Quotes About Nautical

y los himnos pluviales que nacen de su boca envolviéndonos sí como a dos nautas enlazados al velamen incierto del amor. (de A Un Muchacho)

In the road ships must ride in 30, 40, or 50 fathom water, not above half a mile from the shore at farthest: and if there are many ships they must ride close one by another.

It's early evening when HMS Anthony

Eventually, however, the anchor was lashed to the bulwarks, with the ring at the end of its shank secured to a projecting timber known as a cathead.

For that voyage, Frobisher packed one pound of biscuit and one gallon of beer per man per day, one pound of salt meat (beef or pork) per man for each "flesh" day, as well as one dried codfish for every four men on fast days. Each man was supplied with a quarter pound of butter daily, along with a half pound of cheese, as well as four bushels of peas (pease) per man during the voyage.

Passengers in need of toilet facilities were forced to use slop buckets that soon spilled over and added to the general miasma below or to climb into the "beak"—all the way forward beneath the bowsprit—where they would perch precariously on a seat to relieve themselves as the vessel rolled with the waves and then clean themselves using a length of rope that hung from the bowsprit so that it trailed in the ocean below.

Once upon a time there'd been a blue-eyed sea captain dining in here.

He pulled the tiller and shouted the words, Ready about ... LEE HO! I stared at him incredulously. What sort of things was that for one sensible adult to shout at another?

And if that is the Foremast, what do you think that sail might be called, Mr. Wheeler?" "The Foresail?" "Very good, Mr. Wheeler, and the next one up would be called..." ..."The Next Sail, Sir?" "Alas, no, Mr. Wheeler.

Their sterns rose high out of the water, towering as much as thirty feet over the waves

Defecating was even more difficult, calling for a precarious balancing act as a sailor eased himself

One sailor telling another that his beard smelled of smoke was tantamount to provoking a fight.

Magellan named the inlet Bahía de los Patos, Duck Bay

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

the boatswain, or contramaestre; the boatswain's mate; and the alguacil.

At sea, days were divided into six four-hour shifts, called watches.

especially for those born in ports and maritime areas. This sort is the most numerous among mariners

Peter was a gentle, red-haired bear of a man. Standing at six-four in his socks, he moved everywhere with a slight and nautical sway, but even though he was broad across the chest there was something centered and reassuring about him, like an old ship's mast cut from a single timber.

I wish I could help him. I wish I could help the dozens of other Sufferers - all the victims of wounds, maulings, burns, diseases, incipient malnutrition, and melancholic despair - aboard this entrapped ship and her sister ship. I wish I could help myself, for already I am showing the early signs of Nostalgia and Debility. But there is little that I - or any surgeon in the Year of Our Lord 1848 - can do. God help us all.

Mr. Tyler, drop the anchor. We are as close

Stripes are very French - who doesn't love a good stripe?

But, however, I clapped a stopper over his capers.' Dr Maturin was proud of his nautical expressions: sometimes he got them right, but right or wrong he always brought them out with a slight emphasis of satisfaction, much as others might utter a particularly apt Greek or Latin quotation. 'And brought him up with a round stern,' he added.

It was true that a few years ago some wild enthusiast, a Whiggish civilian no doubt, had decreed that day should start at midnight; but Jack, though a scientific, forwardlooking officer, agreed with many of his fellow-captains in giving this foolish innovation no countenance whatsoever: besides, it had taken him years to persuade Stephen that nautical days really did start at noon, and he did not want his imperfect conviction to be shaken in any way at all.

Patrick O'Brian