The Sailor's Word-Book
Chapter 44 : BYKAT. A northern term for a male salmon of a certain age, because of the beak which th

BYKAT. A northern term for a male salmon of a certain age, because of the beak which then grows on its under-jaw.

BYLLIS. An old spelling for _bill_ (which see).

BYRNIE. Early English for body-armour.

BYRTH. The old expression for tonnage. (_See_ BURDEN or BURTHEN.)

BYSSA. An ancient gun for discharging stones at the enemy.

BYSSUS. The silken filaments of any of the bivalved molluscs which adhere to rocks, as the _Pinna_, _Mytilus_, &c. The silken byssus of the great pinna, or wing-sh.e.l.l, is woven into dresses. In the _Chama gigas_ it will sustain 1000 lbs. Also, the woolly substance found in damp parts of a s.h.i.+p.

BY THE BOARD. Over the s.h.i.+p's side. When a mast is carried away near the deck it is said to go by the board.

BY THE HEAD. When a s.h.i.+p is deeper forward than abaft.

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.

BY THE STERN. When the s.h.i.+p draws more water abaft than forward. (_See_ BY THE HEAD.)

BY THE WIND. Is when a s.h.i.+p sails as nearly to the direction of the wind as possible. (_See_ FULL AND BY.) In general terms, within six points; or the axis of the s.h.i.+p is 67-1/2 degrees from the direction of the wind.

BY-WASH. The outlet of water from a dam or discharge channel.

C.

CAAG. _See_ KAAG.

CABANE. A flat-bottomed pa.s.sage-boat of the Loire.

CABBAGE. Those princ.i.p.ally useful to the seaman are the esculent cabbage-tree (_Areca oleracea_), which attains to a great height in the W. Indies. The sheaths of the leaves are very close, and form the green top of the trunk a foot and a half in length; this is cut off, and its white heart eaten. Also, the _Crambe maritima_, sea-kail, or marine cabbage, growing in the west of England.

CABIN. A room or compartment part.i.tioned off in a s.h.i.+p, where the officers and pa.s.sengers reside. In a man-of-war, the princ.i.p.al cabin, in which the captain or admiral lives, is the upper after-part of the vessel.

CABIN-BOY. A boy whose duty is to attend and serve the officers and pa.s.sengers in the cabin.

CABIN-LECTURE. _See_ JOBATION.

CABIN-MATE. A companion, when two occupy a cabin furnished with two bed-places.

CABLE. A thick, strong rope or chain which serves to keep a s.h.i.+p at anchor; the rope is cable-laid, 10 inches in circ.u.mference and upwards (those below this size being hawsers), commonly of hemp or coir, which latter is still used by the Calcutta pilot-brigs on account of its lightness and elasticity. But cables have recently, and all but exclusively, been superseded by iron chain.--_A shot of cable_, two cables spliced together.

CABLE, TO COIL A. To lay it in fakes and tiers one over the other.--_To lay a cable._ (_See_ LAYING.)--_To pay cheap the cable_, to hand it out apace; to throw it over.--_To pay out more cable_, to let more out of the s.h.i.+p.--_To serve or plait the cable_, to bind it about with ropes, canvas, &c.; to keep it from galling in the hawse-pipe. (_See_ ROUNDING, KECKLING, &c.)--_To splice a cable_, to make two pieces fast together, by working the several yarns of the rope into each other; with chain it is done by means of shackles.--_To veer more cable_, to let more out.

CABLE-BENDS. Two small ropes for las.h.i.+ng the end of a hempen cable to its own part, in order to secure the clinch by which it is fastened to the anchor-ring.

CABLE-BITTED. So bitted as to enable the cable to be nipped or rendered with ease.

CABLE-BITTS. _See_ BITTS.

CABLE-BUOYS. Peculiar casks employed to buoy up rope cables in a rocky anchorage, to prevent their rubbing against the rocks; they are also attached to the end of a cable when it is slipped, with the object of finding it again.

CABLE-ENOUGH. The call when cable enough is veered to permit of the anchor being brought to the cat-head.

CABLE-HANGER. A term applied to any person catching oysters in the river Medway, not free of the fishery, and who is liable to such penalty as the mayor and citizens of Rochester shall impose upon him.

CABLE-LAID ROPE. Is a rope of which each strand is a hawser-laid rope.

Hawser-laid ropes are simple three-strand ropes, and range up to the same size as cablets, as from 3/4 to 9 inches. (_See_ ROPE.)

CABLE-SHEET, SHEET-CABLE. The spare bower cable belonging to a s.h.i.+p.

Sheet is deemed stand-by, and is also applied to its anchor.

CABLE'S LENGTH. A measure of about 100 fathoms, by which the distances of s.h.i.+ps in a fleet are frequently estimated. This term is frequently misunderstood. In all marine charts a cable is deemed 60756 feet, or one-tenth of a sea mile. In rope-making the cable varies from 100 to 115 fathoms; cablet, 120 fathoms; hawser-laid, 130 fathoms, as determined by the admiralty in 1830.

CABLE-STAGE. A place constructed in the hold, or cable-tier, for coiling cables and hawsers on.

CABLE-STREAM, STREAM-CABLE. A hawser or rope something smaller than the bower, used to move or hold the s.h.i.+p temporarily during a calm in a river or haven, sheltered from the wind and sea, &c.

CABLE-TIER. The place in a hold, or between decks, where the cables are coiled away.

CABOBBLED. Confused or puzzled.

CABOBS, OR KEBAUB. The Turkish name for small fillets of meat broiled on wooden spits; the use of the term has been extended eastward, and in India signifies a hot spiced dish of fish, flesh, or fowl.

CABONS. _See_ KABURNS.

CABOOSE, OR CAMBOOSE. The cook-room or kitchen of merchantmen on deck; a diminutive subst.i.tute for the galley of a man-of-war. It is generally furnished with cast-iron apparatus for cooking.

CABOTAGE [Ital.] Sailing from cape to cape along a coast; or the details of coast pilotage.

CABURNS. Spun rope-yarn lines, for worming a cable, seizing, winding tacks, and the like.

CACAO [Sp.] The plant _Theobroma_, from which what is commonly termed cocoa is derived.

CACCLE, OR KECCLE. To apply a particular kind of service to the cable.

(_See_ KECKLING.)

CACHE. A hidden reservoir of provision (to secure it from bears) in Arctic travel. Also, a deposit of despatches, &c.

CADE. A small barrel of about 500 herrings, or 1000 sprats.

CADENCE. The uniform time and s.p.a.ce for marching, more indispensable to large bodies of troops than to parties of small-arm men; yet an important part even of their drill. The regularity requisite in pulling.

CADET. A volunteer, who, serving at his own charge, to learn experience, waits for preferment; a designation, recently introduced, for young gentlemen formerly rated volunteers of the first cla.s.s. Properly, the younger son in French.

CADGE, TO. To carry.--_Cadger_, a carrier. Kedge may be a corruption, as being carriable.