"Unseaworthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... receipt of some books of travel by land and water which we had luckily thought to send him. He gave the latitude and longitude of Deephaven at the beginning of his letter, and signed himself, "Respectfully yours with esteem, Jacob Lant (condemned as unseaworthy)." ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... heavy, and paddled slowly; and the lads had a strong suspicion that the Malays had purposely made it more clumsy and unseaworthy than need be, in order that they should have no temptation to attempt a ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... FALLS.—There have been three such instances. The first was in 1827. Some men got an old ship—the Michigan—which had been used on lake Erie, and had been pronounced unseaworthy. For mere wantonness they put aboard a bear, a fox, a buffalo, a dog and some geese and sent it over the cataract. The bear jumped from the vessel before it reached the rapids, swam toward the shore, and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... at the door of his master's office and says, "It is blowing up to a stiff gale. Is the Indian Girl to sail in spite of it?" Whereupon Bernick, though he knows that the Indian Girl is hopelessly unseaworthy, replies, "The Indian Girl is to sail in spite of it." It had occurred to someone that the effect of this incident would be heightened if Krap, before knocking at the Consul's door, were to consult the barometer, and show by his demeanour that it was falling rapidly. A barometer had accordingly ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... felling a man like him by a youngster's hand and for a shallow girl! He might have fathered some jest at life, with rueful relish of the flavour: for such is our manner of commenting on ourselves when we come to shipwreck through unseaworthy pretensions. There was no interval on his passage from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fifteen to thirty rowers on either side, and the boats also carried a number of extra soldiers. They were provided also with square sails pitched about amidships and were steered by a large paddle. These boats were excellent in creeks and rivers, but owing to their low bulwarks were somewhat unseaworthy, and it was necessary for the Danes to cross the sea and the English Channel in ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... water where are now the water front and some of the leading business streets of the city. On these flats old unseaworthy vessels were drawn up and did duty side by side with rough board buildings as dwellings and stores. In the rainy seasons the streets were lakes of mud where mules and drays were sometimes literally submerged. The arrival of the mail steamer was the event of the month to this host of people so far ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... the sloop?" queried Vinton, though he knew perfectly well that Dave would seek any excuse to stretch his unseaworthy limbs on terra firma in preference to tossing on the bosom of ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... his reminiscences. Rats were a favourite topic with him, and he would never allow one to be killed if he could help it, for he claimed for them that they were the souls of drowned sailors, hence their love of ships and their habit of leaving them when they became unseaworthy. He was a firm believer in the transmigration of souls, some idea of which he had, no doubt, picked up in Eastern ports, and gave his shivering auditors to understand that his arrangements for his own immediate future ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... in 1779, Graves off the Chesapeake in 1781, Hood at Martinique in 1781 and at St. Kitt's in 1782, all were inferior, at the same time that the allied fleet in Europe overwhelmingly outnumbered the English. In consequence, unseaworthy ships were retained, to the danger of their crews and their own increasing injury, rather than diminish the force by sending them home; for the deficiencies of the colonial dock-yards did not allow extensive repairs without crossing the Atlantic. As regards the comparative ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... this plate came from the cathedral at Lima, having been carried from there during the war of independence when the Spanish residents fled the country. In their eagerness to escape they put to sea in any ship that offered, and these unarmed and unseaworthy vessels fell an easy prey to pirates. One of these pirates on his death-bed, in gratitude to his former captain, told him the secret of the treasure. In 1892 this captain was still living, in Newcastle, England, and although ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Bonbright and herself were embarked on one of these unstable, experimental craft. She saw, as he did not, that it was unseaworthy and must founder at the first touch of storm. She pinned no false hopes to it; recognized it as a makeshift, welcome to her only as a reprieve—and that it must soon be discarded for a vessel whose planking was reality and whose sails were ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... the Mayflower could not carry any more passengers than she brought, and therefore most of the passengers of the Speedwell, which was a vessel of 50 tons and proved to be unseaworthy, were compelled to remain until the following year, and came over in the Fortune; and among these Robert Cushman, with his family, one of the most distinguished and honoured of the Pilgrim Fathers. And