BORNE. Placed on the books for victuals and wages; also supernumerary and "for rank."
BORROW, TO. To approach closely either to land or wind; to hug a shoal or coast in order to avoid adverse tide.
BORT. The name given to a long fishing-line in the Shetland Isles.
BOSS. A head of water, or reservoir. Also the apex of a shield.
BOTARGA. The roe of the mullet pressed flat and dried; that of commerce, however, is from the tunny, a large fish of passage which is common in the Mediterranean. The best kind comes from Tunis; it must be chosen dry and reddish. The usual way of eating it is with olive-oil and lemon-juice.
BOTCH, TO. To make bungling work.
BOTE'S-CARLE. An old term for the coxswain of a boat.
BOTHERED. Getting among adverse currents, with shifting winds.
BOTH SHEETS AFT. The situation of a square-rigged ship that sails before the wind, or with the wind right astern. It is said also of a half-drunken sailor rolling along with his hands in his pockets and elbows square.
BOTTE. An old English term for boat, and assuredly the damaged boat into which Prospero is turned adrift by Shakspeare.
BOTTLE-BUMP. The bittern, so called on our east coast.
BOTTLE-CHARTS. Those on which the set of surface currents are exhibited, derived from papers found in bottles which have been thrown overboard for that purpose, and washed up on the beach, or picked up by other ships.
BOTTLE-NOSE, OR BOTTLE-NOSED WHALE. A name applied to several of the smaller cetaceans of the northern seas, more especially to the _Hyperoodon rostratus_.
BOTTOM. A name for rich low land formed by alluvial deposits: but in a general sense it denotes the lowest part of a thing, in contradistinction to the top or uppermost part. In navigation, it is used to denote as well the channel of rivers and harbours as the body or hull of a ship. Thus, in the former sense we say "a gravelly bottom, clayey bottom," &c., and in the latter sense "a British bottom, a Dutch bottom," &c. By statute, certain commodities imported in foreign bottoms pay a duty called "petty customs," over and above what they are liable to if imported in British bottoms. Bottom of a ship or boat is that part which is below the wales.
BOTTOM-CLEAN. Thoroughly clean, free from weeds, &c.
BOTTOM-PLANK. That which is placed between the garboard-strake and lower back-strake.
BOTTOMREE, OR BOTTOMRY-BOND. The contract of bottomry is a negotiable instrument, which may be put in suit by the person to whom it is transferred: it is in use in all countries of maritime commerce and interests. A contract in the nature of a mortgage of a ship, when the owner of it borrows money to enable him to carry on the voyage, and pledge the keel, or bottom of the ship, as a security for the repayment. If the ship be lost the lender also loses his whole money; but if it return in safety then he shall receive back his principal, and also the premium stipulated to be paid, however it may exceed the usual or legal rate of interest. The affair is, however, only regarded as valid upon the ground of necessity; and thus exacting more than the interest allowed by law is not deemed usury.
BOTTOMRY PREMIUM. A high rate of interest charged on the safety of the ship--the lender losing his whole money if she be lost.
BOTTOM-WIND. A phenomenon that occurs on the lakes in the north of England, especially Derwent Water, which is often agitated by swelling waves without any apparent cause.
BOUCHE. _See_ BUSH.
BOUGE OR BOWGE AND CHINE, OR BILGE AND CHIMB. The end of one cask stowed against the bilge of another. To prepare a ship for the purpose of sinking it.
BOUILLI. Termed by seamen bully-beef; disliked because all the substance is boiled away to enrich the cook's grease-tub, and the meat is useless as food; rejected even by dogs. In one ship of war it produced mutiny; vide Adams' account of the _Bounty_ miseries. It is also the name given to highly cooked meat in hermetically sealed tin canisters.
BOULDER-HEAD. A work against the encroachment of the sea, made of wooden stakes.
BOULDERS. Stones worn and rounded by the attrition of the waves of the sea: the word, on the authority of Hunter, was considered a technical term in the fourteenth century, as appears in a warrant of John of Gaunt for the repair of Pontefract Castle--"De peres, appeles buldres, a n're dit chastel come nous semblerez resonables pur la defense de meisme."
BOULEPONGES. A drink to which many of the deaths of Europeans in India were ascribed; but in Bernier's "Travels," in the train of Aurungzebe, in 1664, we are informed that "bouleponge is a beverage made of arrack, sugar, lemon-juice, and a little muscadine." Probably a corruption of bowls of punch. (_See_ PUNCH.)
