KNITTLES, or NETTLES. The halves of two adjoining yarns in a rope, twisted up together, for pointing or grafting. Also, small line used for seizings and for hammock-clews.
KNOCK-OFF! An order to leave off work.
KNOT. A division on the log-line, answering to a mile of distance.
LABOR. A vessel is said to labor when she rolls or pitches heavily.
LACING. Rope used to lash a sail to a gaff, or a bonnet to a sail. Also, a piece of compass or knee timber, fayed to the back of the figure-head and the knee of the head, and bolted to each.
LAND-FALL. The making land after being at sea. A good land-fall, is when a vessel makes the land as intended.
LAND HO! The cry used when land is first seen.
LANYARDS. Ropes rove through dead-eyes for setting up rigging. Also, a rope made fast to anything to secure it, or as a handle, is called a lanyard.
LARBOARD. The left side of a vessel, looking forward.
LARBOWLINES. The familiar term for the men in the larboard watch.
LARGE. A vessel is said to be going large, when she has the wind free.
LATCHINGS. Loops on the head rope of a bonnet, by which it is laced to the foot of the sail.
LAUNCH. A large boat. The LONG-BOAT.
LAUNCH-HO! High enough!
LAY. To come or to go; as, Lay aloft! Lay forward! Lay aft! Also, the direction which the strands of a rope are twisted; as, from left to right, or from right to left.
LEACH. (See LEECH.)
LEACHLINE. A rope used for hauling up the leach of a sail.
LEAD. A piece of lead, in the shape of a cone or pyramid, with a small hole at the base, and a line attached to the upper end, used for sounding. (See HAND-LEAD, DEEP-SEA-LEAD. )
LEADING-WIND. A fair wind. More particularly applied to a wind abeam or quartering.
LEAGUE.* Three nautical miles; one nautical mile is roughly 6,080 feet.
LEAK. A hole or breach in a vessel, at which the water comes in.
LEDGES. Small pieces of timber placed athwart-ships under the decks of a vessel, between the beams.
LEE. The side opposite to that from which the wind blows; as, if a vessel has the wind on her starboard side, that will be the weather, and the larboard will be the lee side. A lee shore is the shore upon which the wind is blowing. Under the lee of anything, is when you have that between you and the wind. By the lee. The situation of a vessel, going free, when she has fallen off so much as to bring the wind round her stern, and to take her sails aback on the other side.
LEE-BOARD. A board fitted to the lee side of flat-bottomed boats, to prevent their drifting to leeward.
LEE-GAGE. (See GAGE.)
LEEWAY. What a vessel loses by drifting to leeward. When sailing close-hauled with all sail set, a vessel should make no leeway. If the topgallant sails are furled, it is customary to allow one point; under close-reefed topsails, two points; when under one close-reefed sail, four or five points.
LEECH, or LEACH. The border or edge of a sail, at the sides.
LEEFANGE. An iron bar, upon which the sheets of fore-and-aft sails traverse. Also, a rope rove through the cringle of a sail which has a bonnet to it, for hauling in, so as to lace on the bonnet. Not much used.
LEEWARD. (Pronounced lu-ard.) The lee side. In a direction opposite to that from which the wind blows, which is called windward. The opposite of lee is weather, and of leeward is windward; the two first being adjectives.
LIE-TO, is to stop the progress of a vessel at sea, either by counterbracing the yards, or by reducing sail so that she will make little or no headway, but will merely come to and fall off by the counteraction of the sails and helm.
LIFE-LINES. Ropes carried along yards, booms, &c., or at any part of the vessel, for men to hold on by.
LIFT. A rope or tackle, going from the yardarms to the mast-head, to support and move the yard. Also, a term applied to the sails when the wind strikes them on the leeches and raises them slightly.
LIGHT. To move or lift anything along; as, to “Light out to windward!” that is, haul the sail over to windward. The light sails are all above the topsails, also the studdingsails and flying jib.
LIGHTER. A large boat, used in loading and unloading vessels.
LIMBERS, or LIMBER-HOLES. Holes cut in the lower part of the floor-timbers, next the keelson, forming a passage for the water fore-and-aft. Limber-boards are placed over the limbers, and are movable. Limber-rope. A rope rove fore-and-aft through the limbers, to clear them if necessary. Limber-streak. The streak of foot-waling nearest the keelson.
