THE READERS’ DICTIONARY OF SAILING SHIP TERMINOLOGY ___________________________________________________________________________ THE READERS’ DICTIONARY OF SAILING SHIP TERMINOLOGY ___________________________________________________________________________ 66 67 THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF PETER TURNER ©2024 THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF PETER TURNER ©2024 If any reader can provide information, please send to galf@abandos.com If any reader can provide information, please send to galf@abandos.com Counter-brace – To brace the fore and main yards in opposing directions to take the way off a square-rigged vessel. Counter-braces - Braces rigged forward of the points of yards onto which braces are attached, thus providing four braces to each yard. If a yard was braced in the after braces were used and if braced up the counter braces were used. Countercurrent – A secondary current flowing alongside but in the opposite direction to the main current. Counter sea - See Cross sea. Counter stays - Timbers supporting a projecting stern. Counter timbers Country Ships – Originally those belonging to rich Indian nabobs and far eastern rich traders, used to transport wealthy pilgrims to the Red Sea area and great wealth in jewels, gold, silver etc. Later this came to mean ships that were built for EIC and others in the eastern colonies, from local teak and other timber and crewed by lascars, etc. Courage Course – The direction sailed by a vessel form one place to another. Course made good – The actual direction made good over a period. Courses – The principle sails rigged on lower yards, namely the foresail, mainsail and mizzen. Court Martial Courts of Enquiry – In the 18c many pirates held a Court of Enquiry into the treatment of a captured ship’s crew by their captain. If they spoke up for their captain, he was usually treated well, but if not, he was not. This was from the fact that by 18c many pirates were disaffected merchant seamen, who had voluntarily become pirates to escape the harsh merchant or naval services. Cove - The arched roof of the stern gallery. Cowardice Cow killer – A successful fishing vessel. Coxen - See Cockswain. Coxcombery - Foolishness. Coxs’n, coxswain - See Cockswain. Crab – 1. A small capstan with no drumhead, but through which the capstan bars would pass at various levels near the top. It was usually portable and used wherever a rope or tackle could not be served by one of the main capstans. 2. (v) To make leeway, or move sideways. Crab, To Catch a – See ‘catch a crab’. Crabbed as the Devil Crab-fat - Modern seamen's slang for the Royal Navy grey paint, from its similarity to the ointment issued for use against crab-lice. Crabs - Small early capstans, later found only in merchantmen. Crabby - Dirty. Originally the expression for being lousy from crabs. Crack - Said of a well performing ship. Usually a 'crack frigate'. Crackerhash – Sea pie, comprising layers of salt beef, peas and powdered biscuit, baked and eaten hot or cold. Crackerjack - A sailor’s dish of salted meat or soup mixed with crumbled ship’s biscuits and whatever else is available. Crack on – Set all sail and make as much speed as possible. Crackra - False currency paid by EI Company to their employees, valid only in Company stores at Company prices, used to keep Company servants in debt. Cracks - Fast Clippers. Cradle - The frame built on a slipway, on which a vessel is constructed, or supported when out of the water. Cran – 1. A measure of about 1,000 herring. 2. The basket containing a cran of herring. Crance - See Bowsprit cap. Crance or crance iron - The iron fitting at the tip of the bowsprit, hooped to take the jib-boom. Also bowsprit cap. Crane chain - Open linked chain. Crane-lines - Lines rigged between the foremost shrouds of a fore or main-mast to give access to furl or unfurl the staysails of main or mizzenmasts. Also called stays'l horses, swifters, handlines and man-ropes. Cranes – An American term for the whaleboat davits of a whaleship. Crank – 1. Unstable, said of a vessel liable to capsize or just to lean over too far. Also light or tender. 2. An iron brace supporting a lantern on the poop quarters. Crankness - Said of a vessel reluctant to return quickly to the vertical when laid over. Technically, when her metacentric height and righting moment are small. Also said to be tender. Cranse Iron Crapaud – French word for toad. Hence the term used by some English seamen for their French counterparts: Crappoes – Frenchmen. Crayer - Three-masted coaster cog used to fish for herring and mackerel. Creep Around Creeper – An iron grapnel used to recover lost items from the seabed. Creeping for an anchor - The same as sweeping for an anchor when the cable has parted, by using a weighted hawser to sweep or creep for the lost anchor from two boats with the hawser suspended between them. The theory was that the hawser would be hooked onto the anchor fluke, and sometimes it actually worked. Crew – All members of a ship’s company, except the captain. Crew-list - The name, on a merchantman, for what is known on a man-of-war as the musterbook. Crew Size - Optimum: 44G = 320; 38G = 250; 36G = 230; 4th = 420; 6th = 160 Cribey Islands - CaribbeanBDD Crimp - 1 An agent commissioned to produce a crew, usually by underhand methods, such as drunkenness and kidnapping. A seamen, who had been Shanghaied would be delivered, by the crimp, probably unconscious, to a short-handed ship about to sail. 2 To crimp off a length is to defecate. 3. To sleep deeply is to be crimped out. Cringle - A small loop made in a sail’s bolt-rope, sometimes with a metal ring, used to hold one of the controlling ropes. Cringled - Fitted with iron rings or cringles. Cromsters - Smacks Crojack - The lower yard on the mizen mast, and the sail it wears. Also cross-jack or crossjack yard. Crooked hand spike(tge) Cross – The first step towards a foul hawse, when a ship riding by two anchors turns through 180° and the cables cross. Crossbar shot - Cannon shot in the form of a cross or a bar. Cross bar to belfry(bell attached)(hgv) Cross-beam - Heavy section of timber running across the bitts in the bows of a ship. Cross chock(tge) Cross his bow - Seamen's slang for to annoy a superior, originally by walking in front of him, but now for any reason. Crossing – Intersecting the route of another vessel. Crossing the line – 1. Crossing the equator. 2. The traditional ceremony carried out whenever a ship crosses the equator, to appease King Neptune by first crossers of the Equator, who become subjects of King Neptune, in which King Neptune comes aboard with his court, to initiate novices into the Brotherhood of the Sea. Messy mayhem. Crossing the Tee - Battle tactic. Cross in the cables - The result of a vessel at anchor with a clear hawse being turned by the wind changing with the tide, or not changing when it would have helped. To clear the hawse manually was a tricky business. Cross in the hawse Cross-jack, crossjack yard - The lower yard on the mizen mast, and the sail it wears. Also crojack Crossjack lifts(hgv) Crossjack yard - See Cross-jack. Cross pawl - Heavy timbers used to temporarily support the frames of a wooden vessel under construction. Cross-piece – The heavy horizontal bar joining two knight-heads or bitts. Cross sail - Dutch name for the square mizzen topsail. Cross sea – Said of a series of waves crossing another series at an angle, usually after heavy weather. Cross seizing – A seizing used where the two items to be joined cross each other at right angles. Cross-staff – An ancient wooden instrument used to measure altitudes of heavenly bodies, comprising a cross, or transversary, sliding on a staff that had graduated degrees marked on it. Also arbalest, Jacob’s staff or fore-staff. Cross strap - A strengthening plate fixed on top of the floors and over the keelson plate. Cross timber - A floor timber that crosses the keel at right angles and whose centre is fixed to the keel. Cross-trees - Pieces of timber laid across the top of a mast, supported by the cheeks and trestletrees, used to support the top and to widen the span of the upper shrouds. Crotch - 1. Any forked wooden or metal support for spars and booms. 2. One of the angled timbers mounted on the keel, that form part of the narrowing hull at the end of the keel. Crow – 1. An iron lever with one end flattened into a forked wedge used to move guns from side to side and other tasks. 2. A crow released at sea will instinctively fly straight towards the nearest land. Crows were therefore kept caged on some ships, to be released if the ship’s captain became unsure of the direction to land, when he would set course to follow the crow. Crowd – (v) To set all sails in order to sail as fast as possible, even to the point of recklessness. Crowding - The setting of a great press of sail. This often resulted in a reduction in speed, through blanketing of some sails by others. Crowd on – To increase sail. Crowfoot – An arrangement of small lines all emanating from a long block and used to suspend an awning, or similar. Crow's nest – The modern term for the Senior WRNS accommodation. Crown – 1. The top of a block. 2. On an anchor, the junction of the shank and the arms. Crowning – A method of finishing off the end of a cable, by whipping it a bit short of the end, which is then unlaid and the strand formed into a crown and finished off. Crown plait – Originally a plait formed with crown and diamond knots, but it came to mean any plait containing crown and other knots. Cruise – A voyage to various destinations, usually unaccompanied. Cruise the Marshalsea - Pretend to be a seaman Cruiser Cruisers and Convoys Act 1708 - Introduced Prize Money. Crumbs - In Elizabethan times, to gather up or gain strength. Crumpsters - Hoys of Newcastle. Crupper chain - A chain holding the heel of the jib-boom tight to the bowsprit head. Cruppered Crusades – First planted the idea that English Navy could operate outside home waters. Crusher - Regulating petty officer or ship's policeman Crutch – 1. The triangular plate fixed horizontally in the stern, onto which longitudinal members were attached. 2. A U-shaped swivel holder for a boat’s oars, that came to replace pairs of thole pins in some boats. Crutching the backstays - The method of holding the weather backstay away from the top by crutching it in an outrigger rigged on the top, to give better lateral pull thus helping support the topmast. Cubbridge head - A heavy clinker planking bulkhead between the space under the forecastle and the waist, to allow it to be defended against borders. Cuckolds knot, or neck –1. A loop in the anchor cable, dropped over the upright of the riding bitts. 2. The seizing of a rope to a spar. Cuddy – 1. A cabin in the fore part of a vessel. 2. A top deck cabin, used by the Captain or some other bigwig. 3. A room in a large ship, where officers eat. 4. The servant that works in the cuddy, for the senior officer of a merchant ship. Cudgels Culage – The term for laying a ship up in a dry
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTYyMzU=