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

HAWSE-BAGS. Canvas bags filled with oakum, used in heavy seas to stop the hawse-holes and prevent the water coming in.

HAWSE-BLOCKS. Bucklers, or pieces of wood made to fit over the hawse-holes when at sea, to back the hawse-plugs.

HAWSE-BOLSTERS. Planks above and below the hawse-holes. Also, pieces of canvas stuffed with oakum and roped round, for plugging when the cables are bent.

HAWSE-BOX, or Naval Hood. Pieces of plank bolted outside round each of the hawse-holes, to support the projecting part of the hawse-pipe.

HAWSE-BUCKLERS. Plugs of wood to fit the hawse-holes, and hatches to bolt over, to keep the sea from spurting in.

HAWSE-FALLEN. To ride hawse-fallen, is when the water breaks into the hawse in a rough sea, driving all before it.

HAWSE-FULL. Riding hawse-full; pitching bows under.

HAWSE-HOLES. Cylindrical holes cut through the bows of a ship on each side of the stem, through which the cables pass, in order to be drawn into or let out of the vessel, as occasion requires.

HAWSE-HOOK. A compass breast timber which crosses the hawse-timber above the ends of the upper-deck planking, and over the hawse-holes. (See [Breast-hooks].)

HAWSE-PIECES. The timbers which compose the bow of a vessel, and their sides look fore and aft; it is a name given to the foremost timbers of a ship, whose lower ends rest upon the knuckle-timbers. They are generally parallel to the stem, having their upper ends sometimes terminated by the lower part of the beak-head and otherwise by the top of the bow. Also, timbers through which the hawse-holes are cut.