mainboom

As representing, then, the after half of this huge boom, we have the modern gaff, set at the same angle as the boom used to be; and at the foot of the sail hung on this gaff, now called a spencer or spanker, from the original inventor, we have the spanker boom, the same sort of thing as we should call the mainboom were the vessel a fore-and-aft yacht.

Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 Various

View there was none from the deck of the Dulcibella; it was only by standing on the mainboom that you could see over the embankments to the vast plain of Holstein, grey and monotonous under a pall of mist.

The Riddle of the Sands Childers, Erskine, 1870-1922 1955

I offered a bet of five hundred dollars against an equal sum; and next day a bag with the tempting thousand was tied to the end of my mainboom, with an invitation for the boaster to "follow and take."

Captain Canot or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver Theodore Canot

He cleared the danger of the mainsheet with a wild leap (although no less wild had been Van Horn's leap to rescue him), and found himself directly under the mainboom with the huge sail looming above him as if about to fall upon him and crush him.

Chapter 2 1917

Using the mainboom and a goodly section of the tattered canvas he had improvised

Dan Merrithew Lawrence Perry 1914

There is always a certain possibility of bringing a fore-and-aft rigged vessel's mainboom over when she is running hard, and this is rather apt to result in disaster to her spars.

Hawtrey's Deputy Harold Bindloss 1905

Then the ponderous mainboom went up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as they tried in vain to steady it.

Hawtrey's Deputy Harold Bindloss 1905

The mainboom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the taffrail; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship's mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away.

Great Sea Stories Various 1897

He cleared the danger of the mainsheet with a wild leap (although no less wild had been Van Horn's leap to rescue him), and found himself directly under the mainboom with the huge sail looming above him as if about to fall upon him and crush him.

Jerry of the Islands Jack London 1896

It was even as Lindsay had said; we had shot away the brigantine's mainboom, and thus rendered her big, powerful mainsail useless; so that, despite the lee helm that they were giving her, she was gradually falling off, until within a minute or two she was nearly dead before the wind.

A Pirate of the Caribbees Harry Collingwood 1886