CRAKERS. Choice soldiers (_temp._ Henry VIII.) Perhaps managers of the crakys, and therefore early artillery.
CRAKYS. An old term for great guns.
CRAMP. A machine to facilitate the screwing of two pieces of timber together.
CRAMPER. A yarn or twine worn round the leg as a remedy against cramp.
CRAMPETS. The cramp rings of a sword scabbard. Ferrule to a staff.
CRAMPINGS. A nautical phrase to express the fetters and bolts for offenders.
CRAMPOON. _See_ CREEPER.
CRANAGE. The money paid for the use of a wharf crane. Also, the permission to use a crane at any wharf or pier.
CRANCE. A sort of iron cap on the outer end of the bowsprit, through which the jib-boom traverses. The name is not unfrequently applied to any boom-iron.
CRANE. A machine for raising and lowering great weights, by which timber and stores are hoisted upon wharfs, &c. Also, a kind of catapult for casting stones in ancient warfare. Also, pieces of iron, or timber at a vessel's sides, used to stow boats or spars upon. Also, as many fresh or green unsalted herrings as would fill a barrel.
CRANE-BARGE. A low flat-floored lump, fitted for the purpose of carrying a crane, in aid of marine works.
CRANE-LINES. Those which formerly went from the spritsail-topmast to the middle of the fore-stay, serving to steady the former. Also, small lines for keeping the lee backstays from chafing against the yards.
CRANG. The carcass of a whale after being flinched or the blubber stripped off.
CRANK, OR CRANK-SIDED. A vessel, by her construction or her stowage, inclined to lean over a great deal, or from insufficient ballast or cargo incapable of carrying sail, without danger of overturning. The opposite term is _stiff_, or the quality of standing well up to her canvas.--_Cranky_ expresses a foolish capriciousness. Ships built too deep in proportion to their breadth are notoriously crank.--_Crank by the ground_, is a ship whose floor is so narrow that she cannot be brought on the ground without danger.
CRANK-HATCHES. Are raised coamings on a steamer's deck, to form coverings for the cranks of the engines below.
CRANK-PIN. In steam machinery, it goes through both arms of the crank at their extremities; to this pin the connecting-rod is attached.
CRANKS OF A MARINE ENGINE; eccentric, as in a turning-lathe. The bend or knee pinned on the shafts, by which they are moved round with a circular motion. Also, iron handles for working pumps, windlasses, &c. Also, erect iron forks on the quarter-deck for the capstan-bars, or other things, to be stowed thereon. Also, the axis and handle of a grindstone. Also, an old term for the sudden or frequent involutions of the planets in their orbits.
CRANK-SHAFT. In a steamer. (_See_ INTERMEDIATE SHAFT.)
CRAPPO, OR GENERAL CRAPAUD. Jack's name for a Frenchman, one whom he thinks would be a better sailor if he would but talk English instead of French.
CRARE, OR CRAYER. A slow unwieldy trading vessel of olden times. Thus Shakspeare, in _Cymbeline_, with hydrographic parlance:--
"Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? Find The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in?"
CRATER OF A MINE. Synonymous with _funnel_ (which see).
CRAVAISE. An Anglo-Norman word for cray-fish.
CRAVEN. An old term synonymous with _recreant_ (which see).
CRAWL. A sort of pen, formed by a barrier of stakes and hurdles on the sea-coast, to contain fish or turtle. On the coast of Africa, a pen for slaves awaiting shipment.
CRAWLING OFF. Working off a lee-shore by slow degrees.
CRAY-FISH. A lobster-like crustacean (_Astacus fluviatilis_) found in fresh-water.
CRAZY. Said of a ship in a bad state.
CREAK. The straining noise made by timbers, cabin bulk-heads, and spars in rolling.
CREAR. A kind of Scotch lighter. (_See_ CRARE.)
CREEK. A narrow inlet of the sea shoaling suddenly. Also, the channels connecting the several branches of a river and lake islands, and one lake or lagoon with another. It differs from a cove, in being proportionately deeper and narrower. In law, it is part of a haven where anything is landed from the sea.
CREEL, OR CRUE, for fishing. _See_ KREEL.
CREENGAL. _See_ CRINGLE.
CREEPER. A small grapnel (iron instrument with four claws) for dragging for articles dropped overboard in harbour. When anything falls, a dish or other white object thrown immediately after it will greatly guide the creeping.
CREES. _See_ KRIS.
CREMAILLEE. More commonly called _indented_ (which see), with regard to lines or parapets.
CRENELLE. A loop-hole in a fortress.
CRENG. _See_ KRANG.
