S.
SABLE, a watch-glass of any measure of time. See also Horloge.
Sable mouvant, a quick-sand or shifting-sand.
SABORD, a gun-port in the ship’s side; whence,
Fermer les Sabords, to let fall, or shut in the port lids.
Faux-Sabord, a false port painted on a ship’s side, and corresponding to a wooden gun, both which are calculated to deceive an enemy in time of war.
SABORDS pour le lest, ballast-ports.
SACHETS de mítrailles, grape-shot, or partridge-shot.
SAFRAN de gouvernail, the after-piece of a rudder, used to augment its breadth.
Safran de l’étrave, an additional piece of timber fayed on the fore part of the cutwater, to enlarge it, immediately above the fore-foot, and enable the ship to hold the wind better.
Saille! a manner of shouting amongst the sailors, as a signal to pull or heave all at once.
SAIN, clear, safe, or clean; as,
Côte-Sain, a clean bottom, or clear coast, which has no rocks or sands near it.
SAINT aubinet. See Saint Aubinet.
SAINTE-barbe, or chambre des canonniers, the gun-room of a vessel of war.
SAIQUE, a sort of Grecian or Turkish ketch.
SAISINE, a seising or lashing of any kind.
Saisine de beaupré, or Liure, the gammoning of the bowsprit. See Liure.
SAISER, to seize or fasten any rope with a lashing, &c. See Amarrer.
SALE, foul; an epithet given to a coast full of dangerous rocks, shallows, and breakers.
Vaisseaux SALES, foul-ships, or shipping with foul bottoms.
SALUER, to salute, or do homage at sea, by offering a salute.
Saluer à boulet, a salute fired with shot, being an homage paid only to the king.
Saluer de la mousqueterie, to salute by firing a volley of small-arms.
Saluer de la voix, to salute with three chears, &c.
Saluer des voiles, to salute by lowering the sails.
Saluer du canon, to fire a salute of canon.
Saluer du pavillon, to salute, by striking or hauling-in the colours.
SALUT, a salute offered at sea by firing guns, &c.
Rendre le Salut, to return the salute.
SAMEQUIN, a sort of Turkish merchant-ship.
SAMOREUX, a very long and flat-bottomed lumber-barge or lighter, for carrying masts and long planks on the Rhine, &c.
Navire qui a SANCI sous ses amarres, a ship which has foundered at her anchors.
SANCIR, to sink, or founder at sea.
SANDALE, a sort of lighter used in the Levant.
SANGLES, mats, or small panches formed of spun-yarn.
SAPINETTES, barnicles, a sort of shell-fish, that adhere to a ship’s bottom which has been long at sea. See Cravan.
SARANGOUSTI, a sort of gum, used instead of pitch to pay the seams of a ship in the East-Indies.
SART, sea-weed, wreck, or tangles; the alga-marina.
SARTIE, the rigging of a ship, in the dialect of Provence.
SASSES, buckets to draw water, for washing the decks, &c.
SAUGUE, a fishing-boat of Provence.
SAUSISSON, the trough, or sausage, filled with powder, which communicates the flame from the train to the fire-pots or powder-barrels in a fire-ship.
SAUT, a water-fall in a river, which renders it unnavigable in that part.
Donner un Saut à la bouline, to check the bowline.
SAUTE, an expression of command, which answers to away up, or away out to such a place! &c. as, Saute sur la beaupré! away out on the bowsprit! &c. Saute sur la vergue! go up to the yard, or out upon the yard, &c.
SAUTER, to veer, or shift suddenly; expressed of a wind when it changes to another point of the compass.
SAUVAGE, or Sauvement, salvage, the payment of salvage.
SAUVE-gardes, the ridge-ropes which extend the nettings of a ship’s head.
Sauve-gardes, or tire-veilles, the horses, or man-ropes of the bow-sprit.
Sauve-gardes de gouvernail, the rudder-pendants, with their chains.
Sauve-rabans, the puddenings of the yards, which preserve the rope-bands from being galled by the top-sail sheets.
SAUVEURS, persons employed in recovering any stores, rigging, &c. from a wreck on the sea coast.
SCIER à culer, to back a-stern with the oars; to row stern foremost.
Scier sur le fer, to support the cable of a galley by rowing with the oars, when she is at anchor in a storm, and in danger of driving ashore.
Mettre à Scier, ou mettre à culer, to back the sails, or to lay them aback, so as to make the ship fall astern.
SCIE-babord, pull the larboard-oars, or pull to starboard!
Scie-tribord, pull the starboard oars, or pull to port!
SCITIE, or Satie, a particular kind of Italian bark with two masts.
SCORBUT, or Scurbot, the scurvy, a well known marine distemper.
SCOUE, the extremity of a floor timber, where it is joined to the lower futtock.
SCUTE, a skiff, or small boat, belonging to a ship.
SEC, dry aground; the situation of a ship laid ashore to be repaired, &c.
A Sec, or à mâts & à cordes, a-hull, or under bare poles. See Mettre à sec.
SECOND, or vaisseau Second. See Matelot.
SECRET d’un canon, the train of a piece of ordnance, which communicates with the touch-hole.
Secret d’un brulot, that part of the train where the match or fuse is laid by the captain in a fire-ship, as ready for inflammation.
SEILLURE. See Sillage.
SEIN, a small bay or gulf with a narrow entrance: also a Sein, or capacious fishing-net of a particular construction, used on the sea-coast.
Sein d’un voile, the bight, cavity, or belly of a sail.
SEJOUR, the space of time that a ship remains in any port at which she touches in the course of a voyage.
SELLE de calfat, a calking-box, which contains the instruments and materials used in calking a ship.
SEMAQUE, or Semale, a smack or fishing sloop.
SEMELLES, or Derives, lee-boards.
SENAU, a snow; also a small Flemish vessel rigged like a smack.
SENTINELLE de chaloupe, the keeper of the long-boat.
SEP de drisse, the knights, or knight-heads of the jears, with their sheaves: these machines are now entirely disused in English ships of war.
SERGENT, a wraining bolt, to bend a ship’s planks into their places. See Antoit.
SERRAGE, ou Serres de vaisseau, a general name for those planks of a ship which are called thick-stuff by our ship-wrights.
Faux Serrage, loose planks, laid occasionally as a platform in a ship’s floor when she has no ceiling.
SERRE-bauquieres, thick stuff placed under the clamps, upon which the ends of the beams rest.
Serre-bosse, the shank-painter of the anchor.
Serre-goutieres, the water-ways of a ship.
Serrer de voiles, to shorten sail.
Serrer la file, to close or contract the line of battle, by making the ships draw nearer to each other.
Serrer le vent, to haul the wind; to haul upon a bowline.
Serrer les voiles, to furl, or hand the sails. See Ferler.
Faire SERVIR, to fill the sails after they had been shivering or laid a-back for some time.
SEUILLETS de sabords, the port-fells, or lower part of the gun-ports.
Hauteur des Seuillets, the height of the port-fells from the deck immediately beneath them.
SIAMPAN, a small coasting-vessel of China, with one sail, and two, four, or six oars; extremely light and swift.
SIFFLEMENT, the whistling of a shot as it flies through the air when discharged from a cannon.
SIFFLET, a boatswains call.
SIGNAL, a general or particular signal used at sea.
SILLAGE, or l’eau d’un vaisseau, the track or wake of a ship; the trace which she leaves behind her on the surface of the sea.
Doubler le Sillage d’un vaisseau, to sail with twice the velocity of another ship; or, according to the sea-phrase, to sail two feet to her one,
SILLER, to run a-head; to have head-way through the sea, &c.
SIMAISE, or rather Cimaise, a wave or ogee in the sculpture of the ship’s mouldings.
SINGE, a sort of gin, or machine, with a roller or winch in the middle, which is turned by handspikes: and used to discharge goods from a boat or small vessel.
SINGLER. See Cingler.
SITUATION d’une terre, the bearings and distances of a coast.
SLEE, a sort of sledge or cradle, laid under a ship’s bottom in Holland, &c. when she is to be drawn ashore to be repaired or graved,
SOLDATS de marine, marines, or marine forces.
Soldats-gardiens, a division of marines stationed at a royal dock-yard.
SOLE, the bottom of a vessel which has no keel, as punts, horse-ferry-boats, and some barges of burthen.
Le Soleil a baissé, the sun has fallen, or, has past the meridian; an expression used when observing its altitude at noon.
Le Soleil a passe le vent, the sun has overtaken the wind: i. e. the wind being south, the sun, by passing from south to S S W, is said to have passed the wind. Hence they say, in a contrary sense, Le vent a passé le Soleil.
Le Soleil chasse le vent, the sun chases the wind; a phrase which implies the change of the wind from the east to the west, by the southern board, before sun-set.
Le Soleil chasse avec le vent, the wind keeps pace with the sun; an expression that denotes the change of the wind according to the course and progress of the sun.
Le Soleil monte encore, the sun continues to rise.
Le Soleil ne fait rien, the sun stands still. Both these last phrases are peculiar to the operation of taking the meridian altitude.
SOLES, a name given to the bottom or transoms of a gun-carriage.
SOMBRER sous voiles, to overset in a squall of wind.
SOMMAILE, a bank or shoal. See Basse.
SOMME, to deepen; as,
La mer a Sommé, the water deepens as the ship advances.
SONDE, or plomb de sonde, the sounding-lead; also the soundings, i. e. the sand, gravel, &c. that sticks to the bottom of the lead at the time of sounding.
Aller à la Sonde, Aller la Sonde à la main, to sail by the hand-lead, or by sounding the depth of the water with a hand lead as the ship advances.
SONDER, to sound; to heave the hand-lead, or deep-sea-lead.
Sonder la pompe, to sound the pump.
SONNER le quart, to ring the bell at the close of the night-watch.
Sonner pour le pompe, to strike the bell for pumping the ship, as at every hour, or half hour.
SONETTE, an engine somewhat resembling a gin, and used for driving piles.
SORTIR du port, to depart from a harbour; to sail out or put to sea.
Sortir le boute-feu à la main, to set sail with the match in hand: expressed of a port whose entrance or opening is so commodiously situated, that a ship may sail from it with any wind, and be ready for engagement immediately after her departure.
SOU, or rather Fond, the bottom, or ground, at the depth of any part of the sea. See also Fond.
SOUABRE. See Fauber.
SOU-barbe, a bracket or knee, usually ornamented with sculpture, and placed under the cat-head to support it.
SOUBERME, a fresh, or torrent increased by the freshes of a river.
SOUFFLAGE, the doubling of a ship, or covering her side with new wales and planks. See Souffler.
Soufflage is also the new planking of a ship, or giving her a new skin, after the old planks are ripped off.
Souffler, to double a ship with new planks and wales, so as to stiffen her when she is built too crank; or to prevent or diminish the efforts of an enemy’s cannon.
Souffler les canons, to scale the great guns, or cleanse them by blowing a little powder from them.
SOULIE, the bed of a ship, or the impression she has left in the mud on shore, after having lain aground during the ebb-tide.
SOULIER, the shoe of an anchor.
SOUN, or Tsoun, a large flat-bottomed ship, navigated on the rivers of China.
SOUQUE! hang, or swing upon! a phrase among the common sailors, spoken of a rope which they are pulling.
SOURCE du vent, the point of the compass in which the wind sits.
SOURDRE, to rise up, or brew; expressed of a cloud or squall issuing from the horizon towards the zenith.
Sourdre au vent, to hold a good wind, to claw or eat to windward.
SOUS-argousin, an officer in the gallies, who assists the argousin in his duty. See Argousin.
SOUS-barbe. See Sou-barbe.
Sous-barbes, short props or shoars, placed under the stem while the ship is yet on the stocks.
Sous-barque, the upper-streak of a lighter, or the streak which lies close under the gunnel.
Sous-comite, an officer in the gallies, who assists and relieves the Comite; which see.
Sous-fréter, to under-freight a ship, or hire her out to a second person, after having contracted for her freight to a first.
SOUTE, a store-room in the orlop of a ship, of which there are several; as,
Soute au biscuit, the bread-room; Soute aux poudres, the magazines, &c.
SOUTENIR, to support under the lee; expressed of a current which acts upon the lee-side of a ship, and counter-ballances the lee-way, when she is close-hauled, so as to keep her in the right course without falling to leeward.
Soutenir chasse. See Soutenir Chasse.
Se Soutenir, to bear up against a scant-wind or current, without being driven much to leeward or down the stream.
SPARIES. See Choses de la mer.
SQUELETTE, the carcase or skeleton of a ship; or the ribs, with the keel, stem, and stern-post, after the planks are ripped off.
STAMENAIS, or rather Genoux, the lower-futtocks.
STRAPONTIN, a sort of hammock, used in hot climates to sleep in.
STRIBORD, or Tribord, the starboard-side of a ship.
Avoir l’amure à Stribord, to have the starboard-tacks aboard, or to sail upon the starboard-tack.
SUAGE, a coat of tallow, soap, sulphur, &c. with which the bottom of a ship is payed, to enable her to sail smoothly through the water.
SUD, the south, or south-point. See Rose de vents.
Etre au Sud de la ligne, to be in south-latitude, or to the southward of the equinoctial line.
SUPANNE, or etre en Panne. See Panne.
SUPER, to stop or close accidentally; expressed of a leak which is choaked, or filled with sea-weed, or such like material, that may have entered with the water.
SURCHARGER, to overload a ship.
SURJOUAILLÉ, or Surjaulé, foul of the anchor-stock; expressed of the cable.
Le cable est Surjaulé, the anchor is foul, having a turn of its cable under the stock.
SURLIER, to woold. See also Roster.
SURVENTE, a hard gale of wind, a tempest.
SURVENTER, to over-blow, or blow a storm.
SUSAIN, or SUSIN, a name sometimes given to the quarter-deck. See Gaillard.
SUSPENTES, vulgarly called Surpentes, the main and fore-tackle pendants.
SYRTES, shifting-sands, quick-sands, or shelves.