From Richard Henry Dana's "The Seaman's Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship" (1879)
NAVAL HOODS, or HAWSE BOLSTERS. Plank above and below the hawse-holes.
NEAP TIDES. Low tides, coming at the middle of the moon's second and fourth quarters. (See SPRING TIDES.)
NEAPED, or BENEAPED. The situation of a vessel when she is aground at the height of the spring tides.
NEAR. Close to wind. " Near!" the order to the helmsman when he is too near the wind.
NETTING. Network of rope or small lines. Used for stowing away sails or hammocks.
NETTLES. (See KNITTLES.)
NINEPIN BLOCK. A block in the form of a ninepin, used for a fair-leader in the rail.
NIP. A short turn in a rope.
NIPPERS. A number of yarns marled together, used to secure a cable to the messenger.
NOCK. The forward upper end of a sail that sets with a boom.
NUN-BUOY. A buoy tapering at each end.
NUT. Projections on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock to its place.
OAKUM. Stuff made by picking rope-yarns to pieces. Used for caulking, and other purposes.
OAR. A long wooden instrument with a flat blade at one end, used for propelling boats.
OFF-AND-ON. To stand on different tacks towards and from the land.
OFFING. Distance from the shore.
ORLOP. The lower deck of a ship of the line; or that on which the cables are stowed.
OUT-HAUL. A rope used for hauling out the clew of a boom sail.
OUT-RIGGER. A spar rigged out to windward from the tops or cross-trees, to spread the breast-backstays.
OVERHAUL. To overhaul a tackle, is to let go the fall and pull on the leading parts so as to separate the blocks. To overhaul a rope, is generally to pull a part through a block so as to make slack. To overhaul rigging, is to examine it.
OVER-HAKE. Said of heavy seas which come over a vessel's head when she is at anchor, head to the sea.
PAINTER. A rope attached to the bows of a boat, used for making her fast.
PALM. A piece of leather fitted over the hand, with an iron for the head of a needle to press against in sewing upon canvass. Also, the fluke of an anchor.
PANCH. (See PAUNCH.)
PARBUCKLE. To hoist or lower a spar or cask by single ropes passed round it.
PARCEL. To wind tarred canvass, (called parcelling,) round a rope.
PARCELLING. (See PARCEL.)
PARLIAMENT-HEEL. The situation of a vessel when she is careened.
PARRAL. The rope by which a yard is confined to a mast at its centre.
PART. To break a rope.
PARTNERS. A frame-work of short timber fitted to the hole in a deck to receive the heel of a mast or pump, &c.
PASAREE. A rope attached to the dew of the foresail and rove through a block on the swinging boom. Used for guying the clews out when before the wind.
PAUNCH MAT. A thick mat, placed at the slings of a yard or elsewhere.
PAWL. A short bar of iron, which prevents the capstan or windlass from turning back. To pawl, is to drop a pawl and secure the windlass or capstan.
PAY-OFF. When a vessel's head falls off from the wind. To pay. To cover over with tar or pitch. To pay out. To slack up on a cable and let it run out.
PEAK. The upper outer corner of a gaff-sail. PEAK. (See A-PEAK.) A stay-peak is when the cable and fore stay form a line. A short stay-peak is when the cable is too much in to form this line.
PENDANT, or PENNANT. A long narrow piece of bunting, carried at the mast-head. Broad pennant, is a square piece, carried in the same way, in a commodore's vessel. Pennant. A rope to which a purchase is hooked. A long strap fitted at one end to a yard or mast-head, with a hook or block at the other end, for a brace to reeve through, or to hook a tackle to.
PILLOW. A block which supports the inner end of the bowsprit.
PIN. The axis on which a sheave turns. Also, a short piece of wood or iron to belay ropes to.
PINK-STERN. A high, narrow stern.
PINNACE. A boat, in size between the launch and a cutter.
PINTLE. A metal bolt, used for hanging a rudder.
PITCH. A resin taken from pine, and used for filling up the seams of a vessel.
PLANKS. Thick, strong boards, used for covering the sides and decks of vessels.
PLAT. A braid of foxes. (See Fox.)
PLATE. (See CHAIN-PLATE.)
PLUG. A piece of wood, fitted into a hole in a vessel or boat, so as to let in or keep out water.
POINT. To take the end of a rope and work it over with knittles. (See REEF-POINTS.)
POLE. Applied to the highest mast of a ship, usually painted; as, sky sail pole.
POOP. A deck raised over the after part of the spar deck. A vessel is pooped when the sea breaks over her stern.
