Topgallant mast

“ Situated above the topmast and below the royal mast; designatb, or pertaining to, the third spars in order from the deck; as, the topgallant mast, yards, braces, and the like. See Illustration of Ship.
2. Fig.: Highest; elevated; splendid. "The consciences of topgallant sparks." L'Estrange.
Topgallant breeze, a breeze in which the topgallant sails may properly be carried.
Top`gal"lant, n. 1. (Naut.) A topgallant mast or sail.
2. Fig.: Anything elevated or splendid. Bacon.
Toph (?) , n. [L. tophus, tofus, tufa, or tuft. Cf. Tufa, Tofus, Tophus.] ”

“ Copper may be shown by a copper-red just at the bow and stern along the water, but all black will do very well. The streak containing the ports should be painted white, the outside of the ports black, and the inside red.
The rigging will now have attention. The masts may be made in only two pieces; the topmasts, topgallant masts, and royals being all in one. The lower masts should be rather stout, and can be made of common deal; they must be firmly stepped in blocks secured below for their reception, and the mainmast must be so placed as not to unduly interfere with the hold being got at. ”

“ Our main difficulty was that the dream ship was too heavily sparred. The boom was the size of an average mast for a vessel of her tonnage, and the gaff little smaller in proportion.
Next time, we shall have smaller spars, and a top-mast instead of a pole mast. Aboard the dream ship our topsail yard was twenty-three feet long, and many were the anxious moments in lowering it when taking in the topsail during a squall. The topmast does away with any necessity for a yard, and can be lowered to the deck in foul weather, thus also eliminating considerable top-hamper. ”

“ Every sail of the vessel was reefed, and both anchors dropped; but the chain cable snapped like the web of a gossamer, and she lunged and tugged from her remaining anchor, dragging it after her, like a fiery horse tearing from the rein of a schoolboy. The mast bent as a proud man bends in the day of adversity; the topmast went overboard, striking heavily upon the deck as it fell. It struck immediately over the bed of the Honourable Edward Stafford. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If made fast so as always to project, they are much in the way of the painter in critical times. They may be hinged below so as to fold down as you get out, but in this case they are in the way when you are getting in and wish to sit down in an instant ready for work.
The mast should be 5 feet long, strong enough to stand gales without stays, stepped just forward of the stretcher, in a tube an inch above deck, and so as to be struck without difficulty in a squall, or when nearing trees, or a bridge, barrier, ferry-rope, bank, or waterfall, or when going aground. ”

“ Another curiosity of rigging possessed by these solidly built, beautifully carved vessels (no such exterior decoration has been seen since as adorned the ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) was the quaint little spritsail-topmast. By this time the single heavy pole-mast had been superseded by the three built-up masts and topmasts, braced by stays, made accessible by rope ladders (shrouds) , and carrying several tiers of topsails instead of only one. A bowsprit had been added, also, and this became almost a fourth mast, so loaded were it and its stays with various small sails. ”

“ That your Royal Highncss’s memorialist, on the 17th July, 1816, proposed a new method of raising the lower masts of ships out of their steps, by means of a simple and portable apparatus of his invention, which requires only four men to raise a first rate’s main-mast, instead of about ninety. The adoption of this method has rendered two sheer-hulks unnecessary, one at Portsmouth, and one at Plymouth, which had been kept up at an annual expence of nearly 2,000l. ”

