"Capstan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bark lazily crept from behind the last of the islands, she let go her anchors and swung round with the tide. Then the gleeful chant of the sailors at the capstan came to us pleasantly across the water. The vessel lay within three quarters of a mile of us, and we could plainly see the men at the davits lowering the starboard long-boat. It no sooner touched the stream than a dozen of the crew ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the main rigging, almost to the futtock shrouds, the figure of a man was revealed: he was blazing away in the direction of the poop with a revolver. On the deck, near the mainmast, the second mate was laying about him with a capstan bar, and a dozen men seemed boiling over each other in efforts to close with him. Other figures lay motionless upon ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... for the Cassiar gold camps were carried from Glenora to Telegraph Creek in canoes, the steamers not being able to overcome the rapids except during high water. Even then they had usually to line two of the rapids—that is, take a line ashore, make it fast to a tree on the bank, and pull up on the capstan. The freight canoes carried about three or four tons, for which fifteen dollars per ton was charged. Slow progress was made by poling along the bank out of the swiftest part of the current. In the rapids a tow line was taken ashore, only one of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm, I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm; I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... attested by such men as Thos. B. Wales, Jr., of Iowa City, and Daniel H. Wheeler, Secretary of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. The apparatus is upon the old principle of the mole ditcher requiring the same capstan power. One team is sufficient to run it. The apparatus is composed of a beam or sill, horizontal in position, and a coulter seven feet long at the rear end of the beam, and perpendicular to it a spirit ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Captain Hull resolved to try kedging his ship along, sending a boat half a mile ahead with a light anchor and all the spare rope on board. The crew walked the capstan round and hauled the ship up to the anchor, which they then lifted, carried ahead, and dropped again. The Constitution kept two kedges going all through that summer day, but the Shannon was playing the same game, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... pampero coming quick as a thrown knife, and me not aboard to help shorten sail or take a trick at the wheel. And it might have made me ugly toward the old woman. And I wouldn't have had that at all, at all.... But she's finished the voyage, poor cummer.... And it's a high ship and a capstan shanty for me again ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... minutes later, the clank of the capstan was heard and, going on deck, Harry found Lieutenant Hardy preparing to sail. As soon as the vessel was under way he came aft, and was ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... through the rowboat stage of the journey, awoke on the deck of the Isis and gazed wonderingly about. In her ears was the sound of anchor chains upon the capstan. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... laugh, and he would hate it. He seldom laughed at anything anybody else laughed at, though he enjoyed some little jokes of his own that nobody else seemed to appreciate. Especially Mabel. She seemed to be enjoying herself at the other side of the table, laughing at the stories that Major Capstan was telling her. From the Major's expression, Luke diagnosed that the stories were not quite—well, not exactly—oh, you know. Would it be Doom Dagshaw or Major Capstan? Oh, what was he ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... dropped down with the stream on the 15th, leaving us to reflect in undisturbed solitude on the dreary prospects before us. The clank of the capstan, while the operation of weighing was being executed, echoing from the surrounding hills, suggested the question, "When shall that sound be heard again?" From the melancholy reverie which this idea suggested I was roused by the voice of my fellow exile, "the companion of my joys ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming fish—girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres—I recognised certain debris that the drags had not been able to tear up—iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan fittings, the stem of a ship, all objects clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers. While I was looking on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... ports. The traffic on deck nearly deserved the name of din. Commands and calls were being bawled in English, French, and polyglot profanity. A donkey-engine was rumbling, a winch clattering, a capstan-pawl clanking. Alongside a tug was panting hoarsely. The engine room telegraph jangled furiously, the fabric of the Sybarite shuddered ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... they were at prayers, and went down to sound around No. 8, and while I was gone my partner got aground on the hills at Hickman. After three days' labor we finally succeeded in sparring her off with a capstan bar, and went on to Memphis. By the time we got there the river had subsided to such an extent that we were able to land where the Gayoso House now stands. We finished loading at Memphis, and loaded part of the stone for the present St. Louis ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or three hours, the first net is hauled on board, when, if it is found that a number of fish have been caught, the whole of the net is hauled in by means of a capstan and the warp to which the nets are fastened. The fish are then shaken out, and the vessel beats up again to the spot from which the net was first shot, and the process ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred broad-sheet pirates ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... "After capstan here! Get a strain on the line, Mr. Rolfe!" And while the dripping rope crawled in through the fair-lead, cracking and twanging to the strain of the ship's arrested drift, he stood at the rail, rifle in hand, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... and shallow soil, although the surface is thickly covered with small trees, growing most luxuriantly. WATER ISLAND, to the north-east, in latitude 14 degrees 21 minutes, and longitude 125 degrees 32 minutes 25 seconds, was visited by us, as was also CAPSTAN ISLAND, in the south-west corner of the sound. The latter island is in latitude 14 degrees 35 minutes 20 seconds, and longitude 125 degrees 16 minutes 20 seconds. They are both rocky, and destitute of any soil but what is formed by the decomposition of the vegetables that grow upon ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... sea they were likely to meet with before they reached the shore. It took upwards of an hour to form the frame-work and deck it. They then, having cut away the bulwarks, launched it overboard with capstan bars. The water under the lee of the wreck was tolerably smooth, so that the raft remained alongside without injury. They had next to lash the casks below it. This was a more difficult operation, as it was necessary ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... surmounted by a paneled monkey-rail; the belaying-pins in the plank-shear are of lignum-vitae and mahogany, and upon them the rigging is laid up in accurate and graceful coils. The balustrade around the cabin companion-way and sky-light is made of polished brass, the wheel is inlaid with brass, and the capstan-head, the gangway-stanchions, and bucket-hoops are of the same glittering metal. Forward of the main hatchway the long-boat stands in its chocks, covered over with a roof, and a good-natured looking cow, whose stable is thus contrived, protrudes her head from a window, chews her cud ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... done under the superintendence of Rene, man of all work, and with the mechanical intermediary of rollers and capstan, by a small white horse shackled to a lever, and patiently grinding his steady ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... same moment Hakon, Earl Eirik's son, came rowing into the sound with a manned ship; and as they thought these were but two merchant-vessels that were lying in the sound, they rowed between them. Then Olaf and his men draw the cable up right under Hakon's ship's keel and wind it up with the capstan. As soon as the vessel's course was stopped her stern was lifted up, and her bow plunged down; so that the water came in at her fore-end and over both sides, and she upset. King Olaf's people took Earl Hakon and all his men whom they could get hold of out of the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... lower and sheet (spare) anchors stowed. To let go a stockless anchor (fig. 9) the cable or capstan holder C is unscrewed, and in practice it is found desirable to knock off the bottle screw-slip A, allowing the weight of the anchor to be taken by the inner slip A' (Blake's stopper). Stern, stream and kedge anchors are usually ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... trader of Stepney town? - Wake her up! Shake her up! Every stick a-bending! Where is the trader of Stepney town? There's gold on the capstan, and blood on the gown: Ho for bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback, Out upon the ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for one instant at the capstan, which was just behind where the jaunty young cadet was standing. There was an interesting ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... dashed, when the old carpenter, one of the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch pale as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming out in the wind. He did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to which the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... carried six hundred feet of one inch manila, but even this was hardly enough for the depth of water and had to be eked out with every bit of chain and cable that could be spared. Fortunately under the circumstances the Bolo carried a capstan which could be thrown into a gear with the engine, otherwise it would have been impossible for her to anchor in that depth of water, as her crew could never have got up the mud-hook ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and these seas they do, but not down there—it's too far off. We condemn the vessels ourselves, and share the money on the capstan-head." ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... The tractors were designed for work in mud flats and the haulers had the narrow wheels used on rocky ground. Nothing seemed quite as it should be. He spotted a big generator working busily—and then saw a gang of about fifty men, or mandrakes, turning a big capstan that kept it going. Here and there were neat racks of miscellaneous tools. Some were museum pieces. There was even a gandy cart, though no rails ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... buried deep, do you?" inquired Colonel Ward, a flavor of satiric skepticism in his voice. He was gazing quizzically forward to where Mr. Bodge sat on the capstan's drumhead, his nose elevated with wistful eagerness, his whiskers flapping about his ears, his ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... marched out the gate into another compound and fascinated interest displaced all of Jason's concerns. In the center of the yard was a large capstan into which the first group of slaves were already fitting the end of their bar. Jason's group, and the two others, shuffled into position and seated their bars, making a four spoked wheel out of the capstan. An overseer shouted and the slaves groaned