watch. Passengers, on a stroll, note unusual movement about the boat-deck, where the hands are swinging out lifeboats and clearing the gear. As the carpenter and his mates go the rounds, screwing blinds to the ports and darkening ship, other passengers hurry up from below and join the groups on deck; an excitement is quickly evident. ”

“ In the desolate regions where it lives the sailors hail its appearance with delight, as it comes sailing around the ship with majestic, careless flight, rising, sinking, now swooping down to seize some cast-off mouthful of food, now poising high above the mast-head, moving with the ship at the most rapid speed, and yet with scarcely a perceptible movement of its gigantic wings. ”

“ It is very sad, but this is war time, and the fleet must be manned.
All day long duty-boats keep going up and down. Now it is an admiral’s twelve-oared barge with the flag at the bows; now a captain’s gig, or a pinnace, pulling between ship and shore; now a midshipman’s boat scurrying off to answer the flagship’s signal. Ships’ long-boats with water-casks and pursers’ stores for various men-of-war in harbour, pass and repass, and beer hoys and yard craft of all kinds. ”

“ Imagine some good ship, wrought by skilled hands, well built within and fairly adorned without, with rudder answering to the touch, taut rigging, lofty mast, resplendent tops, and shining sails; in a word, supplied with all such gear as may serve either for use or the delight of the eye. Imagine all this and then think how easily, if the tempest and no helmsman be her guide, the deep may engulf her or the reefs grind her to pieces with all her goodly gear. ”

“ The light of the rising sun brings out from shore many other small boats, each with its load of men who wave their arms to the steamship and cheer against the sound of the waves and wind. To them that ship is like the fast express that passes the country railroad station, or the comet that whirls round our sun and off again. ”

“ We crossed the steamship lanes in all directions with guns loaded and with a sharp lookout so as not to lose any opportunity to damage the enemy’s commerce.
Shortly before dinner the first merchant ship arose on the south horizon. It was a sailer, a large, full-rigged schooner, which, hard by the wind, headed towards the French coast. With majestic calm, lightly leaning to the wind, the splendid ship approached. ”

“ Throughout the whole of these trying moments, indeed, the discipline of the ship appears to have been maintained, not only without the smallest trace of insubordination, but with a degree of cheerfulness which is described as truly wonderful. Even when the masts fell, the sound of the crashing spars was drowned in the animating huzzas of the undaunted crew, though they were then clinging to the weather gunwale, with the sea, from time to time, making a clean breach over them, and when they were expecting every instant to be carried to the bottom! ”

“ Thus bound, but carefully looked after, inert and powerful, those emblems of hope make company for the look-out man in the night watches; and so the days glide by, with a long rest for those characteristically shaped pieces of iron, reposing forward, visible from almost every part of the ship’s deck, waiting for their work on the other side of the world somewhere, while the ship carries them on with a great rush and splutter of foam underneath, and the sprays of the open sea rust their heavy limbs. ”

“ It doesn’t seem possible either craft can stand up very long under such a press of sail. It is blowing a full gale; our decks are awash, and the ship is burying herself to such an extent that every third or fourth wave sweeps over her from stem to stern. It’s enough to make a fellow turn pale with fear, to stand there five minutes watching the surge towering on either hand, ahead and astern, even above the mastheads. ”

“ Along the bulwarks of the ship, fore and aft, hung rows of large painted wooden shields, which gave an Argus-eyed aspect to the craft. Between them was a double row of thole-pins for the great oars, which now lay at rest in the bottom of the boat, but by which, in calm weather, this "walker of the seas" could be forced swiftly through the yielding element.
VIKING SHIPS AT SEA.
Near the stern, on an elevated platform, stood the commander, a man of large and powerful frame and imposing aspect, one whose commands not the fiercest of his crew would lightly venture to disobey. ”

“ The power that drives the great hull against the rolling masses of water seems to have no sympathy with either the ship or the waves; and drenched from stem to stern, the vessel reels and staggers on her way, kept only to her work by careful use of helm. ”

“ Lieutenants, masters, midshipmen, and pursers mingled with the seamen, and the work was done with promptness and precision. Topsails, top-gallant-sails, and courses were set, and with the wind abeam, the ship went off to the north-west as comfortably as though no mutiny had distracted her routine. When everything was made snug for a night at sea, the roll was called, and the names of the mutineers checked on the list. ”

