As amorous of their strokes——
——At the helm
A seeming mermaid steer’d: the silken tackles
Swell’d with the touches of those flower-soft-hands
That yarely form’d their office.’——
There are likewise other barges of a smaller kind, for the use of admirals and captains of ships of war. These are of a lighter frame, and may be easily hoisted into, and out of the ships to which they occasionally belong. See Boat.
Barge, cabotiere, is also the name of a flat-bottomed vessel of burthen, for lading and discharging ships, and removing their cargoes from place to place in a harbour.
BARK (barca, low Lat.) a general name given to small ships: it is however peculiarly appropriated by seamen to those which carry three masts without a mizen top-sail. Our northern mariners, who are trained in the coal-trade, apply this distinction to a broad-sterned ship, which carries no ornamental figure on the stem or prow.
BARNICLE, cravan, a species of shell-fish, often found sticking to the bottoms of ships, rocks, &c.
BARRICADE (barricada, Span.) a strong wooden rail, supported by several little pillars or stanchions, and extending, as a fence, across the foremost part of the quarter-deck. In a vessel of war, the intervals between the pillars are commonly filled with cork, junks of old cable, or matts of platted cordage. In the upper-part, there is a double rope-netting, supported by double cranes of iron, extending about a foot above the rail; and between the two parts of the netting are stuffed a number of hammocks, filled with the seamens bedding, to intercept and prevent the execution of small-shot fired by swivel guns, carabines, or muskets, in the time of battle.