THE READERS’ DICTIONARY OF SAILING SHIP TERMINOLOGY ___________________________________________________________________________ THE READERS’ DICTIONARY OF SAILING SHIP TERMINOLOGY ___________________________________________________________________________ 130 131 THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF PETER TURNER ©2024 THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF PETER TURNER If any reader can provide information, please send to galf@abandos.com If any reader can provide information, please send to galf@abandos.com Part - See Partisan. Part – (v) To break or separate a rope or cable. Part brass rags - Seamen's slang for breaking up a friendship in anger. From the tradition of friends sharing cleaning rags. Part his cable - Break loose, i.e. die Particular Average Parting strop – A safety strop made to part under excessive stress, being weaker than the cable or rope to which it is attached. Partisan - A broad-bladed spear about 9 feet long. Partners – 1. The arrangement wherever a mast, capstan, pump or similar penetrates between deck beams, comprising a timber framework providing strengthening together with angle-bars, plates and bulb-plates, for support. 2. Seamen, in particular buccaneers, often entered into a pact with a companion, in which they shared property and fortune and, as a result, risk. Pass a Gammoning – To pass the coil of rope used in lashing a bowsprit. Passage Passage Passarado - See Passaree. Passaree, pazaree, passarado - The rope used to haul out the clew of a studding sail along its boom, to ensure its full spread. Passaree Boom CTC Passenger Passenger's Galley- Was on deck for emigrants. Passing rope ERR Passing the nippers- SMS Passing- Reply to Watchman's Challenge if boat passing by. Pass muster - OK. Patach, Patache - Small Spanish two-masted merchant or armed pinnace messenger boat, used between vessels of a fleet, or used as a guardship or coastal vessel. Patateroes - Hand weapons. Patch(tge) Patent log - See Towed log. Patent reefing- SMS Patent Windlass CTC Patlander (Irishman) ERR Patriotic Fund - Set up by merchants to support dependants of recipients of Pavesses. Controlled from Lloyd's Coffee House.SMS Patrol System- System of patrolled areas and convoy escorting where traffic was thickest. Patron - Early Mediterranean title for a ship's captain. Patronage Pattereroes – Very small guns on swivels. Paunches(ecr) Paunch mat – A thick protective mat used to prevent chafing in the rigging and yards. Pavesses – 1. Painted shields on the sides of Medieval ships. 2. Check out patriotic fund. Pavisade - Portable shield. Pawl – 1. A short pivoted iron bar attached by a hinge at one end to the capstan or windlass barrel, that would drop into notches in the pawl rim to prevent the capstan or windlass from slipping back as the cable was hove in. 2. (v) To allow the pawls on the capstan to engage, thus preventing it to slip back. Pawl bitt, or pawl-bitt post - A heavy post extending from the keelson through the upper deck, onto which the windlass was attached. The vertical timber onto which a pawl is fixed. Pawl head(hgv) Pawl rack – A fixed series of pawl stops. Pawl rests- SMS Pawl rim – A rim at the base with notches into which a pawl would drop to prevent it slipping back. Pawl the capstan – When weighing anchor, the order given to temporarily hold the capstan by engaging the pawls, when the anchor has reached the hawse. Pawns - Usually a relative of an African native chief that has been paid in advance to get slaves, who are carried off in lieu if slaves, or equal value of goods, are not provided by a set deadline. Pay – 1. Ropes are payed out, when proffered. 2. To cover the surface of an item, or the seams between them, with a fluid protective coating, such as tar, pitch, tallow, turpentine, sulphur, resin, etc. 3. A ship's bows were paying off when they fall to leeward on tacking. 4. The paying-off pennant would be flown at the masthead of a ship about to be taken out of commission. 5. Pay levels set in 1653, were: Able Seaman (AB) £24 Per Lunar Month; Ordinary Seaman 19s PLM; Landsman 18s PLM. After deductions for Greenwich Hospital of 6d and for Chatham Chest of 1s, net pay was 22/6, 17/6 & 16/6 PLM respectively, (at a time when a ploughman earned £3 to £4 per year), wages set in 1653. In 1768 pay rose to 32s to 40s PLM following a strike. In 1800 pay was approximately: AB £20.2s.0d; Non Comm. £30; Mid >£30; Lieutenants >£100; Master and Commander >£100; Capt 6th Rate >£200; Capt 3rd Rate £283; Capt 1st Rate £386; Admiral £600-£1820; Captains' and Admirals' allowances could double pay; An Admiral would get £600 p.a. in 1820 Paying all debts with the topsail sheet - The practice of a crewman leaving in a ship, whilst his debts are unpaid, resulting in the unlikelihood of them ever being so. Later became 'First turn of the screw pays all debts'. Pay away - See Pay out. Payed - Covered with tar or pitch Paying off – 1. The discharge of a crew and the payment to them of all they are owed. 2. The end of a naval ship’s commission. Paying Off Pennant- Originally a string of cleaning rags, subsequently St George’s cross plus white tail that got longer as ship's commission extended. Paying- SMS Paymaster- Pursers' new