Quotes About Seamen

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.

He cautiously committed only six seamen to a landing party charged with fetching supplies

stranding the six seamen on the little island. They passed a wretched night

The seamen who dumped gun and powder barrel into the hiding place Hackney had found carried the apparatus past the wireless room. When Chief Radio Officer George Rogers stopped them to ask what they were doing, they told him the purpose of their mission. He expressed interest, saying he never knew the space existed.

I must repeat what I asserted formerly, that unless some happy expedient can be fallen upon to induce the seamen to enter into the service for a longer term than twelve months, it will never be possible to bring them under proper subordination; and subordination is as necessary, nay, far more so in the fleet than in the army.

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

Extraordinary storms turn average seamen into extraordinary sailors.

We seamen, when there's naught to do In calms, the straw for hats we plait, Or one another we tattoo With marks we copy from a mate, Which he has from his elders ta'en, And those from prior ones again; And few, if any, think or reck But so with pains their skin to deck. This crucifixion, though, by some, A charm is held 'gainst watery doom.

Hollom was going forward along the larboard gangway: Nagel, an able seamen but one of the most sullen, bloody-minded and argumentative of the Defenders, was coming aft on the same narrow passage. They were abreast of one another; and Nagel walked straight on without the slightest acknowledgement other than a look of elaborate unconcern.

However, there was nobody missing, and after a brief inspection Mowett could report 'All present and sober, sir, if you please,' without more falsehood than could be borne, since the few hands who were still drunk by naval standards did not fall until after the inspection; and they were quietly slung on to camels' backs among the tents and seamen's bags.

The seamen had whitewashed the smoky ceilings of the ward, and that dear homely smell carried the vividness of thatch and lumpy walls and stew given from the goodness of a stranger's heart. But that was all there was of comfort, and the salt air had turned from cold to warm in the passing of a life, an afternoon.

The discipline on Dutch ships was perhaps more brutal than on other European merchant ships… The official rulebooks allowed captains to punish any seamen who injured another by pinning him to the mast with a knife through his hand.