Shroud (sail)

“ Thus they are the main, fore, and mizen shrouds, the main top-mast, fore top-mast, or mizen top-mast shrouds, and the main top-gallant, fore top-gallant, or mizen top-gallant shrouds.
The number of shrouds by which a mast is sustained, as well as the size of rope of which they are formed, is always in proportion to the size of the mast, and the weight of sail it is intended to carry. ”

“ Top-gallant shrouds extend to the cross-trees, where, passing through holes in the ends, they continue over the futtock-staves of the top-mast rigging, and descending almost to the top, are set up by laniards passing through thimbles instead of dead-eyes.—Topmast-shrouds extend from the top-mast head to the edges of the tops, and are set up to the futtock dead-eyes.
SHROUD-STOPPER. A stout rope-stopper made fast above and below a part of the shroud which has been damaged by an enemy's shot, or otherwise. ”

“ Moreover the wind breezed up so strongly that we were obliged to hand our royal and topgallant-sail and haul down our gaff-topsail, main-topmast staysail, and flying-jib; the result of the freshening breeze being that a very nasty sea soon got up and we passed a most uncomfortable night, the schooner rolling heavily and yawing wildly as the seas took her on her weather quarter. We saw no more of the stranger that night, although some of us fancied that we occasionally caught a glimpse of something looming very faint and indefinite in the darkness away to windward. ”

“ But by this time the sail upon our lee-quarter had greatly grown, and the vigorous red radiance, rained by the sinking luminary in such searching storms of light as crimsoned the very nethermost east to the black water-line, clearly showed her to be a small but stout schooner, hugging the wind under a prodigious pile of canvas, and eating her way into the steady breeze with the ease and speed of a frigate-bird that slopes its black pinions for the windward flight. ”

“ The "bones" of a wreck tossed up lay bleaching on the shore abreast. The wind still freshening, I settled the throat of the mainsail to ease the sloop's helm, for I could hardly hold her before it with the whole mainsail set. A schooner ahead of me lowered all sail and ran into port under bare poles, the wind being fair. As the Spray brushed by the stranger, I saw that some of his sails were gone, and much broken canvas hung in his rigging, from the effects of a squall. ”

“ I could not imagine the like of that picture of confusion—her studding-sails, having been set on both sides, drowned all her forward part in canvas, a goodly portion of which had been torn into rags by the fall; immense stretches of sail lay in the water, sinking and rising with the rolling of the ship, and dragging her head to the wind; her main topmast studding-sails, and all the canvas on that mast and the mizzen—the yards lying square—were shaking furiously, owing to the posture in which she had fallen ”

“ Every thread of canvas was spread, and for forty hours the frigate and the sloop stretched away across the stormy sea with every sail as round and firm as the breast of a giant runner; with the weather60 rigging singing taut; with every man on deck alert, and with each captain pacing to and fro without rest, looking at every turn from the sea to the clouds and from them to his sails and then away to the enemy ”

“ The men were at work getting in the fore-topmast stun'-sail, and some were aloft rigging in the boom. There was no air to be felt save the draughts wafted along the deck by the flapping canvas. Even where I stood I could hear the jar and shock of the rudder struck by the swell, and the grinding of the tiller-chains as the wheel kicked. The sky was thick with half a dozen spars sparely glimmering upon it here and there. The sea was black and oily, flashing fitfully with spaces of phosphorescent light which gleamed below the surface. ”

“ Square-sail, studding-sails, ring-tail and water-sails were all set and full; every place an inch of canvas could be put there was one, and the schooner rushed through the water like a mad creature, heaving high the waves, until they ran over her bows and deck in a perfect cataract. But all would not do! Steadily astern of them came on the sloop-of-war, with her lofty sails piled upon one another, until she looked like a mountain, moving in the schooner’s wake. Every moment she gained upon the slaver. ”

“ Up to this time one passenger on the schooner appeared to be taking calm or tempest with the same equanimity. This passenger was Imogene, couched at the break of the little poop. But the cracking report of the bursting sail, and now the dreadful clamor of the imprisoned Cap'n Sproul, stirred her fears. She raised her trunk and trumpeted with bellowings that shamed the blast.
"Let him up now, 'Delphus!" shouted Hiram, after twirling the wheel vainly and finding that the Dobson heeded it not. "If there ain't no sails up he can't take us out to sea. Let him up before he gives Imogene hysterics." ”

“ Dodd seized Sharpe's hand convulsively, and pointed to the pirate's consort coming up to finish them; and said, with the calm of a brave man's despair, "Cutlasses! and die hard!"
At that moment the master gunner fired his last gun. It sent a chain shot on board the retiring pirate, took off a Portuguese head and spun it clean into the sea ever so far to windward, and cut the schooner's foremast so nearly through that it trembled and nodded, and presently snapped with a loud crack, and came down like a broken tree, with the yard and sail ”

“ Whether the Golden Rule was also liable for excessive speed is a question of more difficulty. She was a topsail schooner, rigged with twelve sails, all of which she was carrying, except one-half her double square sail on the foremast, which had been taken in. She was sailing on her port tack, with the wind well abaft the beam, through a fog, which did not admit of the hull of a vessel being seen more than a few hundred feet distant. It appears to have been a surface fog, as the crew of the schooner are confident they saw the masts of the steamer some 2,000 feet away. ”

“ They have not yet seen the skin-clad men—if men they be. More like, imagine some, they will prove spectres!
While on the quarterdeck there is no such superstitious thought, a feeling almost as intense agitates the minds of those there assembled. The captain, surrounded by his officers, stands glass in hand gazing at the sail ahead. The frigate, though a fine sailer, is not one of the very fastest, else she might long ago have lapped upon the polacca. Still has she been gradually gaining, and is now less than a league astern. ”

“ A winch is better than a capstan for heaving anchor, and if placed abaft the mast, serves also for "swigging" on halyards, or hoisting sail.
As for sails, the dream ship's were all "barked" or tanned after the fisherman style, and there is no doubt that this process prevents rot, especially in the humid tropics. We carried one medium-weight mainsail, a working and a balloon foresail, storm and balloon jibs, and a squaresail, and of these the last was the most generally useful. Again I hear the howlers howling: "Why not a spinnaker?" ”

“ Urged by the vociferous driving of the mate men were already hauling on the halyards of the mainsail. With the added press of sail the Lena Knobloch heeled over until her lee rail was nearly awash.
A strong wind was coming out of the northwest, favoring the maneuver of von Kluck, but kicking up considerable commotion on the harbor. Waves were running so high as to make navigation of small craft exceedingly difficult if not dangerous.
Carrying full staysail, jib, foresail and mainsail the schooner plunged into the waves, sending cascades of water over her forecastle with every leap. ”

“ On its very verge one sail was yet visible. A faint rolling noise came over the water. 'It is the British frigate,' said Girod, 'firing to us to put our ship about, and keep under convoy. But our captain has no intention of obeying the signal; and if you get out of sight of that one distant sail, you are lost.'—'Think you, then, that the Demon Ship is in these seas?' said I, anxiously. Girod came close to me. With a countenance of remorse and despair which I can never forget, he grasped my arm, and held it towards heaven,—'Look up to God!' he whispered ”

“ Up went Duckling, shaking the shrouds violently with his ungainly, sprawling way of climbing, and making the men dance upon the ratlines. In a moment he had swung himself upon the foot-rope and was casting off the yard-arm gaskets. I don't think half a dozen men could have loosed the sail in the time taken by him to do so. Down it fell, and down he came, hand over fist along the main-topsail sheets against the mainmast, bounded up the poop-ladder, and without loss of breath, roared out, "Furl the mainsail!" ”