and threw their weight against the bars until ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... in the water at the foot of the mast, until at length he got upon his feet and seized a rope, which he held while considering what he should do to extricate himself. At this instant he perceived Mr. Holmes and his daughter on the capstan. How they had got there was a marvel to him which he had no time to investigate. Mr. Holmes beckoned with his lame hand to John, while he clung to his daughter with his right. A vivid flash of lightning ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... ship 'Gyacutus,' All in the China seas; With the wind a lee, and the capstan free, To catch ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... Departmint ye want a Southern Congressman fr'm th' cotton belt. A man that iver see salt wather outside iv a pork bar'l 'd be disqualified f'r th' place. He must live so far fr'm th' sea that he don't know a capstan bar fr'm a sheet anchor. That puts him in th' proper position to inspect armor plate f'r th' imminent Carnegie, an' insthruct admirals that's been cruisin' an' fightin' an' dhrinkin' mint juleps f'r thirty years. He must know th' difference ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... the old ship uv State loaded down with a valuable cargo uv Post-offices, Collectorships, and sich, a laborin in the trough uv the sea, her bowsprit cove in, her top-gallant lanyards bustid, her jib-boom a flutterin in the gale, her capstan spliced, and her sheet anker torn to ribbons. (Not hevin bin a sailor, only ez a driver on the Wabash Kanal, it is possible my nautikle terms may not be altogether correct. But it makes no difference in the interior uv Kentucky.) ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... usual in sealers to have the screw arranged in this way, so that it can easily be replaced by a spare screw should it be broken by the ice. But such an arrangement is not usual in the case of the rudder, and, while with our small crew, and with the help of the capstan, we could hoist the rudder on deck in a few minutes in case of any sudden ice-pressure or the like, I have known it take sealers with a crew of over 60 men several hours, or even a whole day, to ship a ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... in the most deliberate way as far as he was concerned, he turned to the officers, all smiles, and began giving orders in the coolest of fashions and all guided by so much judgment that by carefully laying out anchors, the use of the capstan, haulage, and taking advantage of the wind, the sloop soon rose upon an even keel and rested at last in a safe position. The tide that ran up as far as the black king's city did the rest, and the next day the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... by Messrs. Fox and Henderson, the foundations being laid in 1850. The machinery constituting "the swing-bridge or open ship canal (fifty feet wide) at the Strood end is very beautiful; the entire weight to be moved is two hundred tons, yet the bridge is readily swung by two men at a capstan." So says one of the Guide Books, but as a matter of fact we find that it is not now used! The other two bridges (useful, but certainly not ornamental) belong to the respective railway companies which have systems through Rochester, and absolutely shut out every prospect below stream. What would ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... true enough, for instead of gaping and stretching themselves about the deck, as had been the case with most of them a minute before, the men now commenced their duty in good earnest, calling to each other to come to the falls and the capstan-bars, and to stand by ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... kid gloves, and pails, And candlesticks, and potted quails, And capstan-bars, and scales and weights, ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Europeans as "marimba." Thus Owen tells us (p. 308) "that at the mouth of the Zambesi it is called 'Tabbelah,'" evidently the Arabic "Tablah" Another favourite instrument is a clapper, made of two bamboos some five feet long, and thick as capstan bars,—it is truly the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... now rising, the leaks increased rapidly, two pumps being kept constantly at work. Thinking things could only go from bad to worse, Cook determined to heave her off at all hazards, and every one who could be spared from the pumps was sent to the capstan or windlass, and at length, after a stay of twenty-three hours on the rocks, she was hove into deep water. Now, however, it was a case of all hands to the pumps, and for a time it seemed as if they ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the schooner. I suppose some one had said that he heard a gun, and other's didn't. Of course the sound did not come to them under the shelter of the cliff as it did to me. Then came the sound of another gun, and then three or four close together; then orders were given sharply, the capstan was manned and the anchor run up, and they were not a minute getting her sails set. But under the shelter of the cliff there was not enough wind to fill them, and so the boats were manned, and she went gliding away until I could no longer ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... with this," cried Dan Baxter and came forward with two capstan bars. These were placed across the hatch and the four boys took their stations at the ends of the bars. Thus they managed to get out of ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... along both sides. Nearly every individual of the crew, who was not occupied at the sail or steering-board, was employed in propelling. A few only were provided with oars; others wielded handspikes, capstan-bars, or pieces of split plank,—in short, anything that would assist in the "pulling," if only to the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... to repel boarders!" cried Raoul, springing aft to the capstan and seizing his own arms—"Come up ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had bought in Mexico, with a little feather in it; and this I put on, pulling it rakishly over on one side. I put around my neck a long blue silk cravat with white spots, which I tied in the biggest bow I could make. Then, feeling that I ought to have something in my hands, I picked up a capstan-bar, and laying it across my arm after the manner of a cutlass, I ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... effectual system of pounding the rock at its bottom is established. A single workman may, by the aid of a rudder, direct the boat to any required part of the stream; and when it is necessary to move up the rapid, as the channel is cut, he can easily cause the boat to advance by means of a capstan. ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... you work in the right way," answered Noddy, as he took the end of the yard-arm rope, and, after passing it through a snatch-block, began to wind it around the barrel of the small capstan on the forecastle. ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... the parallel of 71 deg. During our subsequent progress to the north, we also met with some of enormous dimensions, several of the floes, to which we applied our hawsers and the power of the improved capstan, being at their margin more than twenty feet above the level of the sea; and over some of these we could not see from the masthead. Upon the whole, however, the magnitude of the ice became somewhat less towards the northwest, and within thirty miles of that margin the masses were comparatively ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... which was to convoy us loosed her topsails and fired a gun, followed soon after by another, as a signal to way. The merchantmen at once began to make sail, not so quick an operation as on board the man-of-war. The pipe played cheerily, round went the capstan, and in short time we, with fully fifty other vessels, many of them first-class Indiamen, with a fair breeze, were standing down Channel; the sky bright, the sea blue, while their white sails, towering upwards to the heavens, shone in the sunbeams like ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... forward on the main-deck we have the fore-hatch, and by the side of this a room entirely lined with zinc plates, which serves for storing furs. Forward of the fur store is fitted a 15 horse-power one-cylinder Bolinder motor for working the capstan; the main features of its working will be seen in the drawing. There are two independent transmissions: by belt and by chain. The former is usually employed. The chain transmission was provided ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... be correct. The entire crew of the Illinois, with the exception of Archie, was mustered around the capstan; and after answering to their names, they were crowded into a cutter that lay alongside, and, in a few moments, were ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... come from Bolderhead, do you?" quoth Tom to me, one day when we were lounging together forward of the capstan, and ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Accordingly, an anchor was carried forward to a spot some forty yards off, where the water was deeper; the greater part of the passengers were made to jump overboard, without even going through the formality of walking the plank; while the remainder manned the capstan-bars. The chain-cable tightened, the capstan creaked, and the paddles dashed round; but we did not stir an inch till the natives, who had been so unceremoniously turned overboard, began to apply the pressure from without, when, amidst shouts and yells, and curses in a dozen different languages, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... others. Edith, who knew something about yachting, recognized that her gearing was not fastened in the trim manner suggestive of a craft laid by for the night. At the same instant, too, she caught sight of a third form—that of a man who had been seated on a fixed capstan, and who now strode forward to peer ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... he used to say in summer-time; "thistles full of seed within a biscuit-heave of my front door, and other things—I forget their names—with heads like the head of a capstan bursting, all as full of seeds as a ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... a minute had scarcely passed before the upper masts were again in possession of their light sails. Then was heard the usual summons of, 'all hands up anchor, ahoy!' and the rapid orders of the young officers to 'man capstan-bars,' to 'nipper,' and finally to 'heave away.' The business of getting the anchor on board a cruiser and on board a ship engaged in commerce, is of very different degrees of labor, as well as of expedition. In the latter, a dozen men apply their powers to a slow-moving ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... vessel. The whole of this cord is covered by the skin. It is remarkably strong, and has no great sensibility, for they allow themselves to be pulled by a rope fastened to it, without exhibiting uneasiness. On ship board, one of them sometimes climbed on the capstan of the vessel, the other following as well as he could, without complaining. When I first saw the boys, I expected to see them pull on this cord in different directions, as their attention was attracted by different objects. I soon perceived that this did not happen. The slightest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... leaning on the trawl capstan, while our old landlord, with half-a-dozen pipes within a foot of his face, droned out some long sea-yarn about Ostend, and muds, and snow-storms, and revenue- cruisers going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French prisons, which I shall ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... he was five years old stands at the head of