Not P but Moby-Dick (22)

[Mike Jing]

More from Chapter 40:

DANISH SAILOR.

Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done!
The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more afraid than the isle
fort at Cattegat put there to fight the Baltic with storm-lashed guns, on
which the sea-salt cakes!

What does "crack" mean here? Melville Electronic Library (
melville.electroniclibrary.org ) says it refers to the noise wooden ship
makes, while the Online Annotation ( http://www.powermobydick.com ) says it
means "go swiftly".

The latter meaning does appear in the OED:

III.22.a.
*intransitive*. To ‘whip’ on, ‘pelt’ along, travel with speed; *Nautical*
to clap on full sail (*colloquial*)