CREOLE. This term applies in the West Indies and Spanish America, &c., to a person of European and unmixed origin, but colonial born.
CREPUSCULUM. _See_ TWILIGHT.
CRESPIE. A northern term for a small whale or a grampus.
CRESSET. A beacon light set on a watch-tower.
CRESSIT. A small crease or dagger.
CREST. The highest part of a mountain, or range of mountains, and the summit of a sea-wave.
CREW. Comprehends every officer and man on board ship, borne as complement on the books. There are in ships of war several particular crews or gangs, as the gunner's, carpenter's, sail-maker's, blacksmith's, armourer's, and cooper's crews.
CRIB. A small berth in a packet.
CRICK. A small jack-screw.
CRIMPS. Detested agents who trepan seamen, by treating, advancing money, &c., by which the dupes become indebted, and when well plied with liquor are induced to sign articles, and are shipped off, only discovering their mistake on finding themselves at sea robbed of all they possessed.
CRINGLE. A short piece of rope worked grommet fashion into the bolt-rope of a sail, and containing a metal ring or thimble. The use of the cringle is generally to hold the end of some rope, which is fastened thereto for the purpose of drawing up the sail to its yard, or extending the skirts or leech by means of bowline _bridles_, to stand upon a side-wind. The word seems to be derived from the old English _crencled_, or circularly formed. Cringles should be made of the strands of new bolt-rope. Those for the reef and reef-tackle pendant are stuck through holes made in the tablings.
CRINKYL. The cringle or loop in the leech of a sail.
CRIPPLE, TO. To disable an enemy's ship by wounding his masts, yards, and steerage gear, thereby placing him _hors de combat_.
CRISS-CROSS. The mark of a man who cannot write his name.
CROAKER. A tropical fish which makes a _cris-cris_ noise.
CROAKY. A term applied to plank when it curves much in short lengths.
CROCHERT. A hagbut or hand cannon, anciently in use.
CROCK [Anglo-Saxon, _croca_]. An earthen mess-vessel, and the usual vegetables were called crock-herbs. In the _Faerie Queene_ Spenser cites the utensil:--
"Therefore the vulgar did aboute him flocke, Like foolish flies about an honey-crocke."
CROCODILES. A designation for those who served in Egypt under Lord Keith.
CROJEK. The mode of pronouncing _cross-jack_ (which see).
CRONNAG. In the Manx and Erse, signifies a rock that can be seen before low-water.
CROOKED-CATCH. An iron implement bent in the form of the letter S.
CROOKS. _Crooked timbers._ Short arms or branches of trees.
CROONER. The gray gurnard (_Trigla gurnardus_), so called on account of the creaking noise it makes after being taken.
CROSS-BARS. Round bars of iron, bent at each end, used as levers to turn the shank of an anchor.
CROSS-BAR-SHOT. The famed cross-bar-shot, or properly _bar-shot_, used by the Americans: when folded it presented a bar or complete shot, and could thus be placed in the gun. But as it left the muzzle it expanded to a cross, with four quarters of a shot at its radial points. It was used to destroy the rigging as well as do execution amongst men.
CROSS-BITT. The same as _cross-piece_ (which see).
CROSS-BORED. Bored with holes alternately on the edges of planks, to separate the fastenings, so as to avoid splitting the timbers or beams.
CROSS-BOW. An ancient weapon of our fleet, when also in use on shore.
CROSS-CHOCKS. Large pieces of timber fayed across the dead-wood amidships, to make good the deficiency of the heels of the lower futtocks.
CROSS-FISH. A northern name for the _asterias_ or star-fish; so called from the Norwegian _kors-fisk_. Also, the _Uraster rubens_.
CROSS-GRAINED. Not straight-grained as in good wood; hence the perverse and vexatious disposition of the ne'er-do-wells. As Cotton's _Juno_--
"That cross-grained, peevish, scolding queen."
CROSS-HEAD. In a steamer's engine, is on the top of the piston-rod athwart the cylinder; and there is another fitted to the air-pump, both having side-rods. (_See_ CYLINDER CROSS-HEAD.)
CROSSING A SHIP'S WAKE. When a ship sails over the transient track which another has just passed, _i.e._ passes close astern of her.
CROSSING THE CABLES IN THE HATCHWAY. A method by which the operation of coiling is facilitated; it alludes to hempen cables, which are now seldom used.
CROSS IN THE HAWSE. Is when a ship moored with two anchors from the bows has swung the wrong way once, whereby the two cables lie across each other.--_To cross a vessel's hawse_ is to sail across the line of her course, a little ahead of her.