CLAMS. Strong pieces used by shipwrights for drawing bolts, &c. Also, a kind of forceps used for bringing up specimens of the bottom in sounding; a drag. (_See_ CLAM.)
CLANG. The rattling or clashing of arms.
CLAP-BOARD [German, _klapp-bord_]. An east-country commercial plank, which ought to be upwards of 13 feet in length; cask-staves are also clap-boards. Clap-board, in the colonies, is the covering the side of a house with narrow boards, "lapping fashion," in contradistinction to shingling, or tiling, or clench-built.
CLAP-MATCH. A sort of seal, distinct from the fur-seal.
CLAP ON! The order to lay hold of any rope, in order to haul upon it. Also, to "Clap on the stoppers before the bitts," _i.e._ fasten the stoppers; or, "Clap on the cat-fall," _i.e._ lay hold of the cat-fall.--_To clap a stopper over all_, to stop a thing effectually; to clap on the stopper before the bitts next to the manger or hawse-hole; to order silence.--_To clap in irons_, to order an offender into the bilboes.--_To clap on canvas_, to make more sail.
CLAPPER. A name for the valve of a pump-box. Also, a plank or foot-bridge across a running stream; also, the clapper of a bell.
CLAP-SILL. The lockage of a flood-gate.
CLARTY. In north-country whalers, used for _wet_, _slippery_.
CLASHY. Showery weather.
CLASP-HOOK. An iron clasp, in two parts, moving upon the same pivot, and overlapping one another. Used for bending chain-sheets to the clues of sails, jib-halliards, &c. (_See_ SPAR-HOOK.)
CLASS. Order or rank; specially relating to dockyard men.
CLASSIFICATION OF SHIPS. A register made of vessels according to the report rendered in by special surveyors. (_See_ NAVY and LLOYD'S REGISTER.)
CLAW, OR CLAW OFF, TO. To beat, or turn to windward from a lee-shore, so as to be at sufficient distance from it to avoid shipwreck. It is generally used when getting to windward is difficult.
CLAYMORE. Anciently a two-handed sword of the Highlanders, but latterly applied to their basket-hilted sword.
CLEACHING NET. A hand-net with a hoop and bar, used by fishermen on the banks of the Severn.
CLEAN. Free from danger, as clean coast, clean harbour; in general parlance means quite, entirely. So Shakspeare represents AEgeon
"Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia."
Also, applied to a ship's hull with a fine run fore and aft.--_Clean entrance_, clean run.--_To clean a ship's bottom._ (_See_ BREAMING and HOG.)
CLEAN BILL. (_See_ BILL OF HEALTH.) When all are in health.
CLEAN DONE. Quite. In a seamanlike manner; purpose well effected; adroitly tricked. (_See_ WEATHERED.)
CLEAN-FISH. On the northern coasts, a salmon perfectly in season.
CLEAN-FULL. Keeping the sail full, bellying, off the wind.
CLEAN OFF THE REEL. When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted. Also, upright conduct. Also, any performance without stop or hindrance, off-hand.
CLEAN SHIP. A whale-ship unfortunate in her trip, having no fish or oil.
CLEAR. Is variously applied, to weather, sea-coasts, cordage, navigation, &c., as opposed to foggy, to dangerous, to entangled. It is usually opposed to _foul_ in all these senses.
CLEAR, TO. Has several significations, particularly to escape from, to unload, to empty, to prepare, &c., as:--_To clear for action._ To prepare for action.--_To clear away_ for this or that, is to get obstructions out of the way.--_To clear the decks._ To remove lumber, put things in their places, and coil down the ropes. Also, to take the things off a table after a meal.--_To clear goods._ To pay the custom-house dues and duties.--_To clear the land._ To escape from the land.--_To clear a lighter, or the hold._ To empty either.
CLEARANCE. The document from the customs, by which a vessel and her cargo, by entering all particulars at the custom-house, and paying the dues, is permitted to clear out or sail.
CLEAR FOR GOING ABOUT. Every man to his station, and every rope an-end.
CLEARING LIGHTERS. All vessels pertaining to public departments should be cleared with the utmost despatch.
CLEAR THE PENDANT. _See_ UP AND CLEAR THE PENDANT.
CLEAR WATER. A term in Polar seas implying no ice to obstruct navigation, well off the land, having sea-room.
CLEAT A GUN, TO. To nail large cleats under the trucks of the lower-deckers in bad weather, to insure their not fetching way.
CLEATS, OR CLEETS. Pieces of wood of different shapes used to fasten ropes upon: some have one and some two arms. They are called belaying cleat, deck-cleat, and a thumb-cleat. Also, small wedges of wood fastened on the yards, to keep ropes or the earing of the sail from slipping off the yard. Mostly made of elm or oak.
CLEAVAGE. The splitting of any body having a structure or line of cleavage: as fir cleaves longitudinally, slates horizontally, stones roughly, smoothly, conchoidal, or stratified, &c.
CLEFTS. Wood sawn lengthways into pieces less in thickness than in breadth. (_See_ PLANK.)
CLENCH, TO. To secure the end of a bolt by burring the point with a hammer. Also, a mode of securing the end of one rope to another. (_See_ CLINCH.)
CLENCHED BOLTS. Those fastened by means of a ring, or an iron plate, with a rivetting hammer at the end where they protrude through the wood, to prevent their drawing.
CLENCH-NAILS. They are much used in boat-building, being such as can be driven without splitting the boards, and drawn without breaking. (_See_ ROVE and CLENCH.)
CLEP. A north-country name for a small grapnel.
CLERK. Any naval officer doing the duty of a clerk.
CLETT. A northern or Erse word to express a rock broken from a cliff, as the holm in Orkney and Shetland.
CLEUGH. A precipice, a cliff. Also, a ravine or cleft.
CLEW. Of a hammock or cot. (_See_ CLUE.)
CLICKS. Small pieces of iron falling into a notched wheel attached to the winches in cutters, &c., and thereby serving the office of pauls. (_See_ RATCHET, or RATCHET-PAUL, in machinery.) It more peculiarly belongs to inferior clock-work, hence click.
CLIFF [from the Anglo-Saxon _cleof_]. A precipitous termination of the land, whatever be the soil. (_See_ CRAG.)
CLIMATE. Formerly meant a zone of the earth parallel to the equator, in which the days are of a certain length at the summer solstice. The term has now passed to the physical branch of geography, and means the general character of the weather.
CLINCH. A particular method of fastening large ropes by a half hitch, with the end stopped back to its own part by seizings; it is chiefly to fasten the hawsers suddenly to the rings of the kedges or small anchors; and the breechings of guns to the ring-bolts in the ship's side. Those parts of a rope or cable which are clinched. Thus the outer end is "bent" by the clinch to the ring of the anchor. The inner or tier-clinch in the good old times was clinched to the main-mast, passing under the tier beams (where it was unlawfully, as regards the custom of the navy, clinched). Thus "the cable runs out to the clinch," means, there is no more to veer.--_To clinch_ is to batter or rivet a bolt's end upon a ring or piece of plate iron; or to turn back the point of a nail that it may hold fast. (_See_ CLENCH.)
CLINCH A BUSINESS, TO. To finish it; to settle it beyond further dispute, as the recruit taking the shilling.
CLINCH-BUILT. Clinker, or overlapping edges.
CLINCHER. An incontrovertible and smart reply; but sometimes the confirmation of a story by a lie, or by some still more improbable yarn: synonymous with _capping_.
CLINCHER OR CLINKER BUILT. Made of clincher-work, by the planks lapping one over the other. The contrary of _carvel-work_. Iron ships after this fashion are distinguished as being _lap-jointed_.
CLINCHER-NAILS. Those which are of malleable metal, as copper, wrought iron, &c., which clinch by turning back the points in rough-built fir boats where roofs and clinching are thus avoided.
CLINCHER-WORK. The disposition of the planks in the side of any boat or vessel, when the lower edge of every plank overlaps that next below it. This is sometimes written as pronounced, _clinker-work_.
CLIPHOOK. A hook employed for some of the ends of the running rigging.
CLIPPER. A fast sailer, formerly chiefly applied to the sharp-built raking schooners of America, and latterly to Australian passenger-ships. Larger vessels now built after their model are termed clipper-built: sharp and fast; low in the water; rakish.
CLIVE. An old spelling of _cliff_.
CLOCK-CALM. When not a breath of wind ruffles the water.
CLOCK-STARS. A name for the nautical stars, which, from their positions having been very exactly ascertained, are used for determining time.
CLOD-HOPPER. A clownish lubberly landsman.
CLOKIE-DOO. A west of Scotland name for the horse-mackerel.
CLOSE-ABOARD. Near or alongside; too close to be safe. "The boat is close aboard," a caution to the officer in command to receive his visitor. "The land is close aboard," danger inferred.
CLOSE-BUTT. Where caulking is not used, the butts or joints of the planks are sometimes rabbeted, and fayed close, whence they are thus denominated.
CLOSE CONTRACT. One not advertised.