W. H. Smyth

“ SWINGING-BOOM. The spar which stretches the foot of a lower studding-sail; in large ships they have goose-necks in one end which hook to the foremost part of the fore-chains to iron strops fitted for the purpose. In port they are hooked to bolts at the bends, which, by bringing them lower down, enables the boats to ride easier by them as guest-warp booms. ”

“ ROPE OF SAND. A term borrowed from a Greek proverb signifying attempting impossibilities; without cohesion. Said of people who ought, but will not combine to effect a necessary object.
ROPES. A general name given to all the cordage above one inch in circumference used in rigging a ship; but the name is severally applied to the awning, bell, boat, bolt, breast, bucket, buoy, davit, entering, grapnel, guest or guist, guy, heel, keel, man, parral, passing, ring, rudder, slip, swab, tiller, top, and yard: all which see under their respective heads. ”

“ FAIR. A general term for the wind when favourable to a ship's course, in opposition to contrary or foul; fair is more comprehensive than large, since it includes about 16 points, whereas large is confined to the beam or quarter, that is, to a wind which crosses the keel at right angles, or obliquely from the stern, but never to one right astern. (See Large and Scant.) —Fair, in ship-building, denotes the evenness or regularity of a curve or line.—To fair, means to clip the timbers fair. ”

“ TRUSS-TACKLE. A gun-tackle purchase applied to the ends of the truss-pendants, to bowse them taut home to the mast.
TRUSS UP, To. To brail up a sail suddenly; to toss up a bunt.
TRY, To, or Lie-to, in a Gale, is, by a judicious balance of canvas, to keep a ship's bow to the sea, and, with as much as she can safely show, prevent her rolling to windward in the trough of a sea. Close-hauled under all sail, a vessel gains head-way within six points of the wind; but in trying she may come up to five and fall off to seven: so that a vessel does not hold her own. ”

“ CHASE-PORTS. The gun-ports at the bows and through the stern of a war-ship. [181]
CHASER. The ship which is pursuing another.
CHASE-SIGHT. Where the sight is usually placed.
CHASE-STERN. The cannon which are placed in the after-part of a ship, pointing astern.
CHASSE MAREES. The coasting vessels of the French shores of the Channel; generally lugger-rigged; either with two or three masts, and sometimes a top-sail; the hull being bluffer when used for burden only, are thus distinguished from luggers. They seldom venture off shore, but coast it. ”

“ To cut through a sea, the surface of which is poetically termed breast.—To breast the sea, to meet it by the bow on a wind.—To breast the surf, to brave it, and overcome it swimming.—To breast a bar, to heave at the capstan.—To breast to, the act of giving a sheer to a boat.
BREAST-BACKSTAYS. They extend from the head of an upper-mast, through an out-rigger, down to the channels before the standing backstays, for supporting the upper spars from to windward. When to leeward, they are borne abaft the top-rim. ”

“ LEE-WAY. What a vessel loses by drifting to leeward in her course. When she is sailing close-hauled in a smooth sea with all sail set, she should make little or no lee-way; but a proportionate allowance must be made under every reduction of sail or increase of sea, the amount depending on the seaman's skill, and his knowledge of the vessel's qualities. ”

“ GATHER AFT A SHEET, To. To pull it in, by hauling in slack.
GATHER WAY, To. To begin to feel the impulse of the wind on the sails, so as to obey the helm.
GATH-LINN. A name of the north polar star; two Gaelic words, signifying ray and moisture, in allusion to its subdued brightness.
GATT. A gate or channel, a term used on the Flemish coast and in the Baltic. The Hellegat of New York has become Hell Gate. [337]
GAUB-LINE. A rope leading from the martingale in-board. The same as back-rope. ”

“ Most of the real sea-terms are pregnant with meaning; but those who undertake to expound them ought to be tolerably versed in the topic. Thus perhaps there was no great harm in Dr. Johnson's being utterly ignorant of maritime language, but it was temerariously vain in that sturdy lexicographer to assert that belay is a sea-phrase for splicing a rope; main sheet, for the largest sail in a ship; and bight, for the circumference of a coil of rope; and we long had him on the hip respecting the purser, a personage whom he—misled by Burser—at once pronounced to be the paymaster of a ship ”