“ At length, one evening, just about dusk, a large ship came suddenly out of the mist. Her position, it was at once discovered, equally by those on board and by the people on the shore, was perilous beyond hope. The sailors, as soon as they saw how near they were to the shore, made every effort to save the ship, and then to prepare for saving themselves. The tempest raged with such fury from the west, that the ship parted her anchors at the moment her strain came upon them, and she swang round,—her only sail flying into ribbons in the gale—rushing, as it were, eagerly upon her fate. ”

“ A large ship, under full sail, running off before a pleasant breeze, is a beautiful sight; but it is by no means so grandly impressive as that of the same ship, under close canvas, gallantly riding out the merciless gale that carried destruction to every unseaworthy craft which came within its reach. ”

“ He said that our force was ample, every gun shotted, and the ports open: that we had the windward gauge of her, and that the proper course was to send a boat in to cut her cable, and, when she drifted down with the current, we would ware ship, lay up alongside, grapple, pass lashings aboard, and send the whole crew on to her deck with a rush. ”

“ Ships, forty years since, carried no spars aloft but such as were stout enough to carry sail upon, in fair weather or foul—sliding-gunter sky-sail masts, and other useless sticks, were as much unknown to ship-builders and riggers, as railroads and steam-boats. ”

“ While the masts are bending to the wind and the ship careening in the water, you see the yards covered with hundreds of the crew with no guard from destruction in the giddy height, but the habit of keeping their feet firmly on the foot-ropes, while their hands and arms are occupied in overcoming the fearful thrashings of the sails, and in gathering in the canvas and binding it down with the reef-points. ”

“ See the noble fellow’s face As the big ship, with a bound, Clears the entry like a hound, Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas profound! See, safe through shoal and rock, How they follow in a flock. Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, Not a spar that comes to grief! [Pg 42] The peril, see, is past, All are harbored to the last; And just as Hervé Riel halloos, “Anchor!”—sure as fate, Up the English come, too late. ”

“ And then, like a messenger of hope, they saw a smudge on the horizon, watched it grow larger and denser, saw the hull of a ship grow out of the mist. Four of them yelled themselves hoarse again, waved their signal, took out their oars and tugged away at them like mad. They bent their backs to the work, they pulled till their arms ached, and got hardly any way on her; they were too weak to pull against the sea effectively. Then the big ship stopped, and they saw her taking some soundings. She got up steam again and moved forward; and the castaways knew that they had been seen. ”

“ To watch a vessel at anchor on the turn of a tide, and cast her by the helm, and some sail if necessary, so as to keep the cable clear of the anchor or turns out of her cables when moored.
TENDER. A small vessel duly commanded, and employed to attend a larger one, to supply her with stores, to carry intelligence or volunteers and impressed men to receiving ships, &c. An enemy's ship captured by cutters or boats fitted out as tenders by men-of-war, but without any commission or authority from the admiralty, will not insure a prize to the benefit of the ship. ”

“ A full-rigged ship never looks more majestic I think than when she is hove to under all plain sail, that is, when all canvas but stun'sails is piled upon her and her main topsail is to the mast, with the great main course hauled up to the yard and windily swaying in festoons. ”

“ The after part of the ship was now breaking up fast. Our gallant captain still remained on the quarterdeck, having buckled on his sword as if going into action. Grasping his speaking-trumpet he shouted his last order: "Look to yourselves, men, and God have mercy on us all!" Then came a huge, tumbling, white-crested wave that swept the doomed vessel from the stern as far for'ard as the foremast. ”

“ I need scarce remind you (he said, continuing his narrative) what a vast amount of wooden spars and cables a ship depends on in order to get to moorings; or again, in putting out to sea: you know the host of sails and cordage, rigging as they call it, she requires for sailing; the quantity of engines and machinery of all sorts she is armed with in case she should encounter any hostile craft; the infinitude of arms she carries, with her crew of fighting men aboard. ”

“ There, sooner or later, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at its destined hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor. I shall take my time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lies waiting for me, warped out into midstream, loaded low, her bowsprit pointing down harbour. ”

“ Or again, how a ship cuts the waves open and spreads them apart to roll up on her sides and follow after her in a long sweep of tilting water with a froth of foam melting on its crest, how the little tugs draw a ship across a harbor, four little tugs or three joined to a ship by a long cable that stretches tight, pulling the great lazy giant down a bay. ”