I'm thinking of how Odysseus and his men clung to the bellies of the rams to escape the Cyclops' cave, how they first took the fire-hot handspike and drove it deep into that crater eye, a blinding that the Cyclops' father, Poseidon, never forgave.
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Warren Hill (June 1960 – January 27, 2015) was a prisoner executed in Georgia in the United States. Hill was originally sentenced to life imprisonment for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Myra Wright, in 1985. He was subsequently sentenced to death for killing his cellmate, Joseph Handspike. In 1990 Hill killed Handspike in their cell by bludgeoning him to death with a wooden board studded with nails.
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These are known locally as "jack cloughs". Bottom gate paddles are sometimes operated by a horizontal ratchet which also slides a wooden plate sideways, rather than the more common vertical lift. Many of these idiosyncratic paddles have been "modernised" and they are becoming rare. On the Calder and Hebble Navigation, some paddle gear is operated by repeatedly inserting a Calder and Hebble Handspike (length of 4" by 2" hardwood) into a ground-level slotted wheel and pushing down on the handspike to rotate the wheel on its horizontal axis.
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They could only be loaded by heavy blows with a handspike (a heavy wooden bar used to move a gun). One of them became disabled when the barrel slipped within the reinforcing sleeve, blocking the vent. This caused the navy to stop using the other Whitworth also .
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The locks also require a handspike to open the paddles. Most of the navigation is in artificial cuts, with brief sections where it rejoins the river. At Dewsbury, the short Dewsbury Arm gives access to Saville Town Basin. Beyond the junction, the route is isolated from the town as it is in a deep cutting.
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The wagons were available with or without brakes as required. The brake was operated using a lever and acted simultaneously and evenly on all four wheels, to bring the car or train quickly to a halt. For cars without a brake, a simple wooden handspike was sufficient even in heavily graded terrain. The cars were unusually light.
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A second "cat head" was associated with a ship's anchor-cable and windlass. This was a square pin thrust into one of the handspike holes of a ship's windlass. When at anchor, the anchor rope (called a cable or catfall) was secured to this with a smaller rope tie called a seizing. The English term for this pin was 'Norman'.
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In the other section, another gun was lost when its final discharge jammed the handspike into a tree stump. The Confederates used captured Unions soldiers to haul away the two captured guns because no horses were available. The battery fought at the Battle of Chantilly on 1 September. During the Maryland Campaign, Battery F under Captain Hampton was part of the artillery belonging to Joseph K. Mansfield's XII Corps.
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There are various accounts of what transpired, but in the end Farrell suffered a blow to the head from a handspike thrown by Donnelly, and died two days later. James Donnelly then went into hiding. (Farrell's young son was adopted by the Donnellys, and was brought up by them until adulthood.) Almost two years later, James turned himself in to Jim Hodgins, a sympathetic Justice of the Peace.Pettit, Jennifer, and Kori Street, Kori.
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To empty the chamber a large hole through one lock wall, and a wooden sluice was used. The lower lock was filled by emptying the upper lock. Originally made with oak gates, with handspike paddlegear, the top gates were replaced with unusual steel gates by Yorkshire Water, who looked after the navigation for drainage, and water supply. The gates instead of having balance beams to open them, had a complicated rack system which pulled them open with a windlass.
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Dobson who had awoken to the screeching, ran to the forecastle, where he saw Pepe with a knife in his hand prepared to strike, attempting to avoid the blow he was stabbed in the left shoulder. As Dobson approached the main rigging, he saw Potter, who was supporting himself with the railing, hands over his stomach. Potter asked Dobson if there was anything with which they could defend themselves. Dobson grabbed a handspike, which Potter took, and they ascended the main shrouds where Doliver had taken refuge.
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The guns each managed to fire one round of case-shot, cutting down many of the enemy, before they reached the square and engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. Lieutenant D. J. Guthrie was attacked by several Sudanese and was seriously wounded in the leg. One of his soldiers, Gunner Alfred Smith, saved his life by killing his assailant with the handspike from a gun, and remained standing over him fighting off others. For this act of bravery Gunner Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross, although Lieutenant Guthrie was to die of his wounds.
