top-hamper

top-hamper (plural top-hampers)

1. (nautical) The rigging, spars, etc., stored above the deck of a ship.
   • 1840, James Fenimore Cooper, The Pathfinder, Chapter 16:

     There were the pitching of the vessel, the hissing of the waters, the dashing of spray, the shocks that menaced annihilation to the little craft as she plunged into the seas, the undying howl of the wind, and the fearful drift. The last was the most serious danger; for, though exceedingly weatherly under her canvas, and totally without top-hamper, the Scud was so light, that the combing of the swells would seem at times to wash her down to leeward with a velocity as great as that of the surges themselves.

   • 1840, R H D, Jr., Two Years before the Mast.  (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers , →OCLC:

     At the same time sleet and hail were driving with all fury against us. We clewed down, and hauled out the reef- tackles again, and close-reefed the fore-topsail, and furled the main, and hove her to on the starboard tack. Here was an end to our fine prospects. We made up our minds to head winds and cold weather; sent down the royal yards, and unrove the gear; but all the rest of the top hamper remained aloft, even to the sky-sail masts and studding-sail booms.

   • 1914, Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter XLVI:

     "Want to make land, eh?" I girded down at him. "Getting hungry, eh? Well, you won't make land or anything else in a thousand years once you get all your top-hamper piled down on deck."

• “top-hamper”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.