Starry Sea rose on the back of that wave, her bow flying clear of the sea, then plunged down the face of another, her keel biting deep into the water so that she seemed to surf. The natural aquadynamic tendency of her lines moved the bow ahead as she shot down the waves and this time the anchor, a hefty fifty pound bruce, was ripped from the bowsprit, training chain, and then rode, behind it. The little cutter was thrust ahead by the wind while the weighty anchor and its heavy chain and rode were pulled out by the cartwheeling action of the rolling waves, dragging the anchor rapidly out and deeper into the sea. Suddenly, the rode reached its end. But it had been fastened in two places by the meticulous seaman, one inside the anchor locker at the forward most part of the bow, and another at the starboard bow cleat. The anchor line stretched taught as the bruce anchor caught the water, digging into the brine almost as if it dug into the loose sand of a tropical anchorage. The pressure on the line was tremendous, but the hardware on the bowsprit was beefy and solidly joined to the ship. Starry Sea shuddered half way up the next mighty white-crested wave, then she pitched around on the rode as if it were a bridle, now facing directly into the onslaught of the sea. Now the waves came at her from straight on, were cut by her bow, and foamed and hissed harmlessly by. Cliff Seruntine, in his magical novel, AN OGHAM WOOD ~ Read just some of the reviews at amazon/An-Ogham-Wood-Cliff-Seruntine/dp/1905297459/
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 10:05:00 +0000
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