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

GALLS. Veins of land through which the water oozes.

GALL-WIND. See [Wind-gall].

GALLY-GUN. A kind of culverin.

GALOOT. An awkward soldier, from the Russian golut, or slave. A soubriquet for the young or "green" marine.

GALORE. Plenty, abundance.

GAMBISON. A quilted doublet formerly worn under armour, to prevent its chafing.

GAME-LEG. A lame limb, but not so bad as to unfit for duty.

GAMMON, To. To pass the lashings of the bowsprit.

GAMMONING. Seven or eight turns of a rope-lashing passed alternately over the bowsprit and through a large hole in the cut-water, the better to support the stays of the fore-mast; after all the turns are drawn as firm as possible, the two opposite are braced together under the bowsprit by a frapping. Gammoning lashing, fashion, &c., has a peculiar seamanlike meaning. The gammoning turns are passed from the standing part or bolt forward, over the bowsprit, aft through the knee forward, making a cross lashing. It was the essence of a seaman's ability, and only forecastle men, under the boatswain, executed it. Now galvanized chain is more commonly used than rope for gammoning.

GAMMONING-HOLE. A mortise-opening cut through the knee of the head, between the cheeks, through which the gammoning is passed.