“ For the purpose of stepping the mast quickly, it has a sort of hinge to the thwart on the after side, and as it is raised, the foot slides down to the step in a guide, or channel, until the mast is erect, when the butt drops into the step. It is held in its place by stays, permanently fast to the mast near its head, above the hoist of the sail, one on each side, which are then made fast through eyes on the gunwales.
When the boat is going under sail it is steered by a rudder. This rudder is always carried, when not in use, close under the gunwale at the stern, outside the boat, of course. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The carpenter seizes the hatchet, a few heavy blows, and a great notch gapes in the mast, they cut the weather shrouds, and after the ship has given two or three heavy rolls, the mast goes over with a loud crash, falling well over the side clear of the vessel; one man receives a nasty gash in the cheek, from a splinter from the falling mast, but is not much hurt. They cut the rigging of the mast from the vessel, and the mast is speedily carried astern by the tide. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ At present masts are only used by warships for signalling and military purposes. In sailing merchant ships, the masts are more lofty than they were about a century ago. A merchant ship of 1300 tons, in 1830, had a mainmast 179 ft. in height; a vessel of the same size would have a mast of 198 ft. to-day.
A “jury mast” is a temporary mast put up by the crew when the spars have been carried away in a storm or in action, or have been cut away to relieve pressure in a storm. The word has been supposed without any foundation to be short for “injury” mast ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each mast has only two shrouds made of twisted rattan, which are often both shifted to the weather-side; and the halyard, when the yard is up, serves instead of a third shroud. The sails are made of mat, strengthened every thee feet by an horizontal rib of bamboo; they run upon the mast with hoops, and when they are lowered down, they fold upon the deck. These merchantmen carry no cannon; and it appears, from this whole description, that they are utterly incapable of resisting any European armed, vessel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The principal intention of the top is to extend the topmast-shrouds, so as to form a greater angle with the mast, and thereby give it additional support. It is sustained by certain timbers bolted fore-and-aft on the bibbs or shoulders of the mast, and called the trestle-trees; athwart these are the cross-trees. In ships of war it is used as a kind of redoubt, and is fortified accordingly. It is also very convenient for containing the materials for setting the small sails, fixing and repairing the rigging, &c. ”

“ The loftier spars were put in their places, the lighter yards thrown across, the masts nicely stayed, the yards squared, ropes hauled taut—long, low, and rakish; with a blue ensign abaft, and a long blue pennant at the mast head, she looked “quite the thing.” ”

“ It is likely that poor quality wood brought about the majority of the breakages; in fact, last season's spars were a rank bad lot. The case was different in 'Thistle's' year, that vessel having a really splendid lot of sticks. It may be said that the 'Britannia' had no fewer than three masts in her forty-three racing essays, one topmast, two bowsprits, and one gaff; 'Calluna' two masts, one main boom, and one gaff; 'Valkyrie' one mast, one topmast, one boom, and one bowsprit; and 'Satanita' one bowsprit and one boom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The masts and yards of this great ship are also of hollow wrought iron plates rivetted together, and are both stronger and lighter than they would be of wood. A machine is placed at the lower part of each mast which by compressing, can crush it up, and cause it to break off and fall over the side of the vessel in case such a thing should be required, as in a very violent storm; and the standing rigging, which is of wire-rope, can be let loose in a few minutes so as to completely free the ship of the mast. This great ship is constructed to be propelled both by screw and paddles ”

“ If we attempt it, Sir, we shall lose them, for a man aloft can do nothing; besides their being down would ease the ship very little; the mainmast is a sprung mast; I wish it was overboard without carrying any thing else along with it; but that can soon be done, the gale cannot last for ever ”

“ The state in which the ship happens to be at the time she is commissioned, must decide, as I said before, the course to be followed in her equipment. If she be already masted and alongside the hulk, and the ballast in, the officer will most likely wish to make some show in the way of rigging—for as yet the masts are naked to the girt-lines, or single ropes rove through blocks at the mast-head, by which first the men and then the shrouds are drawn up, and the eyes of the rigging placed over the mast-heads. ”

“ After the lower rigging was set up, and while before the wind, the main sail, of all sails in the world, was set, and the ship hove to slap at once, by which she was nearly thrown on her beams ends. The main yard went in the slings, the main topmast and half the main top carried away, the fore mast sprung in two places, and the mizen mast in three; of the main-top men of one watch, seventeen in number, one was killed, another drowned, and several of the others severely hurt, but by falling on the splinter netting were fortunately saved. ”