boltropes

Canvas banged taut against sheet lines and boltropes.

Shadowfane Wurts, Janny 1988

Canvas cascaded from the yards with a crack and a slither of boltropes.

Shadowfane Wurts, Janny 1988

The men sprang to the ropes with a will, but ere they had begun to cast them off from the cleats an ominous sound was heard from aloft, and, splitting from clew to earring, our poor topgallantsail blew clean out of the boltropes with a loud crack as if a gun had been fired off, the fragments floating away ahead of us, borne on the wings of the wind like

The Ghost Ship A Mystery of the Sea Henry [Illustrator] Austin

Everything, though, was not right with her, as I noted the moment I made her out, with her white canvas all crimson from a last expiring gleam of the afterglow; for I could see that her sails were tattered and torn, with the ragged ends blowing out loose from the boltropes in the most untidy fashion, unkempt, uncared for!

The Ghost Ship A Mystery of the Sea Henry [Illustrator] Austin

The main staysail shot out of the boltropes with a report like a twelve-pounder, and this eased her so that if the fore staysail would only hold she would go off.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue Various

They had spread a handbreadth of mainsail, but the jib was blown out of the boltropes by one big swoop of wind and carried down to leeward, looking like a giant's shirt.

Sheila of Big Wreck Cove A Story of Cape Cod James A. Cooper 1917

The main staysail shot out of the boltropes with a report like a twelve-pounder, and this eased her so that if the fore staysail would only hold she would go off.

The Capture of a Slaver 1900

They were standing by the long-boat, just abaft of poor Sam Jedfoot's now tenantless galley, and immediately under the bellying folds of the mainsail, that rustled and swelled out over their heads, tugging at the boltropes and rattling the clew-garnet blocks, as it was jerked by the wind, which ever and anon blew with eddying gusts as it veered and shifted.

The Island Treasure 1887

When the accident befell her she had been under courses and single-reefed topsails, spanker, fore-topmast staysail, and jib, for there the boltropes still were, with small fluttering rags of canvas still adhering to them, here and there.

The Castaways Harry Collingwood 1886

I had used my eyes to good purpose, even while taking my morning tub; and had observed, among other things, that the brig's canvas was not furled; it had simply been blown clear and clean out of the boltropes.

The Castaways Harry Collingwood 1886