DOBBIN. A phrase on our southern coasts for sea-gravel mixed with sand.

DOCK. An artificial receptacle for shipping, in which they can discharge or take in cargo, and refit. —A dry dock is a broad and deep trench, formed on the side of a harbour, or on the banks of a river, and commodiously fitted either to build ships in or to receive them to be repaired[254] or breamed. They have strong flood-gates, to prevent the flux of the tide from entering while the ship is under repair. There are likewise docks where a ship can only be cleaned during the recess of the tide, as she floats again on the return of the flood.

Docks of the latter kind are not furnished with the usual flood-gates; but the term is also used for what is more appropriately called a float (which see). Also, in polar parlance, an opening cut out of an ice-floe, into which a ship is warped for security.

DOCK-DUES. The charges made upon shipping for the use of docks.

DOCKERS. Inhabitants of the town which sprang up between the docks and the town of Plymouth. Dock solicited and obtained the royal license, in 1823, to be called Devonport—a very inappropriate name, Plymouth being wholly within the county of Devon, while Hamoaze is equally in Devon and Cornwall.

DOCK HERSELF, To. When a ship is on the ooze, and swaddles a bed, she is said to dock herself.

DOCKING A SHIP. The act of drawing her into dock, and placing her properly on blocks, in order to give her the required repair, cleanse the bottom, and cover it anew. (See Breaming.)

DOCK UP, OR DUCK UP. To clue up a corner of a sail that hinders the helmsman from seeing.

DOCKYARD DUTY. The attendance of a lieutenant and party in the arsenal, for stowing, procuring stores, &c.

DOCKYARD MATIES. The artificers in a dockyard. In former times an established declaration of war between the mates and midshipmen versus the maties was hotly kept up. Many deaths and injuries never disclosed were hushed up or patiently borne. It terminated about 1830.

DOCKYARDS. Arsenals containing all sorts of naval stores and timber for ship-building. In England the royal dockyards are at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Devonport, Pembroke. Those in our colonies are at the Cape of Good Hope, Gibraltar, Malta, Bermuda, Halifax, Jamaica, Antigua, Trincomalee, and Hong Kong. There Her Majesty's ships and vessels of war are generally moored during peace, and such as want repairing are taken into the docks, examined, and refitted for service.

These yards are generally supplied from the north with hemp, pitch, tar, rosin, canvas, oak-plank, and several other species of stores. The largest masts are usually imported from New England. Until 1831 these yards were governed by a commissioner resident at the port, who superintended all the musters of the officers, artificers, and labourers employed in the dockyard and ordinary; he also controlled their payment, examined their accounts, contracted and drew bills on the Navy Office to supply the deficiency of stores, and, finally, regulated whatever belonged to the dockyard. In 1831 the commissioners of the Navy were abolished, and admirals and captains superintendent command the dockyards under the controller of the Navy and the Admiralty.

DOCTOR. A name which seamen apply to every medical officer. Also, a jocular name for the ship's cook.

DOCTOR'S LIST. The roll of those excused from duty by reason of illness.

DODD. A round-topped hill, generally an offshoot from a higher mountain.

DODECAGON. A regular polygon, having twelve sides and as many angles.

DODECATIMORIA. The anastrous signs, or twelve portions of the ecliptic which the signs anciently occupied, but have since deserted by the precession of the equinoxes.

DODGE. A homely but expressive phrase for shuffling conduct, or cunning of purpose. Also, to watch or follow a ship from place to place.

DODMAN. A shell-fish with a hod-like lump. A sea-snail, otherwise called hodmandod.

DOFF, To. To put aside.

DO FOR, To. A double-barrelled expression, meaning alike to take care of or provide for an individual, or to ruin or kill him.

DOG. The hammer of a fire-lock or pistol; that which holds the flint, called also dog-head. Also, a sort of iron hook or bar with a sharp fang at one end, so as to be easily driven into a piece of timber, and drag it along by means of a rope fastened to it, upon which a number of men can pull. Dog is also an iron implement with a fang at each end, to be driven into two pieces of timber, to support and steady one of them while being dubbed, hewn, or sawn. —Span-dogs.

Used to lift timber. A pair of dogs linked together, and being hooked at an extended angle, press home with greater strain.

DOG-BITCH-THIMBLE. An excellent contrivance by which the topsail-sheet-block is prevented making the half cant or turn so frequently seen in the clue when the block is secured there.

DOG-BOLT. A cap square bolt.

DOG-DRAVE. A kind of sea-fish mentioned in early charters.

DOG-FISH. A name commonly applied to several small species of the shark family.

DOGG. A small silver coin of the West Indies, six of which make a bitt. Also, in meteorology, see Stubb.

DOGGED. A mode of attaching a rope to a spar or cable, in contradistinction to racking, by which slipping is prevented; half-hitched and end stopped back, is one mode.

DOGGER. A Dutch smack of about 150 tons, navigated in the German Ocean. It is mostly equipped with a main and a mizen mast, and somewhat resembles a ketch or a galliot. It is principally used for fishing on the Dogger Bank.

DOGGER-FISH. Fish bought out of the Dutch doggers.

DOGGER-MEN. The seafaring fishermen belonging to doggers.

DOGS. The last supports knocked away at the launching of a ship.[256]

DOG'S-BODY. Dried pease boiled in a cloth.

