Word: boom
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Darby left the Senators with one last warning: don't rush things. He did not want the Eisenhower boom to crest too early. Wait until fall, he told them...
...racing sloop L'Apache, a 73-footer, was running in second place in one of the world's longest yacht races-from Los Angeles harbor to Honolulu. At dawn one day last week, L'Apache's boom tackle broke. It had to be repaired under way, with 8-ft. seas running. Precious time was wasting. Crewman Ted Sierks, 40, an ex-Marine and photographer, was braced against the rail, trying to get the fractious boom under control. The rail broke and Sierks slid into...
...Luckily the Yangtse was in high water, but, even so, the tortuous, silted channel was a skipper's nightmare-especially without an experienced Chinese pilot. And even if Kerans had the luck to stick to the channel while ducking Communist artillery, there was still a boom of sunken ships to pass, 40 miles downriver...
...crew of eleven worked at temperatures up to 170 degrees, drank ten gallons of tea during the frantic run. In the chart-room, two men tried to pick out the channel with an echo sounder. One thing was sure: the Amethyst had to hit the narrow opening in the boom or "she would slice off her bottom." As she approached it, a flare went up, Communist guns opened fire and the river erupted in waterspouts. Kerans saw a single light on the boom and prayerfully made a blind guess: "Steer just to port of the light." And the Amethyst went...
Only once did the Amethyst get into dangerously shallow water. Below the boom, she met a patrol boat; Kerans decided to speed by as close as possible, thus give the smaller enemy craft a minimum chance to rake his decks. The Amethyst scraped by with a bare 18 inches to spare. Then a junk without lights loomed up ahead and was sliced in two. Then the biggest guns of all, at Woosung, were safely passed, and the Amethyst was in the clear. In the wide mouth of the Yangtse, she met H.M.S. Concord and the sweaty, half-starved crew...