It is fixed by fastening the middle of it to the hindmost knob or cascabel of the gun, which sailors call the pomiglion, or pummelion; the two ends of it are afterwards inserted through two strong rings on the sides of the carriage, and fastened to other bolts in the ship’s sides.
The breeching is of sufficient length to let the muzzle of the cannon come within the ship’s side to be charged.
The use of the breeching, as it checks the recoil of the cannon, is shewn in plate [III]. Deck, where it is expressed by e e, passing through the ring-bolts, f, on the side of the carriage, g, being fastened to the cascabel, h. It is also exhibited in the Midship-Frame, where it is employed to lash the cannon when it is housed during the course of a voyage. See the article Cannon.
BREWING, the appearance of a collection of black and tempestuous clouds arising gradually from a particular part of the hemisphere, as the fore-runner of a storm.
BRIDLES, the upper-part of the moorings laid in the king’s harbours to ride ships or vessels of war. See the article Moorings.
Bridles of the bowline, pattes, the legs by which the bowline is fastened to different places on the edge or skirt of a large sail.
We have already explained the use of the bowline; that it is employed to confine or keep steddy the windward or weather edges of the principal sails when they are braced for a side-wind. For as the current of air enters the cavity of the sail in a direction nearly parallel to its surface, it follows that the ridge of the sail must necessarily be shaken by the wind, unless it is kept tight forward; but as a single rope has not been found sufficient to confine the whole skirt of the sail, inasmuch as it only draws upon one part thereof, it became necessary to apply bridles or legs spreading out from the bowline. They are represented in the figures annexed to the article Sail.
BRIG, or Brigantine, a merchant-ship with two masts. This term is not universally confined to vessels of a particular construction, or which are masted and rigged in a method different from all others. It is variously applied, by the mariners of different European nations, to a peculiar sort of vessel of their own marine.
Amongst English seamen, this vessel is distinguished by having her main-sail set nearly in the plane of her keel; whereas the main-sails of larger ships are hung athwart, or at right angles with the ship’s length, and fastened to a yard which hangs parallel to the deck: but in a brig, the foremost edge of the main-sail is fastened in different places to hoops which encircle the main-mast, and slide up and down it as the sail is hoisted or lowered: it is extended by a gaff above, and by a boom below.
To BRING by the lee. See To Broach-to.