a little beach of white shingle, just inside the harbour's mouth, so that all day long Kit could see the merchant-ships trailing in from sea, and passing up to the little town, or dropping down to the music of the capstan-song, and the calls and the creaking, as their crews hauled up the sails. Some came and went under bare poles in the wake of panting tugs; but those that carried canvas pleased Kit more. For a narrow coombe wound up behind the cottage, and down this coombe came not only the brook ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... turning back. A voice, high-pitched, echoed to me across the water, reaching my ears a mere thread of sound, the words indistinguishable. It must have been an order, for, a moment later, I distinguished the clank of capstan bars, as though men of the crew were engaged in warping the vessel off shore for greater safety. The movement was too deliberate and noiseless to mean the lifting of the anchor, nor was it accompanied by any flapping of ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... cook, crowned with a resplendent tin basin and wrapped royally in a table-cloth mottled with grease-spots and coffee stains, and bearing a sceptre that looked strangely like a belaying-pin, walked upon a dilapidated carpet and perched himself on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his tarred and weather-beaten Chamberlains, Dukes and Lord High Admirals surrounded him, arrayed in all the pomp that spare tarpaulins and remnants of old sails could furnish. Then the visiting "watch below," transformed into graceless ladies and uncouth pilgrims, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... minutes the ninety and odd hammocks were all stowed neatly in the netting, and covered with a snowy hammock-cloth; and the hands were active, unbitting the cable, shipping the capstan bars, &c. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... wagons drawn by horses. At the present time we have multiple plows, making five or six furrows at a time, these and cultivators also, driven by steam, commonly from two engines on the head lands, the plow being in between, and worked by a rope from each engine, or if by one engine, a capstan on the other head land, with a return rope working the plow backward and forward; or by what is known as the roundabout system, where the engine is fixed and the rope carried round about the field; or else plows and cultivators are worked by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... suit was of yellow striped with blue, and his speech was the speech of Aberdeen. They sluiced the deck under him, and he hopped on to the ornamental capstan, a black pipe between his teeth, though the hour was not ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... to business, seriously. Mr. Bunting, I would have the signal for sailing shown. Let each ship fire a recall-gun for her boats. Half an hour later, show the bunting to unmoor; and send my boat ashore as soon as you begin to heave on the capstan. So, good-morning, my fine fellow, and show ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... may give many a lesson in the simple principles of mechanics with the second gift and its rods and standards, allowing the children to experiment freely as well as to follow her suggestions. The pulley, the steelyard, the capstan, the pump, the mechanical churn, the wheelbarrow, etc., may all be made, adding the beads where necessary, and thus the child gain a real ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that the lads always took capstan-bars, or gunners' handspikes, or crows with them, to rap the beasts over the noses if they got to be troublesome. No, no, I have no liking for bears and wolves, though a whale, in my eye, is very much the same sort of fish ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the capstan, a-heavin' good an' hard; I'll hear them tallyin' on the fall or sweatin' up the yard; Hear them lift a halliard shanty, hear the bosun swear and shout, An' the thrashin' o' the headsheets as the vessel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... the warehouse. I plumped down on to my chest near the after hatch as if my legs had been jerked from under me. I felt suddenly very tired and languid. The ship-keeper, whom I could hardly make out hung over the capstan in a fit of weak pitiful coughing. He gasped out very low 'Oh! dear! Oh! dear!' and struggled for breath so long that I got ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the privilege of your rank, but for me a little looser motions and a heavier armament," and I picks up what looks like a baseball bat, but a little longer and a little thicker and a good deal heavier than any baseball bat. A capstan-bar it was. And if y'ever handled one you know what a great little persuader a capstan-bar is. I could tell you a hundred stories o' capstan-bars. Many a good fight used to be settled in th' old sailin'-ship days with ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... barge to the desired position between the parallel vessels. A horizontal two-cylinder engine of the same power, fitted with reversing gear, placed in the middle of the foremost iron girder, raises and lowers the bucket ladder by the interposition of a strongly framed capstan, as shown on Fig. 5. The gearing throughout is of friction pulleys and worm and wormwheel. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... down a steep incline under a low stone arch, the masonry above which is overgrown with ivy in large clusters and straggling creeping plants. We soon come upon a deep recess to the right, wherein stands a unique cumbersome screw-press, needing ten or a dozen men to work the unwieldy capstan which sets the juice flowing from the crushed grapes into the adjacent shallow trough. On our left hand are a couple of ancient reservoirs, formed out of huge blocks of stone, with the entrance to a long vaulted ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... cry to arrest the capstan when nippers are jammed, or any other impediment occurs in heaving in the cable, not unfrequently when a hand, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... morning—a week after the death of my poor dog—I was loitering about the quays in the port, when I was attracted towards a little crowd that had gathered round an old capstan. The crowd consisted of several sailors and fishermen, with a sprinkling of townsfolk, who were evidently much interested in something that was going on in ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... that would be quite incomprehensible to either English or Yankee skipper. With a broad-brimmed jipi-japa hat shading his swarth features from the sun, he lounges all day long upon the quarterdeck, his elbows usually rested upon the capstan-head; his sole occupation rolling and smoking paper cigarritos, one of which is usually either in his fingers, or between his lips. If he at any time varies this, it is to eat his meals, or to take a turn at ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Upon the capstan bar sat a sailor in oilskin clothes, who had probably been on shore the previous night and not closed his eyes, and who was making great efforts to keep awake. His head, however, would still keep nodding; and from time ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... was a single figure upon the deck that did not seem mad with terror. A huge fellow he was who stood leaning against the capstan watching the wild antics of his fellows with a certain wondering expression of incredulity, the while a contemptuous smile curled his lips. As Barbara Harding chanced to look in his direction he also chanced ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ocean appeared to be heaving out its chest and coming on, eighty feet high. I tied myself around another capstan, and I says, ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... said the captain. "I'll send it to you C. O. D. when I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstan-footed lubber with the chewin'. I ought to've weighed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... see the great raft, and I among them. They have a string of logs fastened end to end and surrounding the great body, which keeps them from scattering, and the string is called a boom. A small, strong raft, it may be forty feet square, with an upright windlass in its centre, called a capstan, is fastened to some part of the boom. The small raft is called 'Head Works,' and from it in a yawl-boat is carried the anchor, to which is attached a strong rope half a mile long. The boat is rowed out the whole length ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Windlass, Cogwheels. In the old-fashioned windlass used in farming districts, the large wheel is replaced by a handle which, when turned, describes a circle. Such an arrangement is equivalent to wheel and axle (Fig. 112); the capstan used on shipboard for raising the anchor has the same principle. The kitchen coffee grinder and the meat chopper are other ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... Kendall went aft, though he still carefully observed the conduct of the seamen. The clumsiness, and the intentional blunders of certain of the crew seemed to indicate that there was a conspiracy to defeat the purposes of the commander. First, Howe tumbled down while the hands were walking round the capstan; Spencer stumbled over him, and a dozen boys were thrown in a pile upon them. Then Richmond and Merrick dropped their handspikes overboard, through an open port, when the order was given to restore these articles ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... rollers, catching breath Between the advancing grave and breaking death, Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth; And days of labour also, loading, hauling; Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling; The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting, And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting. Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice, And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice; Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanch ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, when the last tricolour had come down, they hove up the sheet anchor and fell dead asleep upon the top of each other under the capstan bars. Then, as a second lieutenant, he was in one of those grim three-deckers with powder- blackened hulls and crimson scupper-holes, their spare cables tied round their keels and over their bulwarks to hold them ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... capstan! The pride and glory of the whole ship's company, the constant care and dandled darling of the cook, whose duty it was to keep it polished like a teapot; and it was an object of distant admiration to the steerage passengers. Like a parlor ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... leave her, with the prospect of a heavy blow, so near the Goblins, and they carried out the anchors in the wherry, and with the assistance of the capstan on the forward deck heaved her out into a secure position. The Woodville was safe for the night, and the supper-horn was sounding at the ferry-house. Nearly exhausted by their severe exertions, the boys returned to ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... exercises as the occasion might suggest, remarking at the same time, that it was not his desire to force any man against his will. Without a murmur the watch below, as well as that on deck, repaired to the quarter-deck, and were soon seated around the capstan. The captain took charge of the deck himself, that is, looked out for the proper steerage of the ship, and relieved the second mate, whose watch it was, to join the men at prayers. These arrangements completed, the chief mate placed a Bible on the capstan, read a ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... board, but