Chris Mobley

“how to measure the ship’s speed by casting a line ribbed with evenly spaced knots into the water and then counting the number that slipped through his hands over a period of time. (One knot equaled a little more than a land mile per hour.)”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

“emanating from the thirty-thousand-dollar home on a quiet residential street in Naples”
― John D. MacDonald, Bright Orange for the Shroud

“the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat. Not only did Byron have”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

“wake of Columbus’s breakthrough voyage, Pope Alexander VI had, with an imperious wave of his hand, divided the world beyond Europe in half, bestowing the western side to Spain and the eastern regions, including Brazil, to Portugal.)”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder