What is "hances"

Usage examples of "hances".

They waited for him by the starboard hances, and after a while Stephen said, 'Were there so much as a blade of grass in view or a sheep, you might call this a pastoral scene.

Each time he paused for the Surprise to take up the full force of the new thrust: this she did with immense spirit, with the buoyant living grace which so moved his heart - never was such a ship - and when she was moving perhaps as fast as she had ever moved, with her lee cathead well under the foam of her bow-wave, he laid one hand on the hances, feeling the deep note of her hull as he might have felt the vibrations of his fiddle, and the other on a backstay, gauging the exact degree of strain.

Ha, Mr Crown' - turning to the bosun, who stood smiling by the hances - 'we shall have our work cut out.

He slipped the paper into his pocket, stepped over to the starboard hances and brought the sun down to the horizon.

He returned to his cabin, carrying the book, by way of the quarterdeck, and there he saw Fox at the lee hances, staring intently at the Natunas, the False Natunas.

Stephen did not address himself directly to Captain Aubrey, who was standing by the windward hances, his eyes fixed on the maintopmast crosstrees, for that would have been improper.

By now the quarterdeck had all its officers and young gentlemen, all its proper foremast hands, signalmen, messengers and timoneers, together with everyone else in the ship who had a right to walk upon it, and Stephen and Professor Graham were wedged against the hances, behind the Captain's clerk and the purser.

During this time Jack leant over the quarterdeck rail, by the starboard hances, in the easy way allowed to those of his rank, looking down into the waist and over the side.

The frigate proceeded soberly north-eastward, or as nearly north-eastward as the breezes would allow, and her captain soberly walked his quarterdeck, fore and aft, fore and aft, seventeen paces from the windward hances to the taffrail, turn and back again, almost exactly a hundred turns to the mile.

He saw Babbington and young Ricketts standing doubtfully at the hances and called out, 'Get below, you two.

Throughout this time Stephen and Farquhar had stood by the hances, out of the way, two figures as unregarded as they had been at the time of the military councils, where they sat virtually mute, dim among the splendid uniforms.