there was doubtless as good "seed" in "the three ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... case says, "The contract of a sailor has always been treated as an exceptional one involving to a certain extent the surrender of his personal liberty during the life of his contract.'' Mr. Plimsoll was rightly convinced that unseaworthy vessels left port for the sake of insurance money on valued policies, that the lives of the seamen were thereby imperilled, and that the poor sailor had no redress before the law. The bill that had just been thrown out by Disraeli provided that if one-quarter of the seamen ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... mast, she would have gone away, fearful that he was an enemy. Three cheers for the brave and thoughtful Captain Walker! He reached England, at last, but he and his men were in a sorry plight, for the vessel which had rescued them was almost as unseaworthy as their own, which sank in a great whirl of eddying foam, not half an hour after they had left her. Thus ended the career of the good ship which had chased all of the pirates away from the harbor of Charleston. A sad fate, indeed, for such a ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... morning, that now useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever present to my eyes. Poor stone lady! born to be enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of the new capitol, whither was she now to drift? for what base purposes be ultimately broken up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall her ill-starred artificer, standing with his thousand francs on the threshold of a life so hard as that of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... assignment was a fishing schooner, a dirty, unseaworthy little tub, which ran as far north sometimes as the Aleutians; and he had immediately gained official recognition by sticking to his instruments for sixty-eight hours—recorded at fifteen-minute intervals ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... what you are saying," he told her, gravely. "You'd have to go as a filibuster, on some decrepit, unseaworthy freighter loaded to the guards and crowded with men of all sorts. It's dangerous business, running the Spanish blockade. If captured you would be treated just ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... dwell on this part of the case. Yet he now proceeded to argue at great length, from the testimony in the case, that there must have been a connection between the brig and the schooner; that, as the schooner was confessedly unseaworthy, and could not have gone out of the bay, it must have been the intention to put the slaves on board the brig, and to carry them off to Cuba or elsewhere and sell them. The testimony to this effect ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... sail; it had been built to fight the Dutch enemy. Gaining the victory on St. Mark's day, April 24 of the same year, it had been repaired again and was to make the voyage. One of the Dutch vessels captured was to go as almiranta; but it did not make the voyage, as it was unseaworthy. The trip was prosperous and the father reached Espana, attended by the same fortune. There he gave so satisfactory an account of himself that not only did they not find him deserving of reprimand, but honored him, by making him bishop of Puerto Rico. Later he was promoted ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... the white men on the plantation were viewing the punishment, she was collecting her children and grandchildren, to the number of twenty-two, in a neighboring marsh, preparatory to another attempt that night. They found a flat-boat which had been rejected as unseaworthy, got on board,—still under the old woman's orders,—and drifted forty miles down the river to our lines. Trowbridge happened to be on board the gunboat which picked them up, and he said that when the "flat" touched the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... his lordship's fleet on the way towards Louisburg, before she got leave to go upon her own proper voyage. It is entertaining to hear that this same lord, during his stay in America, detained other packets for other letters, until their bottoms got so foul and worm-eaten that they were unseaworthy. He was irreverently likened by those who waited on his pleasure to "St. George on the signs, always on horseback, and never rides on." He was at last removed by Mr. Pitt, because that energetic minister said "that he never ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... erect and self-supported, in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself like the oak, or the wild vine shoot to heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possible that, under good guidance and in favourable circumstances, such a man might have slipped through life without discredit. But the unseaworthy craft, which even in still water would have been in danger of going down from its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean, amidst a storm in which a whole armada of gallant ships was cast away. The weakest ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into the hold; he was worried lest the continuous firing he had directed upon the vessel had made her unseaworthy. But apparently the holes were all well above the water line, for there did not seem to be ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... and the worthy master of the John, the better to conceal their iniquities from the lynx-eyed satellites of the law, agreed to make an exchange