SHAFT OF A MINE. The narrow perpendicular pit by which the gallery is entered, and from which the branches of the mine diverge.

SHAG. A small species of cormorant, Phalacrocorax graculus.

SHAG-BUSH. An old term for a harquebus, or hand-gun.

SHAKE, To. To cast off fastenings, as—To shake out a reef. To let out a reef, and enlarge the sail. —To shake off a bonnet of a fore-and-aft sail. —To shake a cask.

To take it to pieces, and pack up the parts, then termed "shakes. " Thus the term expressing little value, "No great shakes.

SHAKE IN THE WIND, To. To bring a vessel's head so near the wind, when close-hauled, as to shiver the sails.

SHAKES. A name given by shipwrights to the cracks or rents in any piece of timber, occasioned by the sun or weather. The same as rends or shans (which see).

SHAKING A CLOTH IN THE WIND. In galley parlance, expresses the being slightly intoxicated.

SHAKINGS. Refuse of cordage, canvas, &c., used for making oakum, paper, &c.

SHALLOP, Shalloop, or Sloop. A small light fishing vessel, with only a small main-mast and fore-mast for lug-sails. They are commonly good sailers, and are therefore often used as tenders to men-of-war. Also, a large heavy undecked boat, with one mast, fore-and-aft main-sail, and jib-foresail. The gunboats on the French coasts were frequently termed chaloupes, and carried one heavy gun, with a crew of 40 men.

Also, a small boat rowed by one or two men.

SHALLOWS. A continuation of shoal water.[611]

SHALLOW-WAISTED. Flush-decked vessels are thus termed, in contradistinction to the deep-waisted.

SHAN. A defect in spars, most commonly from bad collared knots; an injurious compression of fibres in timber: the turning out of the cortical layers when the plank has been sawed obliquely to the central axis of the tree.

SHANK. An arrangement of deep-water fishing lines. Also, a handle or shaft. Also the bar or shaft of an anchor, constituting its main piece, at one end of which the stock is fixed, and at the other the arms.

SHANK-PAINTER. The stopper which confines the shank of the anchor to the ship's side, and prevents the flukes from flying off the bill-board. Where the bill-board is not used, it bears the weight of the fluke end of the anchor.

SHANTY. A small hut on or near a beach.

SHAPE. The lines and form of a vessel.—To shape a course. To assign the route to be steered in order to prosecute a voyage.

SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE. The golden rule of all messes at sea.

SHARK. A name applied to many species of large cartilaginous fish of the family Squalidæ. Their ferocity and voracity are proverbial. Also, applied to crimps, sharpers, and low attorneys.

SHARP. Prompt and attentive. —Be sharp! Make haste. —Look sharp!

Lose no time. Also, an old term for a sword.

SHARP BOTTOM. Synonymous with a sharp floor; used in contradistinction to a flat floor: the epithet denotes vessels intended for quick sailing.

SHARP LOOK-OUT BEFORE! The hail for the forecastle look-out men to be extremely vigilant.

SHARP UP. Trimmed as near as possible to the wind, with the yards braced up nearly fore and aft.

SHAVE. A close run; a narrow escape from a collision.

SHEAF. A bundle of arrows, as formerly supplied to our royal ships.

SHEAL. A northern term for a fisherman's hut, whence several of them together became sheals or shields.

SHEAR. An iron spear, of three or more points, for catching eels.

SHEAR-HOOKS. A kind of sickle formerly applied to the yard-arms, for cutting the rigging of a vessel running on board.

SHEARS. See Sheers.

SHEAR-WATER. A sea-fowl, Puffinus anglorum.

SHEATHING. Thin boards formerly placed between the ship's body and the sheets of copper, to protect the planks from the pernicious effects of the worm. Tar and hair, or brown paper dipped in tar and oil, is laid between the sheathing and the bottom. In 1613 a junk of 800 or 1000 tons was seen in Japan all sheeted with iron; and yet it was not attempted in Europe till more than a hundred years afterwards. But by 1783 ships of every class were coppered.

SHEATHING-NAILS. These are used to fasten wood-sheathing, and[612] prevent the filling-nails from tearing it too much. Those used for copper-sheathing are of mixed metal, cast in moulds about one inch and a quarter long. The heads are flat on the upper side, and counter-sunk below, with the upper side polished to prevent the adhesion of weeds.

SHEAVE. The wheel on which the rope works in a block; it is generally formed of lignum vitæ, sometimes of brass, and frequently of both; the interior part, or that which sustains the friction against the pin, being of brass, let into the exterior, which is of lignum vitæ, and is then termed a sheave with a brass coak, bouche, or bush. The name also applies to a cylindrical wheel made of hard wood, movable round a stout pin as its axis; it is let through the side and chess-trees for leading the tacks and sheets. Also, the number of tiers in coiling cables and hawsers.

SHEAVE-HOLE. A channel cut in masts, yards, or timber, in which to fix a sheave, and answering the place of a block. It is also the groove cut in a block for the ropes to reeve through.

SHEBEEN. A low public-house, yet a sort of sailor trap.

SHED. A pent-house or cover for the ship's artificers to work under.

SHEDDE. An archaic term for the slope of a hill.

SHEDDERS. Female salmon. (See Foul Fish.)

SHEDELE. A channel of water.

SHEEN-NET. A large drag-net.

