The Sailor's Word-Book
Chapter 42 : BULL'S-EYE. A sort of block without a sheave, for a rope to reeve through; it is g

BULL'S-EYE. A sort of block without a sheave, for a rope to reeve through; it is grooved for stropping. Also, the central mark of a target. Also, a hemispherical piece of ground gla.s.s of great thickness, inserted into small openings in the decks, port-lids, and scuttle-hatches, for the admission of light below.

BULL'S-EYE CRINGLE. A piece of wood in the form of a ring, which answers the purpose of an iron thimble; it is seldom used by English seamen, and then only for the fore and main bowline-bridles.

BULL-TROUT. The salmon-trout of the Tweed. A large species of trout taken in the waters of Northumberland.

BULLYRAG, TO. To reproach contemptuously, and in a hectoring manner; to bl.u.s.ter, to abuse, and to insult noisily. Shakspeare makes mine host of the Garter dub Falstaff a bully-rook.

BULWARK. The planking or wood-work round a vessel above her deck, and fastened externally to the stanchions and timber-heads. In this form it is a synonym of berthing. Also, the old name for a bastion.

BULWARK-NETTING. An ornamental frame of netting answering the purpose of a bulwark.

b.u.mBARD. A cask or large vessel for liquids. (_See_ BOMBARD.) Trinculo, in the "Tempest," thinks an impending storm-cloud "looks like a foul b.u.mbard."

b.u.m-BOAT. A boat employed to carry provisions, vegetables, and small merchandise for sale to s.h.i.+ps, either in port or lying at a distance from the sh.o.r.e; thus serving to communicate with the adjacent town. The name is corrupted from bombard, the vessels in which beer was formerly carried to soldiers on duty.

b.u.mKIN, b.u.mPKIN, OR BOOMKIN. A short boom or beam of timber projecting from each bow of a s.h.i.+p, where it is fayed down upon the false rail. Its use is to extend the clue or lower corner of the fore-sail to windward, for which purpose there is a large block fixed on its outer end, through which the tack is pa.s.sed, and when hauled tight down is said to be aboard. The name is also applied to the pieces on each quarter, for the main-brace blocks.

b.u.mKIN. A small out-rigger over the stern of a boat, usually serving to extend the mizen.

b.u.mMAREE. A word synonymous with _bottomry_, in maritime law. It is also a name given to a cla.s.s of speculating salesmen of fish, not recognized as regular tradesmen.

b.u.mP, TO. To b.u.mp a boat, is to pull astern of her in another, and insultingly or inimically give her the stem; a practice in rivers and narrow channels.

b.u.mP-ASh.o.r.e. Running stem-on to a beach or bank. A s.h.i.+p b.u.mps by the action of the waves lifting and dropping her on the bottom when she is aground.

b.u.mPERS. Logs of wood placed over a s.h.i.+p's side to keep off ice.

BUND. In India, an embankment; whence, Bunda head, and Bunda boat.

BUNDLE-UP! The call to the men below to hurry up on deck.

BUNDLING THINGS INTO A BOAT. Loading it in a slovenly way.

BUNGLE, TO. To perform a duty in a slovenly manner.

BUNGO, OR BONGA. A sort of boat used in the Southern States of America, made of the bonga-tree hollowed out.

BUNG-STARTER. A stave shaped like a bat, which, applied to either side of the bung, causes it to start out. Also, a soubriquet for the captain of the hold. Also, a name given to the master's a.s.sistant serving his apprentices.h.i.+p for hold duties.

BUNG-UP AND BILGE-FREE. A cask so placed that its bung-stave is uppermost, and it rests entirely on its beds.

BUNK. A sleeping-place in the fore-peak of merchantmen; standing bed-places fixed on the sides between decks.

BUNKER. For stowing coal in steamers. Cellular s.p.a.ces on each side which deliver the coal to the engine-room.--_Wing-bunkers_ below the decks, cutting off the angular side-s.p.a.ces of the hold, and hatched over, are usually filled with sand, holy-stones, brooms, junk-blocks, &c., saving stowage.

BUNT OF A SAIL. The middle part of it, formed designedly into a bag or cavity, that the sail may gather more wind. It is used mostly in top-sails, because courses are generally cut square, or with but small allowance for bunt or compa.s.s. "The bunt holds much leeward wind;" that is, it hangs much to leeward. In "handed" or "furled" sails, the bunt is the middle gathering which is tossed up on the centre of the yard.--_To bunt a sail_ is to haul up the middle part of it in furling, and secure it by the bunt-gasket.

BUNTERS. The men on the yard who gather in the bunt when furling sails.

BUNT-FAIR. Before the wind.

BUNT-GASKET. _See_ GASKET.

BUNTING. A name on our southern sh.o.r.es for the shrimp.

BUNTING, OR BUNTIN. A thin woollen stuff, of which the s.h.i.+p's colours, flags, and signals are usually made.

BUNT-JIGGER. A small gun-tackle purchase, of two single blocks, one fitted with two tails, used in large vessels for bowsing up the bunt of a sail when furling: a peculiar combination of two points, fitted to a spar to which it is hooked.

BUNTLINE-CLOTH. The lining sewed up the fore-part of the sail in the direction of the buntline to prevent that rope from chafing the sail.

BUNTLINE-CRINGLE. An eye worked into the bolt-rope of a sail, to receive a buntline. This is only in top-gallant sails, and is seldom used now.

In the merchant service all buntlines are generally pa.s.sed through an eyelet-hole in the sail, and clinched round its own part.

BUNTLINES. Ropes attached to the foot-ropes of top-sails and courses, which, pa.s.sing over and before the canvas, turn it up forward, and thus disarm the force of the wind; at one-third from each clue, eyelet-holes are worked in the canvas, and by grummets pa.s.sed through, a toggle is secured on both bights: to this buntline-toggle the buntline attaches by an eye or loop. When the sails are loosed to dry, the bowlines, unbent from the bridles, are attached to these toggles, and haul out the sails by the foot-ropes like table-cloths. The buntline is rove through a block at the mast-head, pa.s.ses through the buntline span attached to the tye-blocks on the yard to retain them in the bunt, or amids.h.i.+ps, down before all, and looped to the toggles aforesaid. By aid of the clue-lines, reef-tackles, and buntlines, a top-sail is taken in or quieted if the sheets carry away, but more especially by the buntlines, as the wind has no hold then to belly the canvas.

BUNTLINE-SPANS. Short pieces of rope with a thimble in one end, the other whipped; the buntlines are rove through these thimbles: they are attached to the tie-blocks to keep the sail in the bunt when hauled up.

BUNTLINE-TOGGLES. _See_ BUNTLINES and TOGGLE.

BUNT SLAB-LINES. Reeve through a block on the slings of the yard or under the top, and pa.s.s abaft the sail, making fast to its foot. Their object is to lift the foot of a course so as to see underneath it, or to prevent it from chafing. Something of the same kind is used for top-sails, to keep them from rubbing on the stays when flapping in a calm.

BUOY. A sort of close cask, or block of wood, fastened by a rope to the anchor, to show its situation after being cast, that the s.h.i.+p may not come so near it as to entangle her cable about its stock or flukes.--_To buoy a cable_ is to make fast a spar, cask, or the like, to the bight of the cable, in order to prevent its galling or rubbing on the bottom.

When a buoy floats on the water it is said to watch. When a vessel slips her cable she attaches a buoy to it in order afterwards to recover it.

Thus the blockading squadrons off Brest and in Basque Roads frequently slipped, by signal, and each in beautiful order returned and picked up their cables.--_To stream the buoy_ is to let it fall from the s.h.i.+p's side into the water, which is always done before the anchor is let go, that it may not be fouled by the buoy-rope as it sinks to the bottom.--_Buoys_ of various kinds are also placed upon rocks or sand-banks to direct mariners where to avoid danger.

BUOYANCY. Capacity for floating lightly.--_Centre of buoyancy_, in naval architecture, the mean centre of that part of the vessel which is immersed in the water. (_See_ CENTRE OF CAVITY.)

BUOYANT. The property of floating lightly on the water.

BUOY-ROPE. The rope which attaches the buoy to the anchor, which should always be of sufficient strength to lift the anchor should the cable part; it should also be little more in length than equal to the depth of the water (at high-water) where the anchor lies.--_To bend the buoy-rope_, pa.s.s the running eye over one fluke, take a hitch over the other arm, and seize. Or, take a clove-hitch over the crown on each arm or fluke, stopping the end to its own part, or to the shank.

BUOY-ROPE KNOT. Used where the end is lashed to the shank. A knot made by unlaying the strands of a cable-laid rope, and also the small strand of each large strand; and after single and double walling them, as for a stopper-knot, worm the divisions, and round the rope.

BURBOT. A fresh-water fish (_Molva lota_) in esteem with fishermen.

BURDEN. Is the quant.i.ty of contents or number of tons weight of goods or munitions which a s.h.i.+p will carry, when loaded to a proper sea-trim: and this is ascertained by certain fixed rules of measurement. The precise burden or burthen is about twice the tonnage, but then a vessel would be deemed deeply laden.

BURG [the Anglo-Saxon _burh_]. A word connected with fortification in German, as in almost all the Teutonic languages of Europe. In Arabic the same term, with the alteration of a letter, _burj_, signifies primarily a bastion, and by extension any fortified place on a rising ground. This meaning has been retained by all northern nations who have borrowed the word; and we, with the rest, name our towns, once fortified, burghs or boroughs.

BURGALL. A fish of the American coasts, from 6 to 12 inches long: it is also called the blue-perch, the chogset, and the nibbler--the last from its habit of nibbling off the bait thrown for other fishes.

BURGEE. A swallow-tailed or tapered broad pendant; in the merchant service it generally has the s.h.i.+p's name on it.

BURGOMASTER. In the Arctic Sea, a large species of gull (_Larus glaucus_).

BURGONET. A steel head-piece, or kind of helmet. Shakspeare makes Cleopatra, alluding to Antony, exclaim--