avoided the helmsman. To Gray he said, "Put out the flying-jib so as to be prepared in case the jib does not hold, and get ready to cast the anchor." The sailors took their places at the capstan and made ready to lower the anchor. Meantime the night had settled down quickly, for in the tropics night follows the going down of the sun without any twilight. There was a rainbow but thick banks of clouds driven along by the storm hid ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... We would spend whole days on the wharves, all bustle and excitement, sometimes seated on the capstan of the Sprightly Bess or perched in the nettings of the Oriole, of which ship old Stanwix was now captain. He had grown gray in Mr. Carvel's service, and good Mrs. Stanwix was long since dead. Often we would mount together on the little horse Captain Daniel ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... just when he was to be made an engineer, when he thought he had smooth sailing, suddenly and provokingly found himself fast aground, with no spar or capstan by which he might help himself off, with no friendly craft alongside to throw him a hawser and pull ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... minute formality of the log-book, could convey an adequate idea of the truth. The strain we constantly had occasion to heave on the hawsers, as springs to force the ships through the ice, was such as perhaps no ships ever before attempted; and by means of Phillips’s invaluable capstan, we often separated floes of such magnitude as must otherwise have baffled every effort. In doing this, it was next to impossible to avoid exposing the men to very great risk from the frequent breaking of the hawsers. On one occasion, three of the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... could get no more information from them, we weighed; the natives all left us very quietly as soon as the capstan was manned, and by signs appeared to wish us to revisit them. During the whole time they were on board, they behaved perfectly well, and did not make any attempt at stealing, though they must have seen many ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... somewhat, and commenced to defend themselves. When they had killed one or two of ours, as the latter had no one to command or direct them—because the said Doctor, as soon as they came in to close quarters with the enemy, had thrown himself down behind the capstan of the ship with a number of mattresses—the troops became so demoralized that no one was able to accomplish anything. Although some of them went up to the said Doctor and told him to board the ship, or to send troops on board of it with an order, he would not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... prettier scene. The guns fired, the bands of the various regiments played, and the white sails opened out bright in the sun as the sailors swarmed into the rigging, anxious to outvie each other. Even the soldiers pulled and hauled at the ropes, and ran round with the capstan bars to get the anchors apeak. Tom and Peter, of course, had, like the other boys, got very much in the way in their desire to assist, and, having been once or twice knocked over by the rush of men coming along with ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... this, the "Iron Duke's" first night on the Chinese territory, the steel hawser was brought to the capstan, but a piece of yarn would have been equally efficacious; for, under the immense strain, it snapped like a bow string, and, as there was now nothing to keep the stern in check, away she went broadside on to ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... that of a man who had not a care in the world. His visitor's description was writ large on him by the sea. No one could possibly mistake Captain Coke for any other species of captain than that of master mariner. He was built on the lines of a capstan, short and squat and powerful. Though the weather was hot, he wore a suit of thick navy-blue serge that would have served his needs within the Arctic Circle. It clung tightly to his rounded contours; there was a purple line on his red brows that marked the exceeding tightness ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... may be shocked to hear that the service was speedily, although decorously closed; but Captain M—- was aware from the fidgeting of the ship's company, upon the capstan bars, on which they were seated, that it would be impossible to regain their attention to the service, even if he had felt inclined to proceed: and he well knew, that any worship of God in which the mind and heart were not engaged, was but an idle ceremony, if not a solemn mockery. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... appeared to have become a thoughtful and serious character, but unhappily he very soon fell off again, and was now as reckless as ever. At length the order came for us to return home. Merrily we tramped round at the capstan bars to a jolly song, as we got in our anchor for the last time, and made sail from the port of Leghorn. We passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and with a smooth sea and southerly wind we had a quick run to the Land's End, while ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... the master, "and pricked her off. We are just about here, by dead reckoning." And he made an effort to spread open the chart on the capstan-head. But the paper was stiff from being almost continuously rolled up; moreover, the wind was troublesome—the two circumstances combining to render it almost impossible for the good man to do as he wished unaided. I saw his difficulty, and, stepping forward, seized the two top ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... elevation; raising &c. v.; erection, lift; sublevation[obs3], upheaval; sublimation, exaltation; prominence &c. (convexity) 250. lever &c. 633; crane, derrick, windlass, capstan, winch; dredge, dredger, dredging