“ PAY A VESSEL'S BOTTOM, To. To cover it with tallow, sulphur, rosin, &c. (See Breaming.)
PAY AWAY. The same as paying out (which see) . To pass out the slack of a cable or rope.—Pay down. Send chests or heavy articles below.
PAYING OFF. The movement by which a ship's head falls off from the wind, and drops to leeward. Also, the paying off the ship's officers and crew, and the removal of the ship from active service to ordinary.
PAYING OUT. The act of slackening a cable or rope, so as to let it run freely. When a man talks grandiloquently, he is said to be "paying it out." ”

“ CANOPY. A light awning over the stern-sheets of a boat.
CANT, To. To turn anything about, or so that it does not stand square. To diverge from a central right line. Cant the boat or ship; i.e. for careening her.
CANT. A cut made in a whale between the neck and the fins, to which the cant-purchase is made fast, for turning the animal round in the operation of flensing. ”

“ FRAPPING A SHIP. The act of passing four or five turns of a large cable-laid rope round a ship's hull when it is apprehended that she is not strong enough to resist the violence of the sea. This expedient is only made use of for very old ships, which their owners venture to send to sea as long as possible, insuring them deeply. Such are termed, not unaptly, floating coffins, as were also the old, 10-gun brigs, or any vessel deemed doubtful as to sea-worthiness. ”

“ TRIGONOMETRY. The science which deals with measuring triangles, or determining their unknown sides and angles, plane or spherical.
TRIM. The set of a ship on the water, whether by the head or the stern, or on an even keel. It is by the disposition of the ballast, cargo, masts, and other weight which she carries, that a vessel is best adapted for navigation. Also, the working or finishing of any piece of timber or plank to its proper shape or form.—In trim, is neat and regular.—To trim, is to arrange the sails so that they may receive the full advantage of the wind. ”

“ ELEVATION, in Ship-building. A vertical and longitudinal view of a vessel, synonymous with sheer-draught and sheer-plan. In other words, it is the orthographic design whereon the heights and lengths are expressed.
ELEVATION, Angle of. In gunnery, that which the axis of the bore makes with the plane of the horizon. It is attained by sinking the breech of the gun until its axis points above the object to be fired at, so that the shot may describe a curve somewhat similar to a parabola, counteracting the action of gravity during its flight, and alighting upon the mark. ”

“ BLOCCO. Paper and hair used in paying a vessel's bottom.
BLOCK. (In mechanics termed a pulley.) Blocks are flattish oval pieces of wood, with sheaves in them, for all the running ropes to run in. They are used for various purposes in a ship, either to increase the mechanical power of the ropes, or to arrange the ends of them in certain places on the deck, that they may be readily found when wanted; they are consequently of various sizes and powers, and obtain various names, according to their form or situation, thus:—A single block contains only one sheave or wheel. ”

“ BERTH AND SPACE. In ship-building, the distance from the moulding edge of one timber to the moulding edge of the next timber. Same as room and space, or timber and space.
BERTH-DECK. The 'tween decks.
BERTHER. He who assigns places for the respective hammocks to hang in.
BERTHING. The rising or working up of the planks of a ship's sides; as berthing up a bulk-head, or bringing up in general. Berthing also denotes the planking outside, above the sheer-strake, and is called the berthing of the quarter-deck, of the poop, or of the forecastle, as the case may be. ”

“ LAY OR LIE ON YOUR OARS! The order to desist rowing, without laying the oars in.—Lay out on your oars! is the order to give way, or pull with greater force.
LAY OUT. See Lie Out!
LAY THE LAND, To. Barely to lose sight of it.
LAY-TO. To bring the weather-bow to the sea, with one sail set, and the helm lashed a-lee. (See Lie-to.)
LAY UP A SHIP, To. To dismantle her.
LAZARETTO. A building or vessel appointed for the performance of quarantine, in which all persons are confined coming from places infected with the plague or other infectious diseases. ”

