CABLE-BENDS. Two small ropes for lashing 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 ship. 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 ships in a fleet are frequently estimated. This term is frequently misunderstood. In all marine charts a cable is deemed 607.56 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 ship 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 substitute 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 space 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 class. Properly, the younger son in French.
CADGE, TO. To carry.--_Cadger_, a carrier. Kedge may be a corruption, as being carriable.
CAESAR'S PENNY. The tip given by a recruiting sergeant.
CAFFILA. _See_ KAFILA.
CAGE. An iron cage formed of hoops on the top of a pole, and filled with combustibles to blaze for two hours. It is lighted one hour before high-water, and marks an intricate channel navigable for the period it burns; much used formerly by fishermen.
CAGE-WROCK. An old term for a ship's upper works.
CAIQUE, OR KAIQUE. A small Levantine vessel. Also, a graceful skiff seen in perfection at Constantinople, where it almost monopolizes the boat traffic. It is fast, but crank, being so narrow that the oars or sculls have their looms enlarged into ball-shaped masses to counter-balance their out-board length. It has borne for ages the wave-line now brought out in England as the highest result of marine architecture. It may have from one to ten or twelve rowers.
CAIRBAN. A name in the Hebrides for the basking-shark.
CAIRN. Piles of stones used as marks in surveying.
CAISSON, OR CAISSOON. An adopted term for a sort of float sunk to a required depth by letting water into it, when it is hauled under the ship's bottom, receives her steadily, and on pumping out the water floats her. These were long used in Holland, afterwards at Venice, and in Russia, where they were known as _camels_ (which see). Caisson is also a vessel fitted with valves, to act instead of gates for a dry dock. Used also in _pontoons_ (which see).
CAKE-ICE. Ice formed in the early part of the season.
CALABASH. _Cucurbita_, a gourd abundant within the tropics, furnishing drinking and washing utensils. At Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands they attain a diameter of 2 feet. There is also a calabash-tree, the fruit not exceeding the size of oranges.
CALABASS. An early kind of light musket with a wheel-lock. Bourne mentions it in 1578.
CALALOO. A dish of fish and vegetables.
CALAMUS. _See_ RATTAN.
CALANCA. A creek or cove on Italian and Spanish coasts.
CALAVANCES [_Phaseolus vulgaris._ _Haricot_, Fr.] Small beans sometimes used for soup, instead of pease.
CALCULATE, TO. This word, though disrated from respectability by American misuse, signified to foretell or prophesy; it is thus used by Shakspeare in the first act of "Julius Caesar." To calculate the ship's position, either from astronomical observations or rate of the log.
CALENDAR. A distribution of time. (_See_ ALMANAC.)
CALENDAR-TIME. On which officers' bills are drawn.
CALF. A word generally applied to the young of marine mammalia, as the whale.--_Calf_, in the Arctic regions, a mass of floe ice breaking from under a floe, which when disengaged rises with violence to the surface of the water; it differs from a tongue, which is the same body kept fixed beneath the main floe. The iceberg is formed by the repeated freezing of thawed snow running down over the slopes, until at length the wave from beneath and weight above causes it to break off and fall into the sea, or, as termed in Greenland, to calve. Thus, berg, is fresh-water ice, the work of years. The floe, is salt water frozen suddenly each winter, and dissolving in the summer.
CALF, OR CALVA. A Norwegian name, also used in the Hebrides, for islets lying off islands, and bearing a similar relation to them in size that a calf does to a cow. As the Calf at Mull and the Calf of Man.
CALFAT. The old word for caulking. [_Calfater_, Fr.; probably from _cale_, wedge, and _faire_, to make.] To wedge up an opening with any soft material, as oakum. [_Calafatear_, Sp.]
CALIBER, OR CALIBRE. The diameter of the bore of a gun, cannon, shot, or bullet. A ship's caliber means the known weight her armament represents.
CALIPASH. The upper shell of a turtle.
CALIPEE. The under shell of a turtle.
CALIVER. A hand-gun or arquebuss; probably the old name of the matchlock or carabine, precursors of the modern fire-lock, or Enfield rifle. (_See_ CALABASS.)
CALL. A peculiar silver pipe or whistle, used by the boatswain and his mates to attract attention, and summon the sailors to their meals or duties by various strains, each of them appropriated to some particular purpose, such as hoisting, heaving, lowering, veering away, belaying, letting go a tackle-fall, sweeping, &c. This piping is as attentively observed by sailors, as the bugle or beat of drum is obeyed by soldiers. The coxswains of the boats of French ships of war are supplied with calls to "in bow oar," or "of all," "oars," &c.
CALLIPERS. Bow-legged compasses, used to measure the girth of timber, the external diameter of masts, shot, and other circular or cylindrical substances. Also, an instrument with a sliding leg, used for measuring the packages constituting a ship's cargo, which is paid for by its cubical contents.
CALL THE WATCH. This is done every four hours, except at the dog-watches, to relieve those on deck, also by pipe. "All the watch," or all the starboard, or the port, first, second, third, or fourth watches.
CALM. There being no wind stirring it is designated flat, dead, or stark, under each of which the surface of the sea is unruffled.
CALM LATITUDES. That tropical tract of ocean which lies between the north-east and south-east trade-winds; its situation varies several degrees, depending upon the season of the year. The term is also applied to a part of the sea on the Polar side of the trades, between them and the westerly winds.
CALVERED SALMON. Salmon prepared in a peculiar manner in early times.
CALVE'S TONGUE. A sort of moulding usually made at the caps and bases of round pillars, to taper or hance the round part to the square.
CAMBER. The part of a dockyard where cambering is performed, and timber kept. Also, a small dock in the royal yards, for the convenience of loading and discharging timber. Also, anything that curves upwards.--_To camber_, to curve ship-planks.