BOUNCE. The larger dog-fish.
BOUNCER. A gun which kicks violently when fired.
BOUND. Destined for a particular service. Intended voyage to a place.--_Ice-bound._ Totally surrounded with ice.--_Tide-bound_, or be-neaped. (_See_ NEAPED.)--_Wind-bound._ Prevented from sailing by contrary wind.--_Where are you bound to?_--_i.e._ To what place are you going?--_Bound on a cruise._ A corruption of the old word _bowne_, which is still in use on the northern coasts, and means to make ready, to prepare.
BOUNTY. A sum of money given by government, authorized by act of parliament or royal proclamation, to men who voluntarily enter into the army or navy; and the widow of such volunteer seaman killed or drowned in the service was entitled to a bounty equal to a year's pay.
BOUNTY-BOATS. Those which fished under the encouragement of a bounty from government.
BOUNTY-LIST. A register of all persons who have received the bounty to which they are entitled after having passed three musters in the service.
BOURN. _See_ BURN.
BOURSE. A place where merchants congregate. An exchange.
BOUSE. _See_ BOWSE.
BOUT. A turn, trial, or round. An attack of illness; a convivial meeting.--_'Bout ship_, the brief order for "about ship."
BOW. The fore-end of a ship or boat; being the rounding part of a vessel forward, beginning on both sides where the planks arch inwards, and terminating where they close, at the rabbet of the stem or prow, being larboard or starboard from that division. A bold bow is broad and round; a lean bow, narrow and thin.--_On the bow._ An arc of the horizon (not exceeding 45 deg.) comprehended between some distant object and that point of the compass which is right ahead. Four points on either bow is met by four points before the beam.
BOW. An astronomical instrument formerly used at sea, consisting of only one large graduated arc of 90 deg., three vanes, and a shank or staff. Also the bow of yew, a weapon of our early fleets.
BOW. _She bows to the breeze_; when the sails belly out full, and the ship inclines and goes ahead, pitching or bowing over the blue waves.
BOW-BYE. The situation of a ship when, in stays, she falls back off the wind again, and gets into irons, which demands practical seamanship for her extrication. This was deemed a lubberly act in our fleets of old.
BOW-CHASERS. Two long chase-guns placed forward in the bow-ports to fire directly ahead, and being of small bore for their length, carry shot to a great distance.
BOWD-EATEN. An old expression for eaten by weevils.
BOWER-ANCHORS. Those at the bows and in constant working use. They are called best and small, not from a difference of size, but as to the bow on which they are placed; starboard being the best bower, and port the small bower. The appropriated cables assume the respective names. (_See also_ SPARE ANCHOR, SHEET, STREAM, COASTING, KEDGE, &c.)
BOW-FAST. A rope or chain for securing a vessel by the bow. (_See_ FAST.)
BOWGE, OR BOUGE. An old term for bilge.
BOWGER. A name given in the Hebrides to the coulter-neb, or puffin (_Fratercula arctica_).
BOWGRACE. A kind of frame or fender of old junk, placed round the bows and sides of a ship to prevent her receiving injury from floating ice or timbers. (_See_ BON GRACE.)
BOWING. An injury done to yards by too much topping, and letting their weights hang by the lifts. The state of a top-sail yard when it arches in the centre from hoisting it too tautly. Also of the mast when it bellies or is crippled by injudiciously setting up the rigging too taut.
BOWING THE SEA. Meeting a turbulent swell in coming to the wind.
BOWLINE. A rope leading forward which is fastened to a space connected by bridles to cringles on the leech or perpendicular edge of the square sails: it is used to keep the weather-edge of the sail tight forward and steady when the ship is close hauled to the wind; and which, indeed, being hauled taut, enables the ship to come nearer to the wind. Hence the ship sails on a bowline, or stands on a taut bowline.--_To check or come up a bowline_ is to slacken it when the wind becomes large or free.--_To sharp or set taut a bowline_ is to pull it as taut as it can well bear.
BOWLINE-BEND. The mode of bending warps or hawsers together by taking a bowline in the end of one rope, and passing the end of the other through the bight, and making a bowline upon it.
BOWLINE-BRIDLE. The span attached to the cringles on the leech of a square sail to which the bowline is toggled or clinched.