“ FLYING JIB-BOOM. A spar which is pointed through the iron at the jib-boom end. It lies beside it, and the heel steps into the bowsprit cap.
FLYING-KITES. The very lofty sails, which are only set in fine weather, such as skysails, royal studding-sails, and all above them.
FLYING-LIGHT. The state of a ship when she has little cargo, provisions, or water on board, and is very crank.
FLYING-TO. Is when a vessel, from sailing free or having tacked, and her head thrown much to leeward, is coming to the wind rapidly, the warning is given to the helmsman, "Look out, she is flying-to." ”

“ CIPHERING. A term in carpentry. (See Syphered.)
CIRCLE. A plane figure bounded by a line called the circumference, everywhere equally distant from a point within it, called the centre.
CIRCLE OF PERPETUAL APPARITION. A circle of the heavens parallel to the equator, and at a distance from the pole of any place equal to the latitude: within this circle the stars never set.
CIRCLES, Great, Lesser, Azimuth, Vertical (which see) .
CIRCLES OF LONGITUDE. These are great circles passing through the poles of the ecliptic, and so cutting it at right angles. ”

“ CATRAIA. The catraia of Lisbon and Oporto, or pilot surf-boats, are about 56 feet long, by 15 feet beam, impelled by sixteen oars.
CAT-RIG. A rig which in smooth water surpasses every other, but, being utterly unsuited for sea or heavy weather, is only applicable to pleasure-boats who can choose their weather. It allows one sail only—an enormous fore-and-aft main-sail, spread by a gaff at the head and a boom at the foot, hoisted on a stout mast, which is stepped close to the stem. ”

“ STIREMANNUS. The term in Domesday Book for the pilot of a ship or steersman.
STIRRUP. An iron or copper plate that turns upwards on each side of a ship's keel and dead-wood at the fore-foot, or at her skegg, and bolts through all: it is a strengthener, but not always necessary.
STIRRUPS. Ropes with eyes at their ends, through which the foot-ropes are rove, and by which they are supported; the ends are nailed to the yards, and steady the men when reefing or furling sails.
STIVER. A very small Dutch coin. "Not worth a stiver" is a colloquialism to express a person's poverty. ”

“ BOOM. A long spar run out from different places in the ship, to extend or boom out the foot of a particular sail; as, jib-boom, flying jib-boom, studding-sail booms, driver or spanker boom, ringtail-boom, main-boom, square-sail boom, &c. A ship is said to come booming forwards when she comes with all the sail she can make. Boom also denotes a cable stretched athwart the mouth of a river or harbour, with yards, top-masts, or stout spars of wood lashed to it, to prevent the entrance of an enemy.—To top one's boom, is to start off.—To boom off, to shove a boat or vessel away with spars. ”

“ A term variously applied by the mariners of different European nations to a peculiar sort of vessel of their own marine. Amongst British seamen this vessel is distinguished by having her main-sail set nearly in the plane of her keel, whereas the main-sails of larger ships are spread athwart the ship's length, and made fast to a yard which hangs parallel to the deck; but in a brig, the foremost side of the main-sail is fastened at different heights to hoops which encircle the main-mast, and slide up and down it as the sail is hoisted or lowered: it is extended by a gaff above and a boom below. ”

“ RADIUS-VECTOR. An imaginary line joining the centres of the sun and a planet or comet in any point of its orbit.
RADUS. A term used for the constellation Eridanus.
RAFT. A sort of float formed by an assemblage of casks, planks, or pieces of timber, fastened together with swifters and raft-dogs side by side, as well as tier upon tier. The timber and plank with which merchant ships are laden in the different ports of the Baltic, are attached together in this manner, in order to float them off to the shipping; but the rafts of North America are the most gigantic in the world. ”

“ THUMB-CLEAT. In shape resembling a thumb. They arrest the topsail-reef-earings from slipping, and are also lashed to the rigging with a hollow, cut out to act as a hook, to suspend the bight of a rope, as the truss-pendants on the lower masts.
THUNDERING. A sailor's emphatic word for anything choice, large, fine, or powerful. ”

“ MASK. A cruive or crib for catching fish. A battery is said to be masked when its external appearance misleads the enemy.
MAST [Anglo-Saxon mæst, also meant chief or greatest] . A long cylindrical piece of timber elevated perpendicularly upon the keel of a ship, to which are attached the yards, the rigging, and the sails. It is either formed of one piece, and called a pole-mast, or composed of several pieces joined together and termed a made mast. ”