LIST. The inclination of a vessel to one side; as, a list to port, or a list to starboard.
LIZARD. A piece of rope, sometimes with two legs, and one or more iron thimbles spliced into it. It is used for various purposes. One with two legs, and a thimble to each, is often made fast to the topsail tye, for the buntlines to reeve through. A single one is sometimes used on the swinging-boom topping-lift.
LOCKER. A chest or box, to stow anything away in. Chain-locker. Where the chain cable are kept. Boatswain’s locker. Where tools and small stuff for working upon rigging are kept.
LOG, or LOG-BOOK. A journal kept by the chief officer, in which the situation of the vessel, winds, weather, courses, distances, and everything of importance that occurs, is noted down. Log. A line with a piece of board, called the log-chip, attached to it, wound upon a reel, and used for ascertaining the ship’s rate of sailing.
LONG-BOAT. The largest boat in a merchant vessel. When at sea, it is carried between the fore and main masts.
LONGERS. The longest casks, stowed next the keelson.
LONG-TIMBERS. Timbers in the cant-bodies, reaching from the dead-wood to the head of the second futtock.
LOOF. That part of a vessel where the planks begin to bend as they approach the stern.
LOOM. That part of an oar which is within the row-lock. Also, to appear above the surface of the water; to appear larger than nature, as in a fog.
LUBBER’S HOLE. A hole in the top, next the mast.
LUFF. To put the helm so as to bring the ship up nearer to the wind. Spring-a-luff! Keep your luff! &c. Orders to luff. Also, the roundest part of a vessel’s bow. Also, the forward leech of fore-and-aft sails.
LUFF-TACKLE. A purchase composed of a double and single block. Luff-upon-luff. A luff tackle applied to the fall of another.
LUGGER. A small vessel carrying lug-sails. Lug-sail. A sail used in boats and small vessels, bent to a yard which hangs obliquely to the mast.
LURCH. The sudden rolling of a vessel to one side.
LYING-TO. (See LIE-TO.)
MADE. A made mast or block is one composed of different pieces. A ship’s lower mast is a made spar, her topmast is a whole spar.
MALL, or MAUL. (Pronounced mawl.) A heavy iron hammer used in driving bolts. (See TOP-MAUL.)
MALLET. A small maul, made of wood; as, caulking-mallet; also, serving-mallet, used in putting service on a rope.
MANGER. A coaming just within the hawse hole. Not much in use.
MAN-ROPES. Ropes used in going up and down a vessel’s side.
MARL. To wind or twist a small line or rope round another.
MARLINE. (Pronounced mar-lin.) Small two-stranded stuff, used for marling. A finer kind of spunyarn.
MARLING-HIT’CH. A kind of hitch used in marling.
MARLINGSPIKE. An iron pin, sharpened at one end, and having a hole in the other for a lanyard. Used both as a fid and a heaver.
MARRY. To join ropes together by a worming over both.
MARTINGALE. A short perpendicular spar, under the bowsprit-end, used for guying down the head-stays. (See DOLPHIN-STRIKER. )
MAST. A spar set upright from the deck, to support rigging, yards and sails. Masts are whole or made.
MAT. Made of strands of old rope, and used to prevent chafing.
MATE. An officer under the master.
MAUL. (See MALL.)
MEND. To mend service, is to add more to it.
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MESHES. The places between the lines of a netting.
MESS. Any number of men who eat or lodge together.
MESSENGER. A rope used for heaving in a cable by the capstan.
MIDSHIPS. The timbers at the broadest part of the vessel. (See AMID-SHIPS.)
MISS-STAYS. To fail of going about from one tack to another.
MIZZEN-MAST. The aftermost mast of a ship. (See PLATE I.) The spanker is sometimes called the mizzen.
MONKEY BLOCK. A small single block strapped with a swivel.
MOON-SAIL. A small sail sometimes carried in light winds, above a skysail.
MOOR. To secure by two anchors.
MORTICE. A morticed block is one made out of a whole block of wood with a hole cut in it for the sheave; in distinction from a made block.
MOULDS. The patterns by which the frames of a vessel are worked out.
MOUSE. To put turns of rope yarn or spunyarn round the end of a hook and its standing part, when it is hooked to anything, so as to prevent its slipping out.
MOUSING. A knot or puddening, made of yarns, and placed on the outside of a rope.