POPPETS. Perpendicular pieces of timber fixed to the fore-and-aft part of the bilge-ways in launching.
PORT. Used instead of larboard. To port the helm, is to put it to the larboard.
PORT, or PORT-HOLE. Holes in the side of a vessel, to point cannon out of. (See BRIDLE.)
PORTOISE. The gunwale. The yards are a-portoise when they rest on the gunwale.
PORT-SILLS. (See SILLS.)
PREVENTER. An additional rope or spar, used as a support.
PRICK. A quantity of spunyarn or rope laid close up together.
PRICKER. A small marlinspike, used in sail-making. It generally has a wooden handle.
PUDDENING. A quantity of yarns, matting or oakum, used to prevent chafing.
PUMP-BRAKE. The handle to the pump.
PURCHASE. A mechanical power which increases the force applied. To purchase, is to raise by a purchase.
QUARTER. The part of a vessel's side between the after part of the main chains and the stern. The quarter of a yard is between the slings and the yard-arm. The wind is said to be quartering, when it blows in a line between that of the keel and the beam and abaft the latter.
QUARTER-BLOCK. A block fitted under the quarters of a yard on each side the slings, for the clewlines and sheets to reeve through.
QUARTER-DECK. That part of the upper deck abaft the main mast.
QUARTER-MASTER. A petty officer in a man-of-war, who attends the helm and binnacle at sea, and watches for signals, &c., when in port.
QUICK-WORK. That part of a vessel's side which is above the chain-wales and decks. So called in ship-building.
QUILTING. A coating about a vessel, outside, formed of ropes woven together.
QUOIN. A wooden wedge for the breech of a gun to rest upon.
RACE. A strong, rippling tide.
RACK. To seize two ropes together, with cross-turns. Also, a fair leader for running rigging.
RACK-BLOCK. A course of blocks made from one piece of wood, for fair-leaders.
RAKE. The inclination of a mast from the perpendicular.
RAMLINE. A line used in mast-making to get a straight middle line on a spar.
RANGE OF CABLE. A quantity of cable, more or less, placed in order for letting go the anchor or paying out.
RATLINES. (Pronounced rat-tins.) Lines running across the shrouds, horizontally, like the rounds of a ladder, and used to step upon in going aloft.
RATTLE DOWN RIGGING. To put ratlines upon rigging. It is still called rattling down, though they are now rattled up; beginning at the lowest.
RAZEE. A vessel of war which has had one deck cut down.
REEF. To reduce a sail by taking in upon its head, if a square sail, and its foot, if a fore-and-aft sail.
REEF-BAND. A band of stout canvass sewed on the sail across, with points in it, and earings at each end for reefing. A reef is all of the sail that is comprehended between the head of the sail and the first reef-band, or between two reef-bands.
REEF-TACKLE. A tackle used to haul the middle of each leech up toward the yard, so that the sail may be easily reefed.
REEVE. To pass the end of a rope through a block, or any aperture.
RELIEVING TACKLE. A tackle hooked to the tiller in a gale of wind, to steer by in case anything should happen to the wheel or tiller-ropes.
RENDER. To pass a rope through a place. A rope is said to render or not, according as it goes freely through any place.
RIB-BANDS. Long, narrow, flexible pieces of timber nailed to the outside of the ribs so as to encompass the vessel lengthwise.
RIBS. A figurative term for a vessel's timbers.
RIDE AT ANCHOR. To lie at anchor. Also, to bend or bear down by main strength and weight; as to ride down the main tack.
RIDERS. Interior timbers placed occasionally opposite the principal ones, to which they are bolted, reaching from the keelson to the beams of the lower deck. Also, casks forming the second tier in a
vessel's hold.
RIGGING. The general term for all the ropes of a vessel. (See RUNNING, STANDING.) Also, the common term for the shrouds with their ratlines ; as, the main rigging, mizzen rigging, &c.
RIGHT. To right the helm, is to put it amidships.
RIM. The edge of a top.
RING. The iron ring at the upper end of an anchor, to which the cable is bent.
RING-BOLT. An eye-bolt with a ring through the eye. (See EYE-BOLT.)
RING-TAIL. A small sail, shaped like a jib, set abaft the spanker in light winds.
ROACH. A curve in the foot of a square sail, by which the clews are brought below the middle of the foot. The roach of a fore-and-aft sail is in its forward leech.
ROAD, or ROADSTEAD. An anchorage at some distance from the shore.
ROBANDS. (See ROPE-BANDS.)
ROLLING TACKLE. Tackles used to steady the yards in a heavy sea.