DOG-SHORES. Two long square blocks of timber, resting diagonally with their heads to the cleats. They are placed forward to support the bilge-ways on the ground-ways, thereby preventing the ship from starting off the slips while the keel-blocks are being taken out.

DOG-SLEEP. The uncomfortable fitful naps taken when all hands are kept up by stress.

DOG'S TAIL. A name for the constellation Ursa Minor or Little Bear.

DOG-STOPPER. Put on before all to enable the men to bit the cable, sometimes to fleet the messenger.

DOG-TONGUE. A name assigned to a kind of sole.

DOG-VANE. A small vane made of thread, cork, and feathers, or buntin, fastened on the end of a half-pike, and placed on the weather gunwale, so as to be readily seen, and show the direction of the wind. The term is also familiarly applied to a cockade.

DOG-WATCH. The half-watches of two hours each, from 4 to 6, and from 6 to 8, in the evening. By this arrangement an uneven number of watches is made—seven instead of six in the twenty-four hours; otherwise there would be a succession of the same watches at the same hours throughout the voyage or cruise. Theodore Hook explained them as cur-tailed. (See Watch.)

DOIT. A small Dutch coin, valued at about half a farthing; formerly current on our eastern shores.

DOLDRUMS. Those parts of the sea where calms are known to prevail. They exist between and on the polar sides of the trade-winds, but vary their position many degrees of latitude in the course of the year, depending upon the sun's declination. Also applied to a person in low spirits.

DOLE. A stated allowance; but applied to a scanty share or portion.

DOLE-FISH. The share of fish that was given to our northern fishermen as part payment for their labour.

DOLING. A fishing-boat with two masts, on the coasts of Sussex and Kent; each of the masts carries a sprit-sail.

DO-LITTLE, OR DO-LITTLE SWORD. The old term for a dirk.

DOLLAR. For this universally known coin, see Piece of Eight.

DOLLOP. An old word for a lump, portion, or share. From the Gaelic diolab.

DOLPHIN. Naturalists understand by this word numerous species of small cetaceous animals of the genus Delphinus, found in nearly all seas. They greatly resemble porpoises, and are often called by this name by sailors; but they are distinguished by having a longer and more slender snout. The word is also generally, but less correctly, applied to a fish, the dorado (Coryphæna hippuris), celebrated for the changing hues of its surface when dying. Also, a small light ancient boat, which gave rise to Pliny's story of the boy going daily to school across the Lucrine lake on a dolphin.

Also, in ordnance, especially brass guns, two handles nearly over the trunnions for lifting the guns by. Also, a French gold coin[257] (dauphine), formerly in great currency. Also, a stout post on a quay-head, or in a beach, to make hawsers fast to. The name is also given to a spar or block of wood, with a ring-bolt at each end, through which a hawser can be rove, for vessels to ride by; the same as wooden buoys.

DOLPHIN OF THE MAST. A kind of wreath or strap formed of plaited cordage, to be fastened occasionally round the lower yards to prevent nip, or as a support to the puddening, where the lower yards rest in the sling, the use of which is to sustain the fore and main yards by the jeers, in case the rigging or chains, by which those yards are suspended, should be shot away in action. (See Puddening.)

DOLPHIN-STRIKER. A short perpendicular gaff spar, under the bowsprit-end, for guying down the jib-boom, of which indeed it is the chief support, by means of the martingales. (See Martingale.)

DOLVER. The reclaimed fen-grounds of our eastern coasts.

DOMESTIC NAVIGATION. A term applied to coasting trade.

DOMINIONS. It is a settled point that a conquered country forms immediately a part of the king's dominions; and a condemnation of ships within its harbours as droits of admiralty, is valid, although the conquest may not yet have been confirmed by treaty.

DON. A general name for Spaniards. One of the "perfumed" terms of its time.—To don. To put on.

DONDERBASS. See Bombard.

DONEY. The doney of the Coromandel coast is about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 12 feet deep; with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet, and diminishes to 10 inches in the siding of the stem and stern-post. The fore and after bodies are similar in form from midships. Their light draught of water is about 4 feet, and when loaded about 9 feet. These unshapely vessels in the fine season trade from Madras and Ceylon, and many of them to the Gulf of Manar, as the water is shoal between Ceylon and the southern part of the continent.

They have only one mast, and are navigated by the natives in the rudest way; their means for finding the latitude being a little square board, with a string fast to the centre, at the other end of which are certain knots. The upper edge of the board is held by one hand so as to touch the north star, and the lower edge the horizon. Then the string is brought with the other hand to touch the tip of the nose, and the knot which comes in contact with the tip of the nose tells the latitude.

DONJON. The keep, or place of retreat, in old fortifications. A redoubt of a fortress; the highest and strongest tower.

DONKEY-ENGINE. An auxiliary steam-engine for feeding the boilers of the principal engine when they are stopped; or for any other duties independent of the ship's propelling engines.

DONKEY-FRIGATE. Those of 28 guns, frigate-built; that is, having guns protected by an upper deck, with guns on the quarter-deck and forecastle; ship-sloops, in contradistinction to corvettes and sloops.

DONNY. A small fishing-net.[258]

DOOLAH. A passage-boat on the Canton river.

DOOTED. Timber rendered unsound by fissures.