trysail

American  

[trahy-sayl, trahy-suhl] / ˈtraɪˌseɪl, ˈtraɪ səl /

noun

Nautical.

1. a triangular or quadrilateral sail having its luff hooped or otherwise bent to a mast, used for lying to or keeping a vessel headed into the wind; spencer.

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trysail British  

/ ˈtraɪˌseɪl, ˈtraɪsəl /

noun

1. Also called: storm trysail. a small fore-and-aft sail, triangular or square, set on the mainmast of a sailing vessel in foul weather to help keep her head to the wind

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Etymology

Origin of trysail

First recorded in 1760–70; try + sail

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

trysail

Two days later, the Flame blew into Cowes at dawn under a trysail because her mainsail had been ripped the day before.

From Time Magazine Archive

We have been sailing at around 80 percent with just the No. 4 jib, a trysail and triple-reefed mizzen, but now we have also damaged the mizzen luff track.

From Time Magazine Archive

Just before this aggregate of days elapses, I haul aft my trysail sheets, and stretch over to the Cape of Good Hope.

From Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States by Raphael Semmes

A nickname for a particular storm trysail used in the northern seas.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

So close were we, that had the stranger been pitching instead of ’scending at the moment, her jibboom-end must have passed through the peak of our trysail.

From The Secret of the Sands The "Water Lily" and her Crew by Harry Collingwood

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