ROMBOWLINE. Condemned canvass, rope, &c.
ROPE-BANDS, or ROBANDS. Small pieces of two or three yarn spunyarn or marline, used to confine the head of the sail to the yard or gaff.
ROPE-YARN. A thread of hemp, or other stuff, of which a rope is made.
ROUGH-TREE. An unfinished spar.
ROUND IN. To haul in on a rope, especially a weather-brace.
ROUND UP. To haul up on a tackle.
ROUNDING. A service of rope, hove round a spar or larger rope.
ROWLOCKS, or ROLLOCKS. Places cut in the gunwale of a boat for the oar to rest in while pulling.
ROYAL. A light sail next above a topgallant sail. (See PLATE 2.)
ROYAL YARD. The yard from which the royal is set. The fourth from the deck. (See PLATE 1.)
RUBBER. A small instrument used to rub or flatten down the seams of a sail in sail-making.
RUDDER. The machine by which a vessel or boat is steered.
RUN. The after part of a vessel's bottom, which rises and narrows in approaching the stern-post. By the run. To let go by the run, is to let go altogether, instead of slacking off.
RUNG-HEADS. The upper ends of the floor-timbers.
RUNNER. A rope used to increase the power of a tackle. It is rove through a single block which you wish to bring down, and a tackle is hooked to each end, or to one end, the other being made fast.
RUNNING RIGGING. The ropes that reeve through blocks, and are pulled and hauled, such as braces, halyards, &c.; in opposition to the standing rigging, the ends of which are securely seized such as stays, shrouds, &c.
SADDLES. Pieces of wood hollowed out to fit on the yards to which they are nailed, having a hollow in the upper part for the boom to rest in.
SAG. To sag to leeward, is to drift off bodily to leeward.
SAILS are of two kinds: square sails, which hang from vards, then foot lying across the line of the keel, as the courses, topsails,&c. ; and fore-and-aft sails, which set upon gaffs, or on stays, their foot running with the line of the keel, as jib, spanker, &c.
SAIL HO. The cry used when a sail is first discovered at sea.
SAVE-ALL. A small sail sometimes set under the foot of a lower studdingsail. (See WATER SAIL.)
SCANTLING. A term applied to any piece of timber, with regard to its breadth and thickness, when reduced to the standard size.
SCARF. To join two pieces of timber at their ends by shaving them down and placing them over-lapping.
SCHOONER. (See PLATE 4.) A small vessel with two masts and no tops. A fore-and-aft schooner has only fore-and-aft sails. A topsail schooner carries a square fore topsail, and frequently also, topgallant sail and royal. There are some schooners with three masts. They also have no tops. A main-topsail schooner is one that carries square topsails, fore and aft.
SCORE. A groove in a block or dead-eye.
SCOTCHMAN. A large batten placed over the turnings-in of rigging. (See BATTEN.)
SCRAPER. A small, triangular iron instrument, with a handle fitted to its centre, and used for scraping decks and masts.
SCROWL. A piece of timber bolted to the knees of the head, in place of a figure-head.
SCUD. To drive before a gale, with no sail, or only enough to keep the vessel ahead of the sea. Also, low, thin clouds that fly swiftly before the wind.
SCULL. A short oar. To scull is to impel a boat by one oar at the stern.
SCUPPERS. Holes cut in the water-ways for the water to run from the decks.
SCUTTLE. A hole cut in a vessel's deck, as, a hatchway. Also, a hole cut in any part of a vessel. To scuttle, is to cut or bore holes in a vessel to make her sink.
SCUTTLE-BUTT. (See BUTT.)
SEAMS. The intervals between planks in a vessel's deck or side.
SEIZE. To fasten ropes together by turns of small stuff.
SEIZINGS. The fastenings of ropes that are seized together.
SELVAGEE. A skein of rope-yarns or spunyarn, marled together. Used as a neat strap.
SEND. When a ship's head or stern pitches suddenly and violently into the trough of the sea.
SENNIT, or SINNIT. A braid, formed by plaiting rope-yarns or spunyarn together. Straw, plaited in the same way for hats, is called sennit.
SERVE. To wind small stuff, as rope-yarns, spunyarn, &c., round a rope, to keep it from chafing. It is wound and hove round taut by a serving-board or mallet. SERVICE, is the stuff so wound round.
SET. To set up rigging, is to tauten it by tackles. The seizings are then put on afresh.
SHACKLES. Links in a chain cable which are fitted with a movable bolt so that the chain can be separated.
SHAKES. The staves of hogsheads taken apart.
SHANK. The main piece in an anchor, at one end of which the stock is made fast, and at the other the arms.
SHANK-PAINTER. A strong rope by which the lower part of the shank of an anchor is secured to the ship's side.
SHARP UP. Said of yards when braced as near fore-and-aft as possible.
SHEATHING. A casing or covering on a vessel's bottom.
SHEARS. Two or more spars, raised at angles and lashed together near their upper ends, used for taking in masts.
SHEAR HULK. An old vessel fitted with shears, &c., and used for taking out and putting in the masts of other vessels.
SHEAVE. The wheel in a block upon which the rope works. Sheave-hole, the place cut in a block for the ropes to reeve through.
SHEEP-SHANK. A kind of hitch or bend, used to shorten a rope temporarily. (See PLATE 5.)
SHEER, or SHEER-STRAKE. The line of plank on a vessel's side, running fore-and-aft under the gunwale. Also, a vessel's position when riding by a single anchor.
SHEET. A rope used in setting a sail, to keep the clew down to its place. With square sails, the sheets run through each yard-arm. With boom sails, they haul the boom over one way and another. They keep down the inner clew of a studdingsail and the after clew of a jib. (See HOME.)
SHEET ANCHOR. A vessel's largest anchor: not carried at the bow.
SHELL. The case of a block.
SHINGLE. (See BALLAST.)
SHIP. A vessel with three masts, with tops and yards to each. (See PLATE 4.) To enter on board a vessel. To fix anything in its place.
SHIVER. To shake the wind out of a sail by bracing it so that the wind strikes upon the leech.
SHOE. A piece of wood used for the bill of an anchor to rest upon, to save the vessel's side. Also, for the heels of shears, &c.
SHOE-BLOCK. A block with two sheaves, one above the other, the one horizontal and the other perpendicular.
SHORE. A prop or stanchion, placed under a beam. To shore, to prop up.
SHROUDS. A set of ropes reaching from the mast-heads to the vessel's sides, to support the masts.
SILLS. Pieces of timber put in horizontally between the frames to form and secure any opening ; as, for ports.
SISTER BLOCK. A long piece of wood with two sheaves in it, one above the other, with a score between them for a seizing, and a groove around the block, lengthwise.
SKIDS. Pieces of timber placed up and down a vessel's side, to bear any articles off clear that are hoisted in.
SKIN. The part of a sail which is outside and covers the rest when it is furled. Also, familiarly, the sides of the hold ; as, an article is said to be stowed next the skin.
SKYSAIL. A light sail next above the royal. (See PLATE 2.)
SKY-SCRAPER. A name given to a skysail when it is triangular.
SLABLINE. A small line used to haul up the foot of a course.
SLACK. The part of a rope or sail that hangs down loose. Slack in stay), said of a vessel when she works slowly in tacking.
SLEEPERS. The knees that connect the transoms to the after timbers on' the ship's quarter.
SLING. To set a cask, spar, gun, or other article, in ropes, so as to put on a tackle and hoist or lower it.
SLINGS. The ropes used for securing the centre of a yard to the mast. Yard-slings are now made of iron. Also, a large rope fitted so as to go round any article which is to be hoisted or lowered.
SLIP. To let a cable go and stand out to sea.
SLIP-ROPE. A rope bent to the cable just outside the hawse-hole, and brought in on the weather quarter, for slipping.
SLOOP. A small vessel with one mast. (See PLATE 4.)
SLOOP OF WAR. A vessel of any rig, mounting between 18 and 32 guns.
SLUE. To turn anything round or over.
SMALL STUFF. The term for spunyarn, marline, and the smallest kinds of rope, such as ratline-stuff, &c.
SNAKE. To pass small stuff across a seizing, with marling hitches at the outer turns.
SNATCH-BLOCK. A single block, with an opening in its side below the sheave, or at the bottom, to receive the bight of a rope.
SNOTTER. A rope going over a yard-arm, with an eye, used to bend a tripping-line to in sending down topgallant and royal yards in vessels of war.
SNOW. A kind of brig, formerly used.
SNUB. To check a rope suddenly.
SNYING. A term for a circular plank edgewise, to work in the bows of a vessel.
SO. An order to 'vast hauling upon anything when it has come to its right position.
SOLE. A piece of timber fastened to the foot of the rudder, to make it level with the false keel.
SOUND. To get the depth of water by a lead and line. The pumps are sounded by an iron sounding rod, marked with a scale of feet and inches.
SPAN. A rope with both ends made fast, for a purchase to he hooked to its bight.
