We poured a broadside into the enemy’s ship, i. e. discharged all the ship’s cannon on one side upon her.
She brought her broadside to bear on the castle; that is, disposed the ship so as to point all her cannon to it within point-blank range.
A squall of wind laid the ship on her broadside; that is, pressed her down in the water, so as nearly to overturn her.
BROKEN-BACKED, arcqué, the state or quality of a ship, which is so loosened in her frame, either by age, weakness, or some great strain, as to droop at each end.
This circumstance is more common amongst French than the English or Dutch ships, owing partly to their great length, and to the sharpness of the floor, whose breadth is not sufficiently carried from the middle towards each end; and partly from being frequently obliged to have a great weight in both ends, when they are empty in the middle, at the time of discharging one cargo and taking in another. See Cambering.
BUCCANEER, a name given to certain piratical rovers of various European nations, who formerly infested the Spanish coasts in America, and, under pretence of traffic with the inhabitants, frequently seized their treasure, plundered their houses, and committed many other depredations.
Ship-BUILDING may be defined the manner of constructing ships, or the work itself, as distinguished from naval architecture, which we have rather considered as the theory or art of delineating ships on a plane, and to which this article may properly be understood as a supplement.
The pieces by which this complicated machine is framed, are joined together in various places, by scarfing, rabitting, tenanting, and scoring. See those articles.
During the construction of a ship, she is supported in the dock, or upon a wharf, by a number of solid blocks of timber placed at equal distances from, and parallel to, each other, as may be seen in the article Lanching; she is then said to be on the stocks.
The first piece of timber laid upon the blocks is generally the keel; I say generally, because, of late, a different method has been adopted in some of the royal dock-yards, by beginning with the floor-timbers; the artists having found that the keel is often apt to rot during the long period of building a large ship of war. The pieces of the keel, as exhibited in plate [I]. are scarfed together, and bolted, forming one entire piece, A A. which constitutes the length of the vessel below. At one extremity of the keel is erected the stem. It is a strong piece of timber incurvated nearly into a circular arch, or, according to the technical term, compassing, so as to project outwards at the upper-end, forming what is called the rake forward. In small vessels this is framed of one piece, but in large ships it is composed of several pieces scarfed and bolted together, as expressed in the explanation of plate [I]. Pieces of the Hull, and in those terms separately. At the other extremity of the keel, is elevated the stern-post, which is always of one entire strait piece. The heel of it is let into a mortise in the keel, and having its upper-end to hang outwards, making an obtuse angle with the keel, like that of the stem: this projection is called the rake abaft. The stern-post, which ought to support the stern, contains the iron-work or hinges of the rudder, which are called googings, and unites the lower-part of the ship’s sides abaft. See the connexion of those pieces in the Elevation, pl. I.