"Cable's length" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to prevent the craft burying. He had also single-reefed his mainsail and foretopsail. The Sea Lion, of the Vineyard, imitated each movement, and was brought down precisely to the same canvass as her consort, and on the same tack. At that moment the two vessels were not a cable's length asunder, the Oyster Ponders being slightly to leeward. Their schooner, however, had a trifling advantage in sailing when it blew fresh and the water was rough; which advantage was now making itself apparent, as the two craft struggled ahead ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... extremity of the western promontory, we observed an exposure of rock, jutting out of the ice near sea-level, in the face of a scar left by an avalanche. Later, when passing within half a cable's length of several berg-like masses of ice lying off the coast, rock was again visible in black relief against the water's edge, forming a pedestal for the ice. The ship was kept farther offshore, after this warning, for though ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Intent was by this time to windward of the vessels, and Captain Barker, standing on the quarterdeck, paid no heed to the signal. After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the grab, and a round shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the Good Intent's bows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and preparing to alter her course in pursuit. This movement was at once copied by the other three vessels, but being at least half a mile ahead of the grab that had fired, they were a long distance astern when the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... disguise and concealment was now at an end; the pirate had seen them, but—too late! She was now less than a cable's length distant from the Elizabeth, and as she was bearing up, and before even her men could leap to their quarters, the Elizabeth had luffed and delivered her starboard broadside with murderous effect. Down came ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... wreck, although it had not been perceived by the look-out men at the mast-heads, whose eyes had been directed to the line of the horizon. In less than an hour our little party were threatened with a new danger, that of being run over by the frigate, which was now within a cable's length of them, driving the seas before her in one widely extended foam, as she pursued her rapid and impetuous course. Coco shouted to his utmost, and fortunately attracted the notice of the men who were on the bowsprit, stowing away the foretopmast-staysail, which had been ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
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