The Sailor's Word-Book / An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc.

by W. H. Smyth

YEOMAN. An experienced hand placed in charge of a store-room, who should be able to keep the accounts of supply and expenditure.

YESTY [from the Anglo-Saxon gist]. A foaming breaking sea. Shakspeare in Macbeth gives great power to this state of the waters:—

"Though the yesty waves
Confound, and swallow navigation up."

YOKE. A transverse board or metal bar, a substitute for the tiller, which crosses the head of a boat's rudder, and having two lines extending from its opposite extremities to the stern-sheets of the boat, whereby she is steered.

YOKE-LINES. The ropes by which the boat's steerage is managed.

YOUNG. A word often used for uninitiated.—Young gentlemen, a general designation for midshipmen, whatever their age.

YOUNG FLOOD. See [Flood].

YOUNG ICE. Nearly the same as bay-ice, except that it is only applied to ice very recently formed, or of the present season.

YOUNGSTER, or Younker [an old term; from the Anglo-Saxon junker]. A volunteer of the first-class, and a general epithet for a stripling in the service.

YOUNG WIND. The commencement of the land or sea breeze.