MUFFLE. Oars are muffled by putting mats or canvass round their looms in the rowlocks.
MUNIONS. The pieces that separate the lights in the galleries.
NAVAL HOODS, or HAWSE BOLSTERS. Plank above and below the hawse-holes.
NEAP TIDES. Low tides, coming at the middle of the moon’s second and fourth quarters. (See SPRING TIDES.)
NEAPED, or BENEAPED. The situation of a vessel when she is aground at the height of the spring tides.
NEAR. Close to wind. “Near!” the order to the helmsman when he is too near the wind.
NETTING. Network of rope or small lines. Used for stowing away sails or hammocks.
NETTLES. (See KNITTLES.)
NINEPIN BLOCK. A block in the form of a ninepin, used for a fair-leader in the rail.
NIP. A short turn in a rope.
NIPPERS. A number of yarns marled together, used to secure a cable to the messenger.
NOCK. The forward upper end of a sail that sets with a boom.
NUN-BUOY. A buoy tapering at each end.
NUT. Projections on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock to its place.
OAKUM. Stuff made by picking rope-yarns to pieces. Used for caulking, and other purposes.
OAR. A long wooden instrument with a flat blade at one end, used for propelling boats.
OFF-AND-ON. To stand on different tacks towards and from the land.
OFFING. Distance from the shore.
ORLOP. The lower deck of a ship of the line; or that on which the cables are stowed.
OUT-HAUL. A rope used for hauling out the clew of a boom sail.
OUT-RIGGER. A spar rigged out to windward from the tops or cross-trees, to spread the breast-backstays.
OVERHAUL. To overhaul a tackle, is to let go the fall and pull on the leading parts so as to separate the blocks. To overhaul a rope, is generally to pull a part through a block so as to make slack. To overhaul rigging, is to examine it.
OVER-RAKE. Said of heavy seas which come over a vessel’s head when she is at anchor, head to the sea.
PAINTER. A rope attached to the bows of a boat, used for making her fast.
PALM. A piece of leather fitted over the hand, with an iron for the head of a needle to press against in sewing upon canvass. Also, the fluke of an anchor.
PANCH. (See PAUNCH.)
PARBUCKLE. To hoist or lower a spar or cask by single ropes passed round it.
PARCEL. To wind tarred canvass, (called parcelling,) round a rope.
PARCELLING. (See PARCEL.)
PARLIAMENT-HEEL. The situation of a vessel when she is careened.
PARRAL. The rope by which a yard is confined to a mast at its centre.
PART. To break a rope.
PARTNERS. A frame-work of short timber fitted to the hole in a deck, to receive the heel of a mast or pump, &c.
PAZAREE. A rope attached to the clew of the foresail and rove through a block on the swinging boom. Used for guying the clews out when before the wind.
PAUNCH MAT. A thick mat, placed at the slings of a yard or elsewhere.
PAWL. A short bar of iron, which prevents the capstan or windlass from turning back. To pawl, is to drop a pawl and secure the windlass or capstan.
PAY-OFF. When a vessel’s head falls off from the wind. To pay. To cover over with tar or pitch. To pay out. To slack up on a cable and let it run out.
PEAK. The upper outer corner of a gaff-sail.
PEAK. (See A-PEAK.) A stay-peak is when the cable and fore stay form a line. A short stay-peak is when the cable is too much in to form this line.
PENDANT, or PENNANT. A long narrow piece of bunting, carried at the mast-head. Broad pennant, is a square piece, carried in the same way, in a commodore’s vessel. Pennant. A rope to which a purchase is hooked. A long strap fitted at one end to a yard or mast-head, with a hook or block at the other end, for a brace to reeve through, or to hook a tackle to.
PILLOW. A block which supports the inner end of the bowsprit.
PIN. The axis on which a sheave turns. Also, a short piece of wood or iron to belay ropes to.
PINK-STERN. A high, narrow stern.
PINNACE. A boat, in size between the launch and a cutter.
PINTLE. A metal bolt, used for hanging a rudder.
PITCH. A resin taken from pine, and used for filling up the seams of a vessel.
PLANKS. Thick, strong boards, used for covering the sides and decks of vessels.
PLAT. A braid of foxes. (See Fox.)
PLATE. (See CHAIN-PLATE.)
PLUG. A piece of wood, fitted into a hole in a vessel or boat, so as to let in or keep out water.
