The Sailor's Word-Book
Chapter 67 : CREEPER. A small grapnel (iron instrument with four claws) for dragging for articles dr

CREEPER. A small grapnel (iron instrument with four claws) for dragging for articles dropped overboard in harbour. When anything falls, a dish or other white object thrown immediately after it will greatly guide the creeping.

CREES. _See_ KRIS.

CREMAILLEE. More commonly called _indented_ (which see), with regard to lines or parapets.

CRENELLE. A loop-hole in a fortress.

CRENG. _See_ KRANG.

CREOLE. This term applies in the West Indies and Spanish America, &c., to a person of European and unmixed origin, but colonial born.

CREPUSCULUM. _See_ TWILIGHT.

CRESPIE. A northern term for a small whale or a grampus.

CRESSET. A beacon light set on a watch-tower.

CRESSIT. A small crease or dagger.

CREST. The highest part of a mountain, or range of mountains, and the summit of a sea-wave.

CREW. Comprehends every officer and man on board s.h.i.+p, borne as complement on the books. There are in s.h.i.+ps of war several particular crews or gangs, as the gunner's, carpenter's, sail-maker's, blacksmith's, armourer's, and cooper's crews.

CRIB. A small berth in a packet.

CRICK. A small jack-screw.

CRIMPS. Detested agents who trepan seamen, by treating, advancing money, &c., by which the dupes become indebted, and when well plied with liquor are induced to sign articles, and are s.h.i.+pped off, only discovering their mistake on finding themselves at sea robbed of all they possessed.

CRINGLE. A short piece of rope worked grommet fas.h.i.+on into the bolt-rope of a sail, and containing a metal ring or thimble. The use of the cringle is generally to hold the end of some rope, which is fastened thereto for the purpose of drawing up the sail to its yard, or extending the skirts or leech by means of bowline _bridles_, to stand upon a side-wind. The word seems to be derived from the old English _crencled_, or circularly formed. Cringles should be made of the strands of new bolt-rope. Those for the reef and reef-tackle pendant are stuck through holes made in the tablings.

CRINKYL. The cringle or loop in the leech of a sail.

CRIPPLE, TO. To disable an enemy's s.h.i.+p by wounding his masts, yards, and steerage gear, thereby placing him _hors de combat_.

CRISS-CROSS. The mark of a man who cannot write his name.

CROAKER. A tropical fish which makes a _cris-cris_ noise.

CROAKY. A term applied to plank when it curves much in short lengths.

CROCHERT. A hagbut or hand cannon, anciently in use.

CROCK [Anglo-Saxon, _croca_]. An earthen mess-vessel, and the usual vegetables were called crock-herbs. In the _Faerie Queene_ Spenser cites the utensil:--

"Therefore the vulgar did aboute him flocke, Like foolish flies about an honey-crocke."

CROCODILES. A designation for those who served in Egypt under Lord Keith.

CROJEK. The mode of p.r.o.nouncing _cross-jack_ (which see).

CRONNAG. In the Manx and Erse, signifies a rock that can be seen before low-water.

CROOKED-CATCH. An iron implement bent in the form of the letter S.

CROOKS. _Crooked timbers._ Short arms or branches of trees.

CROONER. The gray gurnard (_Trigla gurnardus_), so called on account of the creaking noise it makes after being taken.

CROSS-BARS. Round bars of iron, bent at each end, used as levers to turn the shank of an anchor.

CROSS-BAR-SHOT. The famed cross-bar-shot, or properly _bar-shot_, used by the Americans: when folded it presented a bar or complete shot, and could thus be placed in the gun. But as it left the muzzle it expanded to a cross, with four quarters of a shot at its radial points. It was used to destroy the rigging as well as do execution amongst men.

CROSS-BITT. The same as _cross-piece_ (which see).

CROSS-BORED. Bored with holes alternately on the edges of planks, to separate the fastenings, so as to avoid splitting the timbers or beams.

CROSS-BOW. An ancient weapon of our fleet, when also in use on sh.o.r.e.

CROSS-CHOCKS. Large pieces of timber fayed across the dead-wood amids.h.i.+ps, to make good the deficiency of the heels of the lower futtocks.

CROSS-FISH. A northern name for the _asterias_ or star-fish; so called from the Norwegian _kors-fisk_. Also, the _Uraster rubens_.

CROSS-GRAINED. Not straight-grained as in good wood; hence the perverse and vexatious disposition of the ne'er-do-wells. As Cotton's _Juno_--

"That cross-grained, peevish, scolding queen."

CROSS-HEAD. In a steamer's engine, is on the top of the piston-rod athwart the cylinder; and there is another fitted to the air-pump, both having side-rods. (_See_ CYLINDER CROSS-HEAD.)

CROSSING A s.h.i.+P'S WAKE. When a s.h.i.+p sails over the transient track which another has just pa.s.sed, _i.e._ pa.s.ses close astern of her.

CROSSING THE CABLES IN THE HATCHWAY. A method by which the operation of coiling is facilitated; it alludes to hempen cables, which are now seldom used.

CROSS IN THE HAWSE. Is when a s.h.i.+p moored with two anchors from the bows has swung the wrong way once, whereby the two cables lie across each other.--_To cross a vessel's hawse_ is to sail across the line of her course, a little ahead of her.

CROSSJACK-YARD [p.r.o.nounced _crojeck-yard_]. The lower yard on the mizen-mast, to the arms of which the clues of the mizen top-sail are extended. The term is applied to any fore-and-aft vessels setting a square-sail, flying, below the lower cross-trees. It is now very common in merchant s.h.i.+ps to set a sail called a cross-jack upon this yard.

CROSS-PAWLS. _See_ CROSS-SPALES.

CROSS-PIECE. The transverse timber of the bitts. Also, a rail of timber extending over the windla.s.s of some merchant-s.h.i.+ps from the knight-heads to the belfry. It is furnished with wooden pins to fasten the running-rigging to, as occasion requires.--_Cross-pieces._ Short pieces laid across the keel of a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p, and scarphed to the lower ends of the first futtocks, as strengtheners.

CROSS-SEA. A sea not caused by the wind then blowing. During a heavy gale which changes quickly (a cyclone, for instance), each change of wind produces a direction of the sea, which lasts for some hours after the wind which caused it has changed, so that in a part of the sea which has experienced all the changes of one of these gales, the sea runs up in pyramids, sending the tops of the waves perpendicularly into the air, which are then spread by the prevailing wind; the effect is awfully grand and dangerous, for it generally renders a s.h.i.+p ungovernable until it abates.

CROSS-SOMER. A beam of timber.

CROSS-SPALES OR SPALLS. Temporary beams nailed across a vessel to keep the sides together, and support the s.h.i.+p in frame, until the deck-knees are fastened.

CROSS-STAFF. _See_ FORE-STAFF.