16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
we not only let a reef out of the maintopsail
but also sent up the topgallant mast and yard:
yet during the night it freshened once more
and we close-reefed the topsails again, got
the topgallant yard down on deck and shaped
the mast.'
'Before this it was amorphous, I collect?
Shapeless?'
'What a fellow you are, Stephen. Shaping a
mast means getting it ready to be struck. But,
however, while this was in train, with the people
tailing on to the mast-rope, the one that
raises it a little, do you see, so that it can have
a clear run down, the ship took a most prodigious
lee-lurch, flinging all hands, still fast to
their rope, into the scuppers. And since they
hung on like good 'uns this meant that they
raised the heel of the mast right up above the
cross-trees, so that although the fid was out it
could not be lowered down. Do you follow