GLOSSARY
Anchors:
Bower anchors (the best bower and the small bower). The anchors carried at the bows of a vessel.
The sheet anchor (= shoot anchor). An anchor to be shot out or lowered in case of a great danger, carried abaft the forerigging; formerly the largest anchor.
Bag-wig. See Wig.
Barge. See Boats.
Bilging. To bilge = to be stove in, or suffer serious injury in the bilge, which is the bottom part of a ship's hull.
Boats:
Barge. The second boat of a man-of-war; a long narrow boat, generally with not less than ten oars, for the use of the chief officers.
Cutter. A boat belonging to a ship of war, shorter and in proportion broader than the barge or pinnace, fitted for rowing and sailing, and used for carrying light stores, passengers, etc.
Longboat. The principal boat of the old man-of-war. Now replaced by steam launches.
Pinnace. A boat for the accommodation of the inferior officers of a man-of-war, resembling the barge.
Yawl. A small boat used for much the same purposes as the cutter.
Bow-chasers. See Chasers.
Bower. See Anchor.
Bring to. To bring a vessel's head up to the wind so that the wind blows from bow to stern.
Broad pennant. See Commodore.
Cacao. Chocolate nuts.
Cackle. To cover a cable spirally with old three-inch rope to protect it from chafing.
Callous (of a broken bone). The new bony tissue formed between and around the fractured ends of a broken bone in the process of reuniting.
Careening is the operation of heaving down a ship on one side, in order to expose the other side for cleaning.
Cartel. A written agreement between belligerents for an exchange of prisoners.
Caulk. To make a ship's seams watertight by plugging the crevices with oakum (i.e. old untwisted rope).
Chasers. Bow-chasers were two long chase-guns placed forward in the bow ports to fire directly ahead. Stern-chasers were similar guns mounted astern.
Clean. A clean ship is one whose bottom is free from barnacles and weed that check the pace.
Clearing for action. To get ready for battle by clearing the decks from encumbrances and anything unnecessary or dangerous, such as wooden partitions between cabins, etc.
Cochineal. A dye stuff consisting of female cochineal insects killed and dried by heat. They yield a brilliant scarlet dye.
Cohorn mortars. See Mortar.
The commerce. Used several times in the sense of "the traders."
Commodore. A naval officer ranking above a captain and below a rear-admiral. In the British Navy the rank is a temporary one, given to senior officers in command of detached squadrons. The broad pennant (chapter 4) is the flag that marks the presence of a commodore on board.
Courses. The sails below the topsails and next to the deck.
Cutter. See Boats.
Dollar. A corruption of the German "thaler," a name for a silver coin worth about four shillings. The name was extended in the form "dollar" to other coins of similar size, notably the old Spanish "piece of eight." See Pieces of eight.
Doubloon. A former Spanish gold coin worth about eight dollars.
Eight. See Pieces of.
Embargo. A temporary order from Government to prevent the arrival or departure of ships.
Fetch (the wake of). To reach the track left by a ship.
File (of musketeers). Latin filum, French file = a row. The word is used to signify any line of men standing directly behind one another. In ordinary two-deep formations a file consists of two men, one in the front rank and one in the rear rank.
Fishing (a mast). To strengthen or mend a mast by fastening strips of wood or iron along a weak or broken place.
Foot-rope. A rope stretched under a yard arm for sailors to stand on while reefing or furling sails.
Fore-cap. The cap is a stout block joining the bottom of one mast to the top of another; as where the foretopmast joins the foremast.
Foremast, foretopmast, etc. See Mast.
Fore-reach. To gain upon or pass; to beat in sailing.
Foreyard. The lowest yard on the foremast of a square-rigged vessel.
Grapnel. A boat's anchor having more than two flukes. Come to grapnel, cf. Come to anchor.
Half-galleys. A galley is a low, flat-built sea-going vessel with one deck, propelled by sails and oars. A half-galley is a similar vessel, but much shorter.
Half-pike. See Pike.
Hand (the sails). To furl.
Hawser. A large rope or small cable.
Indulgences. The remission by authorised priests of the punishment due to sin. The sale of indulgences was one of the abuses that provoked the Reformation.
Jerk. To cure meat, especially beef, by cutting it into long thin slices and drying it in the sun.
Jury-mast. A small temporary mast often made of a yard; set up instead of a mast that is broken down.
Larboard (or port). The left side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Lay to (lie to). To reduce sail to the lowest limits, so as to become nearly stationary.
Lee. The side or direction opposite to that from which the wind comes.
Line, ship of the. A ship of sufficient size and armament to take a place in the line of battle.
Linguist. Interpreter.
Longboat. See Boats.
Lumber. Sawn timber.
Masts: The masts of a full-rigged three-masted ship are the following: Fore-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast. Main-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast. Mizzen-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast.
Monsoon. See Winds.
Mortar. A kind of gun with a very short bore. It throws its projectile at a great elevation.
Mortar, Cohorn (see chapter 7). Cohorn was a famous Dutch engineer and artillerist in the service of William III.
Nailed up. Spiked. To spike a gun is to render it useless for the time by inserting into the vent a steel pin with side springs, which when inserted open outwards to the shape of an arrowhead so that it cannot be released.
Offing: 1. The most distant part of the sea visible from the shore. 2. A still greater distance, sufficient to avoid the dangers of shipwreck, as "a good offing."
Overreach. To pass.
Parallel, i.e. of latitude or longitude as the case may be.
Pennant, Broad. See Commodore.
Pidreroes. Light Spanish cannon.
Pieces of eight. Old Spanish coins worth about four shillings each. The piece of eight was divided into eight silver reals. Hence the name which was applied to it in the Spanish Main. It was also frequently called a dollar.
Pike. A long shaft or pole, having an iron or steel point, used in medieval warfare, now replaced by the bayonet. A half-pike was a similar weapon having a staff about half the length.
Pink. An obsolete name for a small sailing ship.
Pinnace. See Boats.
Port (or larboard). The left side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Post-captain. An obsolete title for a captain of three years' standing.
Proa. A small Malay vessel.
Quarter. The upper part of a vessel's side from abaft the main mast to the stern.
Quarter gallery. A gallery is a balcony built outside the body of a ship: at the stern (stern gallery) or at the quarters (quarter gallery).
Reef. A portion of a sail that can be drawn close together.
Rosaries. Strings of beads used by Roman Catholics in praying. Each bead told (or counted) represents a prayer.
Scuttle. To make a hole in the bottom of a ship in order to sink it.
Serons (of dollars). A seron or seroon is a kind of small trunk made in Spanish America out of a piece of raw bullock's hide.
Service (of a cable). The part next the anchor secured by cordage wrapped round it.
Ship of the line. See Line.
Shrouds. The stout ropes that are stretched from a masthead of a vessel to the sides or to the rims of a top, serving as a means of ascent and as a lateral strengthening stays to the masts.
Sling. A rope or chain by which a lower yard is suspended.
Sprit-sail. A quadrangular sail stretched from the mast by the help, not of a gaff along its top, but of a sprit (or yard) extending from the mast diagonally to the upper aftmost corner of the sail, as in the case of a London barge.
Sprit-sail yard. Another name for the sprit.
Standing rigging. The parts of a vessel's rigging that are practically permanent.
Starboard. The right side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Stern-chasers. See Chasers.
Streaks (or strakes). Lines of planking.
Supercargo. A person employed by the owners of a ship to go a voyage and to oversee the cargo.
Tacks ("got our tacks on board," chapter 17). Ropes for hauling down and fastening the corners of certain sails.
Taffrail. The upper part of the stern of a ship.
Tie-wig. See Wig.
Tradewind. See Winds.
Transom. A beam across the stern-post to strengthen the after part of the ship.
Traverse. To turn guns to the right or left in aiming.
Wake. The track left by a ship.
Warp. To move a vessel into another position by hauling upon a hawser attached usually to the heads of piles or posts of a wharf.
Wear (a ship). To bring a ship about by putting the helm up. The vessel is first run off before the wind and then brought to on the new tack.
Weather: 1. The windward side. 2. To go to windward of.
Wig. A bag-wig is a wig with a bag to hold the back hair. It was fashionable in the seventeenth century. A tie-wig is a court wig tied with ribbon at the bag.
Winds. The tradewinds are winds which blow all the year through on the open ocean in and near the torrid zone. In the northern hemisphere they blow from the north-east, in the southern from the south-east. The regularity of the tradewind is interfered with by the neighbourhood of large land masses. Their temperature varies much more with the change of seasons than that of the ocean; and this variation produces a change in the direction of the tradewind in the hot season, corresponding distantly to a phenomenon which may be observed, daily instead of half-yearly, on the English coast in hot summer weather, when a sea breeze blows during the day and a land breeze at night. In the northern hemisphere the monsoon--as this periodic wind is called--blows from the south-west (i.e. towards the heated continent of South Asia) from April to October, and from the north-east, as the ordinary trade wind, during the rest of the year.
Works, upper. The sides of a vessel's hull from the water-line to the covering board.
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