machine. dumbwaiter, elevator, escalator, lift. V. heighten, elevate, raise, lift, erect; set up, stick up, perch up, perk up, tilt up; rear, hoist, heave; uplift, upraise, uprear, upbear[obs3], upcast[obs3], uphoist[obs3], upheave; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to all hands to prepare to cast off. The men had hurried through their dinner, for they knew that the time allowed them would be short, and began casting off hawsers, coiling down ropes, and preparing for a start. The bell was ringing, and the friends of the passengers were saying good-bye. The capstan was manned, and the vessel moved slowly away from ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... water casks and the like,—all needed in the furthering of the work at the ledge. On the tug's forward deck, hat off and jacket swinging loose, stood Captain Joe Bell in charge of the submarine work at the site, glorious old Captain Joe, with the body of a capstan, legs stiff as wharf posts, arms and hands tough as cant hooks and heart twice as big as all of them ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... so quickly that whilst the hoarse signal was still vibrating through the ship, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on her elevated poop. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged, she could not sink if ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... a like finding. In the afternoon the first jury were given two more bills, first, to find "whether in April 1643 Ingle, being then at Mattapanian,[15] St. Clement's hundred, said 'that Prince Rupert was Prince Traitor & Prince rogue and if he had him aboard his ship he would whip him at the capstan.'" This bill met the fate of the others, but the second charging him with saying "that the king (meaning o^r Gover L. K. Charles) was no king neither would be no king, nor could be no king unless he did ioine with the Parlam^t," caused the jury to disagree and no verdict having ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... The ironwood capstan bars clanked to that seaman's music of running sailors. A clattering of the pawls—the anchor came away. The St. Pierre shook out her bellying sails and the white sheets drew to a full beam wind. Long foam lines ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... the hearts of "Hooper & Son, Boston, Mass.,"—whose name I saw printed on it,—it would have done the whole firm good, to have heard it. After I had ceased ringing, and slowly tolled the bell for a few minutes, so that I might make it seem as if I were going to meeting in Roxbury, I sat down on the capstan to think matters over. Nothing had happened yet that excited me like this. Jumping through the earth, and then getting stuck in the centre; being blown through the axis, and lighting on an iceberg at the north pole, ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... Castle Cliff in a fiery glow, Margery comes out and sits on her father's knee; the lads, home from school, gather round and say, 'Now then, Master Sellar, tell us once more the story of thy absence from us, and about how thou wast pressed and taken on board the Royal Prince. Tell us about the capstan and the lashings; about how they beat thee; what the carpenter and the boatswain's mate did, and how the gunner went down three times on his bare knees on the deck to beg thy life. Let us hear it all again.' 'Yes, please do, Father dear,' ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... which had worked the French Revolution, through waiting at table and hearing talk about 'em. One of our forecas'le six-pounders was called Danton and t'other Marat. I used to play the fiddle between 'em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o' what France had done, and how the United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genet said he'd justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude common man. ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... it than that. Whatever it was, another change was at hand. Since he was so exposed to the weather on the reef, Hazel had never been free from pain; but he had done his best to work it off. He had collected all the valuables from the wreck, made a new mast, set up a rude capstan to draw the boat ashore, and cut a little dock for her at low water, and clayed it in the full heat of the sun; and, having accomplished this drudgery, he got at last to his labor of love; he opened a quantity of pearl oysters, fed Tommy and the duck with them, and began the great work ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... on the quarter-deck, opened, and the bullion taken out. The whole, when collected, amounted to about half a million of dollars, as near as they could estimate it, and a distribution of the coined money was made from the capstan the very next day; the bars of metal being reserved until they could be sold, and their ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the muscular structure of the membrana tympani so accurately described by Sir E. HOME." Sir EVERARD'S deduction, I may observe, is clearly inconsistent with the fact that the power of two elephants may be combined by singing to them a measured chant, somewhat resembling a sailor's capstan song; and in labour of a particular kind, such as hauling a stone with ropes, they will thus move conjointly a weight to which their divided ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... the mouth of the river was now to be begun. This was the building of a vessel above the cataract. The small craft which had brought La Motte and Hennepin with their advanced party had been hauled to the foot of the rapids at Lewiston, and drawn ashore with a capstan to save her from the drifting ice. Her lading was taken out, and must now be carried beyond the cataract to the calm water above. The distance to the destined point was at least twelve miles, and the steep heights ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman |
