WAGES OR PAY of the Royal Navy is settled by act of parliament. In the merchant service seamen are paid by the month, and receive their wages at the end of the voyage.
WAGES REMITTED FROM ABROAD. When a ship on a foreign station has been commissioned twelve calendar months, every petty officer, seaman, and marine serving on board, may remit the half of the pay due to them to a wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, or sister.
WAGGON. A place amidships, on the upper deck of guard-ships, assigned for the supernumeraries' hammocks.
WAGGONER. A name applied to an atlas of charts, from a work of this nature published at Leyden in 1583, by Jans Waghenaer.
WAIF. Goods found and not claimed; derelict. Also used for waft.
WAIST. That portion of the main deck of a ship of war, contained between the fore and main hatchways, or between the half-deck and galley.
WAIST-ANCHOR. An additional or spare anchor stowed before the chess-tree. (See [Spare Anchor].)
WAIST-BOARDS. The berthing made to fit into a vessel's gangway on either side.
WAIST-CLOTHS. The painted canvas coverings of the hammocks which are stowed in the waist-nettings.
WAISTERS. Green hands, or worn seamen, in former times stationed in the waist in working the ship, as they had little else of duty but hoisting and swabbing the decks.