They used helps; not only using all instruments fit for their purpose, but all hands were employed too. Undergirding the ship, with cables, to keep the sides of the ship the closer and faster together. The quicksands: there were two quicksands especially famous in Africa, the one the greater, the other the lesser, called Syrtes, because these mountabes of sand under water did seem, as it were, to draw and suck up ships, they were so soon swallowed up by them. Strake sail; by the word here used, sails and their tackle, or the top-mast, may be understood decks.
Related Commentaries of Acts 27:17
Acts 27:17
17 Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.