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One unusual feature of the waterway is the need for a long piece of wood, called a handspike, to open the paddles on the locks. Because it is a river navigation, water levels are liable to fluctuate, and many of the locks have coloured gauge boards to indicate if it is safe to proceed. A green band indicates that river levels are normal, while an amber band indicates that river levels are high, but that progress to the next lock and passage through it should be possible with care. A red band indicates that navigation is unsafe, as the river is in flood, and the next lock is closed.
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In February 1832 Tayler submitted another design and model for a traversing gun-carriage, which required half the number of men to work, and did away with the handspike, tackles, and crowbar used to train the gun. In reply he was informed that "their Lordships could not order any trial of his improved gun-carriage to be made at the expense of Government", to which he replied offering a trial at his own expense at Portsmouth. After this offer was again turned down, Tayler abandoned his correspondence with the Admiralty on the subject. His gun- carriage model was donated to the United Service Museum.
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At the break of dawn on January 27, 1814, 1,300 Creek successfully snuck past surrounding campfires where they fell on Floyd and his militia from three sides after having lain concealed in the swamps until half after five. As the siege raged on leaving many were without weapon or ammunition, accounts tell of artilleryman Ezekiel M. Attaway (under the command of Jett Thomas), who grabbed the traversing handspike from the carriage of his gun and shouted, "We must not give up the gun, boys. Seize the first weapon you can lay your hands upon, and stick to your post until the last." The cannoneers, within yards of losing their key field pieces, were able to break the spirit of the encroaching Creek after firing several grapeshots.
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Other artifacts recovered included square nails, "lumber" (presumably from the wall supporting the interior slope of the work), and "a mechanism used to aim a cannon in the proper direction" (presumably a handspike). Though this work was ostensibly under the direction of W.T. Block, a prominent local historian, it is unknown what has become of nearly all these artifacts; however, a few examples of the recovered ordnance have made their way into the collection of Port Arthur's Museum of the Gulf Coast. Photograph from the Beaumont Enterprise, September 1, 1970, showing ordnance recovered from Fort Manhassett. An interesting anecdote from a 2006 archaeological survey of an area close to McFadden Beach mentions the purposeful destruction of the site by a souvenir hunter: > [A state archaeologist, in the early 1970s] tried to persuade the man from > digging into the site with a backhoe and destroying the site.
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Three of the four crew members were lost. In another well-known incident, Captain Daniel Dobbins used an “old Durham boat” to transport two cannon each weighing 6300 pounds from Black Rock to Presque Isle to supply Commodore Perry’s fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie, "...when it was discovered she was leaking very much from the heavy rolling and heavy weight in her bottom, and likely to split open and founder, Mr. Dobbins took a coil of rope they had on board, and securing one end forward, passed the rope round and round her fore and aft, heaving each turn taut with a gunner’s handspike; and in this way, kept her together and afloat, all hands bailing." During the period 1796 to 1820, “open boats” were in use on Lake Erie. These boats were used to carry cargo and passengers, usually between Buffalo and Detroit and places between.
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48–49 When Paine finally attained the quarterdeck, he described a scene of confusion: > The Captain was bawling to square the yards and stop the Ship's way; but > with very little attention from the Ship's Company who impressed with the > idea of Chinese pirates were alone intent in cutting and slashing away upon > the vessel's rigging and sail and preventing the China-men from coming on > board ... (The Chinese) clambered up the Fore-chains, impelled no doubt with > the fear of their vessel sinking after receiving so violent a shock; this > with the extreme darkness of the night and the confusion of voices crying > out, "a light, a light, a cutlass, a cutlass, a handspike, here they come!" > with the addition of the unintelligible jargon of the affrighted Chinese. Those Chinese sailors who reached the English ship's deck were attacked with cutlasses and hurled back overboard, despite making "piteous cries" for mercy. The sinking Chinese vessel also disappeared quickly astern.
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