Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London

When Mr. Pike ordered the wheel hard up, he slacked off all the
mizzen-yards, and followed it with a partial slacking of the main-
yards, so that the after-pressures were eased. The foresail and
fore-lower- and-upper-topsails remained flat in order to pay the head
off before the wind. All this took time. The men were slow, not
strong, and without snap. They reminded me of dull oxen by the way
they moved and pulled. And the gale, ever snorting harder, now
snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could I glimpse the group on
top the for'ard-house. Again and again, leaning to it and holding
their heads down, the men on the 'midship-house were obliterated by
the drive of crested seas that burst against the rail, spouted to the
lower-yards, and swept in horizontal volumes across to leeward. And
Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider in a wind-tossed web, went back and
forth along the slender bridge that was itself a shaken thread in the
blast of the storm.