of vessels, both having been officially condemned as unseaworthy. For an equivalent, the schooner was to be laden with a cargo, principally of molasses, and properly furnished with stores, provisions, and water, for a passage to the United States by the way of St. Bartholomew. The crews of the two vessels were then to be interchanged, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... frantically for the high ground. Lost dogs—and lost children, for that matter— always make up hill, dark or daylight. I suppose it's the primitive instinct to search for a view. . . . But anyway, here's a boat. She's unseaworthy, as she lies: but her timbers look sound enough if we can staunch her, and the first thing is to get her down to the water and see how fast she fills. We've a baler, to cope with the leak . . . and when we have her more or less staunch, here's the way around to our camp. ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... goose were here added to the ship's store next morning from the flats, and the weather clearing, we made Kaguiac, and found our sloop in good condition. In addition we took along an otter boat, a large rowboat, from here, as our baidarkas proved rather unseaworthy. Besides Mr. Heitman, the fur company's man, there was one other white settler in Kaguiac named Walch, who came to Kadiak twenty-seven years ago at the time of the first American military occupation, and though he had served ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... taken in tow. In the afternoon we sunk the Ayesha and we were all very sad. The good old Ayesha had served us faithfully for six weeks. The log showed that we had made 1,709 sea miles under sail since leaving Keeling. She wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the ship, on which I could practice my old sailing manoeuvres. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then because they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... after Hooliam with a peremptory message. Hooliam returned, cap in hand, his whole attitude changed. He expressed a willingness to start immediately; but deprecatingly pointed out that a storm threatened; and apologized for the unseaworthy condition of the Loseis. This time he had reason on his side; for angry clouds were heaped about the setting sun; and the orb itself was peering luridly between parted curtains of crimson rain. Garth, still suspecting him, was yet taken at a disadvantage. He thought of Natalie ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... independent mail adventure, now dying a natural death, undertaken by the New Zealand Government, as much probably out of jealousy of Victoria as anything else. She nearly foundered on her last voyage; her passengers unanimously signed a protest against her unseaworthy condition. She was condemned by the Government surveyor, and her mails were sent to Melbourne. She has, however, been patched up for this trip, and eight passengers, including myself, have trusted ourselves to her. She is a huge ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... The small boat is very much disabled and unseaworthy. With the loss of hands, consequent on the departure of the three men, we shall not be able to run all of the boats; so I decide to ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... death, he was sent to escort the body of Queen Caroline to Cuxhaven. He was then told off for revenue duty in the Channel, and had some smart cruising for smugglers until the Rosario was pronounced unseaworthy and paid off on the 22nd of February 1822. As a result of this experience he wrote a long despatch to the Admiralty, in which he freely criticised the working of the preventive service, and made some practical suggestions for its improvement. In 1822 ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... at Delfthaven in the Speedwell, a small ship bought and fitted in Holland, they came to Southampton, where another and larger vessel, the Mayflower, was in waiting. In August, 1620, the two vessels set sail, but the Speedwell, proving unseaworthy, put back after two attempts, and the Mayflower went on alone, bearing one hundred and two passengers, two-thirds of the whole, picked out as worthy and willing to undertake the voyage. The Mayflower reached the waters of New England on the 11th of November after a tedious course ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... westerly sky. Fleets of victorious ships have hung upon his breath. He has tossed in his hand squadrons of war-scarred three-deckers, and shredded out in mere sport the bunting of flags hallowed in the traditions of honour and glory. He is a good friend and a dangerous enemy, without mercy to unseaworthy ships and faint- hearted seamen. In his kingly way he has taken but little account of lives sacrificed to his impulsive policy; he is a king with a double-edged sword bared in his right hand. The East Wind, an interloper ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... also call me, and try to make the crown prince believe that I have outlived my period, and do not understand or esteem the modern time. In their eyes I am a dismantled ship of state, which the storms of life have rendered unseaworthy. They would refit the vessel, and give it a new flag, sending Old Fritz, the helmsman, to the devil! The day of my death they will hoist this flag, with 'Modern Time' inscribed upon it in large letters. I shall then be united in Elysium with Voltaire, Jordan, Suhm, and all my other friends, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach |
