Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstall when the others are killed.

Hal dropped the musket to the deck, and used both hands on the whipstall.

Hal seized the whipstall and held it over.

Fletcher's whipstall at the top was all the worse for his rage and fury at failing.

Already his boatswain was at the whipstall.

Hal took only a moment to lash the whipstall hard over, then raced across the deck and seized one of the straining lines.

Hal turned to the helm and felt another great lift of his heart as he saw that Ned Tyler was already at the whipstall.

He reached the whipstall a dozen paces before the other man and rounded on him, thrusting the gun's gaping muzzle into his belly.

Two helmsmen, lashed to the whipstall, battled to keep her pointing with the gale, but each wave that came aboard burst over their heads.

For that you have to be young and stupid," Ned Tyler growled, but shook his head fondly as he leaned against the whipstall and stared up. "

Hal put the whipstall hard alee, but as she struggled wildly to feel the wind come across her stern, and threatened to gybe with all standing, Daniel paid off the yard braces to take the strain.

It was a marvelousinvention: using the whipstall the helmsman had been limited tofive-degree turns either side of centre but with this new wheel hecould lay the tiller seventy degrees across for much greater control ofthe ship's direction under way.

Hal felt so saddened that he did not realize that the longboat had returned until, with a start, he saw that it had already been hoisted aboard and that Ned Tyler waited by the whipstall for his orders.

He could recognize Ned Tyler, the helmsman, bowed over the whipstall, holding the ship true; and his own father stooping over the binnacle to read the new course, the lantern lighting his lean dark features and his long locks tangling and whipping in the wind.