POINT. To take the end of a rope and work it over with knittles. (See REEF-POINTS.)
POLE. Applied to the highest mast of a ship, usually painted; as, sky-sail pole.
Poop. A deck raised over the after part of the spar deck. A vessel is pooped when the sea breaks over her stern.
POPPETS. Perpendicular pieces of timber fixed to the fore-and-aft part of the bilge-ways in launching.
PORT. Used instead of larboard. To port the helm, is to put it to the larboard.
PORT, or PORT-HOLE. Holes in the side of a vessel, to point cannon out of. (See BRIDLE.)
PORTOISE. The gunwale. The yards are a-portoise when they rest on the gunwale.
PORT-SILLS. (See SILLS.)
PREVENTER. An additional rope or spar, used as a support.
PRICE. A quantity of spunyarn or rope laid close up together.
PRICKER. A small marlinspike, used in sail-making. It generally has a wooden handle.
PUDDENING. A quantity of yarns, matting or oakum, used to prevent chafing.
PUMP-BRAKE. The handle to the pump.
PURCHASE. A mechanical power which increases the force applied. To purchase, is to raise by a purchase.
QUADRANT.Navigational instrument.
QUARTER. The part of a vessel’s side between the after part of the main chains and the stern. The quarter of a yard is between the slings and the yard-arm. The wind is said to be quartering, when it blows in a line between that of the keel and the beam and abaft the latter.
QUARTER-BLOCK. A block fitted under the quarters of a yard on each side the slings, for the clewlines and sheets to reeve through.
QUARTER-DECK. That part of the upper deck abaft the main-mast.
QUARTER-MASTER. A petty officer in a man-of-war, who attends the helm and binnacle at sea, and watches for signals, &c., when in port.
QUICK-WORK. That part of a vessel’s side which is above the chain-wales and decks. So called in ship-building.
QUILTING. A coating about a vessel, outside, formed of ropes woven together.
QUOIN. A wooden wedge for the breech of a gun to rest upon.
RACE. A strong, rippling tide.
RACK. To seize two ropes together, with cross-turns. Also, a fair-lead
er for running rigging.
RACK-BLOCK. A course of blocks made from one piece of wood, for fair-leaders.
RAKE. The inclination of a mast from the perpendicular.
RAMLINE. A line used in mast-making to get a straight middle line on a spar.
RANGE OF CABLE. A quantity of cable, more or less, placed in order for letting go the anchor or paying out.
RATLINES. (Pronounced rat-lins.) Lines running across the shrouds, horizontally, like the rounds of a ladder, and used to step upon in going aloft.
RATTLE DOWN RIGGING. To put ratlines upon rigging. It is still called rattling down, though they are now rattled up; beginning at the lowest.
RAZEE. A vessel of war which has had one deck cut down.
RECKONING.* Calculation of a ship’s position from astronomical observations or from dead reckoning (which see).
REEF. To reduce a sail by taking in upon its head, if a square sail, and its foot, if a fore-and-aft sail.
REEF-BAND. A band of stout canvass sewed on the sail across, with points in it, and earings at each end for reefing. A reef is all of the sail that is comprehended between the head of the sail and the first reef-band, or between two reef-bands.
REEF-TACKLE. A tackle used to haul the middle of each leech up toward the yard, so that the sail may be easily reefed.
REEVE. To pass the end of a rope through a block, or any aperture.
RELIEVING TACKLE. A tackle hooked to the tiller in a gale of wind, to steer by in case anything should happen to the wheel or tiller-ropes.
RENDER. To pass a rope through a place. A rope is said to render or not, according as it goes freely through any place.
RIB-BANDS. Long, narrow, flexible pieces of timber nailed to the outside of the ribs, so as to encompass the vessel lengthwise.
RIBS. A figurative term for a vessel’s timbers.
RIDE AT ANCHOR. To lie at anchor. Also, to bend or bear down by main strength and weight; as, to ride down the main tack.
RIDERS. Interior timbers placed occasionally opposite the principal ones, to which they are bolted, reaching from the keelson to the beams of the lower deck. Also, casks forming the second tier in a vessel’s hold.
RIGGING. The general term for all the ropes of a vessel. (See RUNNING, STANDING.) Also, the common term for the shrouds with their ratlines; as, the main rigging, mizzen rigging, &c.
Two Years Before the Mast (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 56