The Seaman's Friend Part 14

COLLAR. An eye in the end or bight of a shroud or stay, to go over the mast-head.

COME. _Come home_, said of an anchor when it is broken from the ground and drags.

_To come up_ a rope or tackle, is to slack it off.

COMPANION. A wooden covering over the staircase to a cabin.

_Companion-way_, the staircase to the cabin.

_Companion-ladder._ The ladder leading from the p.o.o.p to the main deck.

COMPa.s.s. The instrument which tells the course of a vessel.

_Compa.s.s-timbers_ are such as are curved or arched.

CONCLUDING-LINE. A small line leading through the centre of the steps of a rope or Jacob's ladder.

CONNING, or CUNNING. Directing the helmsman in steering a vessel.

COUNTER. (See PLATE 3.) That part of a vessel between the bottom of the stern and the wing-transom and b.u.t.tock.

_Counter-timbers_ are short timbers put in to strengthen the counter.

_To counter-brace_ yards, is to brace the head-yards one way and the after-yards another.

COURSES. The common term for the sails that hang from a s.h.i.+p's lower yards. The foresail is called the _fore course_ and the mainsail the _main course_.

CRANES. Pieces of iron or timber at the vessel's sides, used to stow boats or spars upon. A machine used at a wharf for hoisting.

CRANK. The condition of a vessel when she is inclined to lean over a great deal and cannot bear much sail. This may be owing to her construction or to her stowage.

CREEPER. An iron instrument, like a grapnell, with four claws, used for dragging the bottom of a harbor or river, to find anything lost.

CRINGLE. A short piece of rope with each end spliced into the bolt-rope of a sail, confining an iron ring or thimble.

CROSS-BARS. Round bars of iron, bent at each end, used as levers to turn the shank of an anchor.

CROSS-CHOCKS. Pieces of timber fayed across the dead-wood amids.h.i.+ps, to make good the deficiency of the heels of the lower futtocks.

CROSS-JACK. (p.r.o.nounced _croj-jack_.) The cross-jack yard is the lower yard on the mizzen mast. (See PLATE 1.)

CROSS-PAWLS. Pieces of timber that keep a vessel together while in her frames.

CROSS-PIECE. A piece of timber connecting two bitts.

CROSS-SPALES. Pieces of timber placed across a vessel, and nailed to the frames, to keep the sides together until the knees are bolted.

CROSS-TREES. (See PLATE 1.) Pieces of oak supported by the cheeks and trestle-trees, at the mast-heads, to sustain the tops on the lower mast, and to spread the topgallant rigging at the topmast-head.

CROW-FOOT. A number of small lines rove through the uvrou to suspend an awning by.

CROWN of an anchor, is the place where the arms are joined to the shank.

_To crown a knot_, is to pa.s.s the strands over and under each other above the knot. (See PLATE 5, page 46.)

CRUTCH. A knee or piece of knee-timber, placed inside of a vessel, to secure the heels of the cant-timbers abaft. Also, the chock upon which the spanker-boom rests when the sail is not set.

CUCKOLD'S NECK. A knot by which a rope is secured to a spar, the two parts of the rope crossing each other, and seized together.

CUDDY. A cabin in the fore part of a boat.

c.u.n.tLINE. The s.p.a.ce between the bilges of two casks, stowed side by side. Where one cask is set upon the c.u.n.tline between two others, they are stowed _bilge and c.u.n.tline_.

CUT-WATER. The foremost part of a vessel's prow, which projects forward of the bows.

CUTTER. A small boat. Also, a kind of sloop.

DAGGER. A piece of timber crossing all the puppets of the bilge-ways to keep them together.

_Dagger-knees._ Knees placed obliquely, to avoid a port.

DAVITS. Pieces of timber or iron, with sheaves or blocks at their ends, projecting over a vessel's sides or stern, to hoist boats up to. Also, a spar with a roller or sheave at its end, used for fis.h.i.+ng the anchor, called a _fish-davit_.

DEAD-EYE. A circular block of wood, with three holes through it, for the lanyards of rigging to reeve through, without sheaves, and with a groove round it for an iron strap. (See page 59.)

DEAD-FLAT. One of the bends, amids.h.i.+ps.

DEAD-LIGHTS. Ports placed in the cabin windows in bad weather.

DEAD RECKONING. A reckoning kept by observing a vessel's courses and distances by the log, to ascertain her position.

DEAD-RISING, OR RISING-LINE. Those parts of a vessel's floor, throughout her whole length, where the floor-timber is terminated upon the lower futtock.

DEAD-WATER. The eddy under a vessel's counter.

DEAD-WOOD. Blocks of timber, laid upon each end of the keel, where the vessel narrows.

DECK. The planked floor of a vessel, resting upon her beams.

DECK-STOPPER. A stopper used for securing the cable forward of the windla.s.s or capstan, while it is overhauled. (See STOPPER.)

DEEP-SEA-LEAD. (p.r.o.nounced _dipsey_.) (See page 17.) The lead used in sounding at great depths.

DEPARTURE. The easting or westing made by a vessel. The bearing of an object on the coast from which a vessel commences her dead reckoning.

DERRICK. A single spar, supported by stays and guys, to which a purchase is attached, used to unload vessels, and for hoisting.