“ By reason of its lightness, pliancy, elasticity, and toughness, it is, we think, the best, without exception, for the formation of small fast-sailing war-vessels. We are pretty certain that our Navy Board would not have cause to regret trial of it in a long, low, sharp schooner, of sufficient breadth to stand up under great press of sail, moulded as much as possible to combine great stability with small resistance from the water, and when in quick motion to be buoyant—especially not to dip forward,—provided it could be procured not too old, and free from rot, large knots, and cross-grain ”

“ We put the Pactolus through her paces, I can assure you; carried sail till all was blue. Luck sent us strong and favourable winds. In the dead of night I would often see the steamer's officers, dressed and wandering around the decks, or gathered in a group and holding low conversation; the ship would be scuppers under, the deck at a dangerous angle, masts and yards buckling and groaning, a spread of motionless canvas rising aloft as hard as a board; the whole hull humming like a top, as she raced through the water at a fourteen-knot clip. ”

“ It was blowing now, and it was all that I and two others could do to get in the slack of the downhaul, while the others lowered away at the peak and throat, and we had our hands full to get a couple of turns round the wet sail. It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared with reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear of a schooner sometimes does unhandy things that you don't expect, and those everlasting long halliards get foul of everything if they get adrift. ”

“ Other smaller spars which enter into the equipment of racing craft, will be mentioned in speaking of the sails.
The standing rigging is now to be considered; this consists of stays and shrouds. “Shrouds” are ropes which lead from near the head of the mast to either side of the vessel, where they are fastened into the chain-plates. These are strong iron bands firmly bolted to the timbers. The shrouds of the model yacht, however, can be attached to copper tacks driven into the sides. They—the shrouds—are tied around the mast just below the point where the lower end of the topmast ends. ”

“ We got two spars from the lower yards of the ship which served for masts, and set them up with shrouds, though, as most of the rigging of the ship was rotten, we had some difficulty in finding a sufficient quantity.
We rigged her with a fore and aft mainsail and fore-sail, and a square topsail and a fore staysail and jib, the bowsprit steeping up very much, so that when she pitched there might be less chance of its being carried away.
It is not an easy job to cut out a sail well, though there appears to be no difficulty in it ”

“ She was the finest square-rigger that had ever been launched in the town, a ship of eighteen hundred tons, crossing three skysail yards. Her lines were those of the moderate or commercial clipper. As he looked up from the quarter-deck at her lofty spars that November morning, while they waited for the tide—at the maze of freshly tarred rigging and new manila running gear, at the brightly varnished yards, at the furled sails that stretched from yardarm to yardarm like caps of snow—a thrill of genuine sentiment coursed through his blood. His ship—and he loved her already. ”

“ The frigates were now for safety recalled, and the main body continued in the order of sailing, except the Bellerophon, Leviathan, Marlborough, Audacious, Russell, and Thunderer, which were a considerable distance in advance to windward, and were coming fast up with the enemy’s rear. The ever-exciting signal of the whole fleet to chase and prepare for action was now thrown out from the Queen Charlotte. Every sail the ships could carry was immediately set, and away the whole fleet plunged through the rolling, tumbling sea in chase of the flying enemy. ”

“ I am not a machinist myself, and don't know exactly what it was that was out of order, but the engine stopped, and we had to proceed under sail. That sounds like a slow business; but the Brooks was a clipper-built vessel with three masts and a lot of sails—square sails, fore-and-aft sails, jib sails, and all that sort of thing. I am not a regular sailor myself, and don't know the names of all the sails; but whatever sails she could have she did have, and although she was an iron vessel, and heavily freighted, she was a good sailer. ”

“ In front of the fore-mast are the staysail, the jib, and the flying-jib; these last are triangular sails. If a schooner were cut in two in the middle, cross-wise, the front portion would be in all respects a sloop with a square top-sail; the stern part would also be a sloop, minus the bowsprit and the triangular sails before the mast. Schooners sometimes carry a large square-sail, which is spread when the wind is “dead aft.” They are much used in the coasting-trade; and one of their great advantages is that they can be worked with fewer “hands” than sloops of the same size. ”