skysail
IPA: skˈaɪsˈeɪɫ
noun
- (nautical) On historical square-rigged ships, the sail above the royal. Normally it is the uppermost sail, but in some cases it is below the moonraker.
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Examples of "skysail" in Sentences
- The main skysail mast has been lengthened and fitted with a moonsail later on.
- The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is the fifth and highest sail from deck.
- So close were we that I looked to see our far-reeling skysail-yards strike the face of the rock.
- Mr. Pike sent look-outs aloft to every skysail-yard, and the Elsinore slipped along through the smooth sea.
- He had picked up some of the names, but he had no idea which sail the mizzen skysail was, nor the fore topgallant.
- As it was, they cut away the remnants of the mizzen-lower-topsail with their sheath-knives, and they loosed the main-skysail out of its bolt-ropes.
- In order if possible to get a little more way on the ship, a studding-sail and a skysail were rigged up with two awnings; it did not increase our speed very much, but no doubt it helped a little.
- Poor Sundry Buyers continually pressed his abdomen as he toiled around the deck-capstans; and never was Nancy's face quite so forlorn as when he obeyed the Maltese Cockney's command and went up to loose the mizzen-skysail.
- Above the courses come the lower topsails, above them the upper topsails, above them the lower topgallant-sails, then the upper topgallant-sails, then the royals, and, on the mainmast, the skysail, though sometimes there are skysails to all masts, and over the main skysail comes a "scraper" or moon-raker.
- A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again.
- These braces come down to the ship's sides, or to the heads of the masts fore and aft of those on which the yard is swung; all the mizzen-braces working on the mainmast; the maintopgallant, mainroyal and skysail braces working on the mizzenmast; and the foretopgallant and foreroyal braces working on the mainmast, as is clearly shown in our illustration.