name and role in 1851. Pay off – Of a vessel’s head, to fall away from the wind when tacking. Pay out, or pay away – To slacken a rope and allow it to run out. Pay out the cable – The order given to slacken the anchor cable so that it will run freely out of the vessel. Also veer away the cable. Pay Tickets – Pay Tickets were given to seamen as they signed off at the end of a voyage, but they could only be cashed at Navy Offices at Chatham Pacific iron- SMS Pacquet Packers - Any of many types of infills and wedges used to secure masts. Packet or Pacquet - Fast mail carrying craft, often government sponsored. Packet Ships CTC Pack Ice Packing(hgv) Pad - Shaped or curved timbers fixed onto a beam to give the required shape onto which adjacent timbers can be affixed. Paddle – 1. A short-handled, broad-bladed oar held free of the side in both hands, to propel a canoe or similar. 2. (v) To use a paddle. Paddy Doyle’s Boots – Paddy's purchase - Seamen's slang for a rope lead that makes extra work rather than saving it. Paid off, pay off – 1. Made/ make leeway. 2. ‘Paid off and turned adrift’ was the expression used for seamen or officers released from service, without any care for their future. This happened during the 'Spanish Armament' in 1770 Painful - In Elizabethan times, to take pains. Paint locker(tge) Paint Room Painter – The bow-rope of a small boat, used to make her fast. Pair of dividers - See Dividers. Paixhan Shot- Particularly destructive shot named after French inventor Pakenham's jury rudder- SMS Pallating flat Palm – 1. The holding surface of an anchor’s fluke. 2. Leather protecting pad worn in the palm of the hand, with a metal plate on it for pushing the head of the needle in sewing canvas. Palm and needle hitching, or whipping – A series of half hitches made on twine, using a sailmaker’s palm and needle. Paludism Pampas Wind Pampero Wind Wind of S America, near R Plate Pampero- A wind that comes off the East Coast of South America. Pancake Ice- Small circular floes with raised rims, caused by gentle break up of ice, into pieces that bump together. Panic stations - Seamen's slang for being ready for an emergency. Pannikin - A small metal cup or pan. Panting - The vibrating inward and outward movement of a vessel's structure and plating. Pantofles - Overshoes or mules. Pantry Panyar- Stealing of slaves from dealers. Paper Jacks- (Am) Theory sailors Paper-stuff - A disparaging description of a poor suite of sails Parallel of latitude – An imaginary circle around the world, parallel to the equator, at a given latitude. Parallelogram of forces- SMS Parallel ruler - An instrument for drawing a line parallel to another, used when plotting a course on a chart. Parallels Parallel sailing – The method of navigating by sailing north or south until the latitude of the immediate destination was reached, and then sailing east or west towards it along the parallel of latitude. This was common before longitude could be readily found at sea. Parancelle, Paranzella- A single-masted Italian fishing vessel of 18 and 19c, about 40ft(12m) long with very tall bow. 56' long, 18' beam, single mast lateen rig plus jib on outrigger and 20 oars Parbuckle – An arrangement used to lift round objects by securing the middle of a rope and passing the two halves under the object and through the middle, with the ends used to haul. Parbuckling - A method of rolling a barrel up or down a hill, by tackles. Parcel – 1. The waterproofing of a length of hemp rope, filled with cord and wrapped in canvas strips served with spunyarn. Ashore, the business of Royal Mail makes use of this term. 2. (v) To wrap a canvas, or sometimes Hessian, round the end of a wormed rope to protect it from water and prepare it for serving. Parcelling – The wrapping of wormed rope with tarred cloth. Paredgia- A two-masted Italian lateen rigged ship used in 19c. Parhelia- Mock suns, mirages caused by ice reflections in polar regions. Parish rig - The clothes a new seaman stood up in, when he owned no others and no sea kit. Parliament heel – Another term for a careen, when a vessel’s hull is listed over to exposed her bottom fro cleaning. Parmacetti Parole Parral, Parrel- 1. An assembly of wooden beads, known as trucks, and dividers known as ribs, strung onto ropes and forming a collar between upper yards and their masts, to allow easier hoisting and lowering by reducing friction. 2. Any iron or rope collar joining the centre of a yard to its mast and capable of sliding up and down. 3. The rope attaching the jaws of a gaff to its mast. Parrel cleat - A shaped wooden piece attached to the middle of an upper yard to steady it against the mast. Also rolling chock or rolling cleat. Parrel of the lower yard - The rope securing the lower yard to the mast. Later vessels replaced this arrangement with a goose-neck. Also sometimes called the truss. Parrel-ribs - Large wooden dividers threaded onto the parrel, between the trucks. Parrel-ropes - ERR Parrel supporting span - Wire span from chain tye to parral to stop it jamming by keeping it horizontal. Parrel trucks - Large wooden beads threaded onto the parrel, used as rollers to make the slide up and down easier. P Parrels and Pussers
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