SPANKER. The after sail of a ship or bark. It is a fore-and-aft sail, setting with a boom and gaff. (See PLATE 2.)
SPAR. The general term for all masts, yards, booms, gaffs, &c.
SPELL. The common term for a portion of time given to any work. To spell, is to relieve another at his work.
SPELL HO. An exclamation used as an order or request to be relieved at work by another.
SPENCER. A fore-and-aft sail, set with a gaff and no boom, and hoisting from a small mast called a spencer-mast, just abaft the fore and main masts. (See PLATES 2 and 4.)
SPILL. To shake the wind out of a sail' by bracing it so that the wind may strike its leech and shiver it.
SPILLING LINE. A rope used for spilling a sail. Rove in bad weather.
SPINDLE. An iron pin upon which the capstan moves. Also, a piece of timber forming the diameter of a made mast. Also, any long pin or bar upon which anything revolves.
SPIRKETING. The planks from the water-ways to the port-sills.
SPLICE. (See PLATE 5) To join two ropes together by interweaving their strands.
SPOON-DRIFT. Water swept from the tops of the waves by the violence of the wind in a tempest, and driven along before it, covering the surface of the sea.
SPRAY. An occasional sprinkling dashed from the top of a wave by the wind, or by its striking an object.
SPRING. To crack or split a mast. To spring a leak, is to begin to leak. To spring a luff, is to force a vessel close to the wind, in sailing.
SPRING STAY. A preventer-stay, to assist the regular one. (See STAY.)
SPRING TIDES. The highest and lowest course of tides, occurring every new and full moon.
SPRIT. A small boom or gaff, used with some sails in small boats. The lower end rests in a becket or snotter by the foot of the mast, and the other end spreads and raises the outer upper corner of the sail, crossing it diagonally. A sail so rigged on a boat is called a sprit-sail.
SPRIT-SAIL-YARD. (See PLATE 4) A yard lashed across the bowsprit or knight-heads, and used to spread the guys of the jib and flying jib-boom. There was formerly a sail bent to it called a sprit-sail.
SPUNYARN. A cord formed by twisting together two or three rope-yarns.
SPURLING LINE. A line communicating between the tiller and tell-tale.
SPURS. Pieces of timber fixed on the bilge-ways, their upper ends being bolted to the vessel's sides above the water. Also, curved pieces of timber, serving as half beams, to support the decks where whole beams cannot be placed.
SPUR-SHOES. Large pieces of timber that come abaft the pump-well.
SQUARE. Yards are squared when they are horizontal and at right angles with the Keel. Squaring by the lifts makes them horizontal ; and by the braces, makes them at right angles with the vessel's line. Also, the proper term for the length of yards. A vessel has square yards when her yards are unusually long. A sail is said to be very square on the head when it is long on the head. To square a yard, in working ship, means to bring it in square by the braces.
SQUARE-SAIL. A temporary sail, set at the fore-mast of a schooner o sloop when going before the wind. (See SAIL.)
STABBER. A PRICKER.
STAFF. A pole or mast, used to hoist flags upon.
STANCHIONS. (See PLATE 3.) Upright posts of wood or iron, placed so as to support the beams of a vessel. Also, upright pieces of timber, placed at intervals along the sides of a vessel, to support the bulwarks and rail, and reaching down to the bends, by the side of the timbers, to which they are bolted. Also, any fixed, upright support; as to an awning, or for the man-ropes.
STAND BY. An order to be prepared.
STANDARD. An inverted knee, placed above the deck instead of beneath it; as, bUt-standard, One.
STANDING. The standing-part of a rope is that part which is fast, in opposition to the part that is hauled upon ; or the main part, in opposition to the end. The standing- part of a tackle is that part which is made fast to the blocks and between that and the next sheave, in opposition to the hauling and leading parts.
STANDING RIGGING. That part of a vessel's rigging which is made fast and not hauled upon. (See RUNNING.)
STARBOARD. The right side of a vessel, looking forward.
STARBOWLINES. The familiar term for the men in the starboard watch.
START. To start a cask, is to open it.
STAY. To tack a vessel, or put her about, so that the wind, from being on one side, is brought upon the other, round the vessel's head. (See TACK, WEAR.) To stay a mast, is to incline it forward or aft, or to one side or the other, by the stays and backstays. Thus, a mast is said to be' stayed too much forward or aft, or too much to port, &c.
STAYS. Large ropes, used to support masts, and leading from the head of some mast down to some other mast, or to some part of the heading one way or another, which is said of a vessel when under way.
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