I know these waters like a book, I've sailed them ever since I was old enough to tell a tiller from a mainsheet.
"Alias The Lone Wolf"
Louis Joseph Vance
The boom creaked in the goose-neck, and at every roll the slack of the mainsheet tautened with a kind of little thud which thrilled the deck behind me.
"Hills and the Sea"
H. Belloc
And whilst the waves on either side of the ship, curious to know what the others were about, leaped uninvited to the nuptials upon the deck, one man baled them with a bowl into a tub, another drove them off with a pump; and whilst every sailor was hard at work-as it concerned his own safety-one minding the rudder, another hauling the foresail, another the mainsheet, Jennariello ran up to the topmast, to see with a telescope if he could discover any land where they might cast anchor.
"Stories from Pentamerone"
Giambattista Basile