SHEEPSHANK. A hitch or bend made on a rope to shorten it temporarily; and particularly used on runners, to prevent the tackle from coming block and block. It consists in making two long bights in a rope, which shall overlay one another; then taking a half hitch over the end of each bight, with the standing part, which is next to it.

SHEER. The longitudinal curve of a ship's decks or sides; the hanging of the vessel's side in a fore-and-aft direction. Also, a fishing-spear in use on the south coast. (See Shear.) Also, the position in which a ship is sometimes kept when at single anchor, in order to keep her clear of it [evidently from the Erse sheebh, to drift].

SHEER, To Break. To deviate from that position, and thereby risk fouling the anchor. Thus a vessel riding with short scope of cable breaks her sheer, and bringing the force of the whole length of the ship at right angles, tears the anchor out of the ground, and drifts into deep water.

SHEER-BATTEN. A batten stretched horizontally along the shrouds, and seized firmly above each of their dead-eyes, serving to prevent the dead-eyes from turning at that part. This is also termed a stretcher.

SHEER-DRAUGHT. In ship-building, a section supposed to be cut by a plane passing through the middle line of the keel, the stem, and the stern-post: it is also called the plan of elevation, and it exhibits the out-board works, as the wales, sheer-rails, ports, drifts, height of water-line, &c.

SHEERED. Built with a curved sheer. (See Moon-sheered.)

SHEER-HULK. An old ship fitted with sheers, &c., and used for taking out and putting in the masts of other vessels.[613]

SHEERING. The act of deviating from the line of the course, so as to form a crooked and irregular path through the water; this may be occasioned by the ship's being difficult to steer, but more frequently arises from the negligence or incapacity of the helmsman. For sheering or shearing in polar seas, see Lapping.

SHEER-LASHING. Middle the rope, and pass a good turn round both legs at the cross. Then take one end up and the other down, around and over the cross, until half of the lashing is thus expended; then ride both ends back again on their own parts, and knot them in the middle. Frap the first and riding turns together on each side with sennit.

SHEER-MAST. The peculiar rig of the rafts on the Guayaquil river; also of the piratical prahus of the eastern seas, and which might be imitated in some of our small craft with advantage: having a pair of sheers (instead of a single mast) within which the fore-and-aft main-sail works, or is hoisted or slung.

SHEER-MOULD. Synonymous with ram-line (which see).

SHEER OFF, To. To move to a greater distance, or to steer so as to keep clear of a vessel or other object.

SHEER-PLAN. The draught of the side of a proposed ship, showing the length, depth, rake, water-lines, &c.

SHEER-RAIL. The wrought-rail generally placed well with the sheer or top-timber line; the narrow ornamental moulding along the top-side, parallel to the sheer.

SHEERS. Two or more spars, raised at angles, lashed together near their upper ends, and supported by guys; used for raising or taking in heavy weights. Also, to hoist in or get out the lower masts of a ship; they are either placed on the side of a quay or wharf, on board of an old ship cut down (see Sheer-hulk), or erected in the vessel wherein the mast is to be planted or displaced, the lower ends of the props resting on the opposite sides of the deck, and the upper parts being fastened together across, from which a tackle depends; this sort of sheers is secured by stages extending to the stem and stern of the vessel.

SHEER-SAIL. A drift-sail.

SHEER TO THE ANCHOR, To. To direct the ship's bows by the helm to the place where the anchor lies, while the cable is being hove in.

SHEER UP ALONGSIDE, To. To approach a ship or other object in an oblique direction.

SHEER-WALES. Strakes of thick stuff in the top-sides of three-decked ships, between the middle and upper deck-ports. Synonymous with middle-wales.

SHEET. A rope or chain fastened to one or both the lower corners of a sail, to extend and retain the clue down to its place. When a ship sails with a side wind, the lower corners of the main and fore sails are fastened by a tack and a sheet, the former being to windward, and the latter to leeward; the tack is, however, only disused with a stern wind, whereas the sail is never spread without the assistance of one or both of the[614] sheets; the staysails and studding-sails have only one tack and one sheet each; the staysail-tacks are fastened forward, and the sheets drawn aft; but the studding-sail tacks draw to the extremity of the boom, while the sheet is employed to extend the inner corner.

SHEET-ANCHOR. One of four bower anchors supplied, two at the bows, and one at either chest-tree abaft the fore-rigging; one is termed the sheet, the other the spare anchor; usually got ready in a gale to let go on the parting of a bower. To a sheet anchor a stout hempen cable is generally bent, as lightening the strain at the bow, and being more elastic.

SHEET-BEND. A sort of double hitch, made by passing the end of one rope through the bight of another, round both parts of the other, and under its own part.

SHEET-CABLE. A hempen cable used when riding in deep water, where the weight of a chain cable would oppress a ship.

SHEET-COPPER. Copper rolled out into sheets, for the sheathing of ships' bottoms, &c.

SHEET-FISH. The Silurus glanis, a large fish found in many European rivers and lakes.

SHEET HOME! The order, after the sails are loosed, to extend the sheets to the outer extremities of the yards, till the clue is close to the sheet-block. Also, when driving anything home, as a blow, &c.

SHEET IN THE WIND. Half intoxicated; as the sail trembles and is unsteady, so is a drunken man.

SHELDRAKE. The Anas tadorna, a large species of wild duck.