WIND-FALL. A violent gust of wind rushing from coast-ranges and mountains to the sea. Also, some piece of good luck, a turtle, fish, vegetables, or a prize.

WIND-GAGE. See Anemometer.

WIND-GALL. A luminous halo on the edge of a distant cloud, where there is rain, usually seen in the wind's eye, and looked upon as a sure precursor of stormy weather. Also, an atmospheric effect of prismatic colours, said likewise to indicate bad weather if seen to leeward.

WINDING A CALL. The act of blowing or piping on a boatswain's whistle, to communicate the necessary orders. (See Call.)

WINDING-TACKLE. A tackle formed of one fixed triple three-sheaved block, and one double or triple movable block. It is principally used to hoist any weighty materials, as the cannon, into or out of a ship.

WINDING-TACKLE PENDANT. A strong rope made fast to the lower mast-head, and forming the support of the winding-tackle.

WIND IN THE TEETH. Dead against a ship.

WINDLASS [from the Ang. -Sax. windles]. A machine erected in the fore-part of a ship which serves to ride by, as well as heave in the cable. It is composed of the carrick-heads or windlass-heads, which are secured to all the deck-beams beneath, and backed by long sleeper knees on deck.

The main-piece is whelped like the capstan, and suspended at its ends by powerful spindles falling into metal bearings in the carrick or windlass heads. Amidships it is supported by chocks, where it is also furnished with a course of windlass-pawls, four taking at separate angles on a main ratchet, and bearing on one quadrant of the circumference. The cables have three turns round this main-piece (one cable on each side): holes are cut for the windlass-bars in each eighth of the squared sides. The windlass may be said also to be supported or reinforced by the pawl-bitts, two powerful bitt-heads at the centre. —Spanish windlass.

A machine formed[734] of a handspike and a small lever, usually a tree-nail, or a tree-nail and a marline-spike, to set up the top-gallant rigging, heave in seizings, or for any other short steady purchase.

WINDLASS-BITTS. See Carrick-bitts.

WINDLASS-CHOCKS. Those pieces of oak or elm fastened inside the bows of small craft, to support the ends of the windlass.

WINDLASS-ENDS. Two pieces which continue the windlass outside the bitt-heads.

WINDLASS-LINING. Pieces of hard wood fitted round the main-piece of a windlass to prevent chafing, and also to enable the cable to hold on more firmly.

WINDLESTRAY. A sort of bent or seaside grass.

WINDLIPPER. The first effects of a breeze of wind on smooth water, before waves are raised.

WIND-RODE. A ship is wind-rode when the wind overcomes an opposite tidal force, and she rides head to wind.

WINDS. Local or peculiar. —Trade-winds occur within and beyond the tropical parallels. They are pretty regular in the North Atlantic, as far as 5° N. , where calms may be expected, or the south-east trade may reach across, depending on the season; but when near land they yield to the land and sea breezes.

Thus at 10° N. the land-breeze will be at E. from 11 P. M. until 6 A.

M. , then calm intervenes up to 10 A. M. , when the sea-breeze sets in, probably W. , and blows home fresh.

Yet at 20 miles off shore the trade-wind may blow pretty strong from N. E. or E. N. E.

—The harmattan is a sudden dry wind blowing off the coast of Africa, so charged with almost impalpable dust that the sun is obscured. It sucks up all moisture, cracks furniture and earthenware, and prostrates animal nature. The rigging of vessels becomes a dirty brown, and the dust adhering to the blacking cannot be removed. —The tornado lasts for a short time, but is of great force during its continuance. —The northers in the Gulf of Mexico, or off the Heads of Virginia, are not only very heavy gales, but are attended with severe cold.

On a December day, off Galveston, the temperature in a calm was at sunset 86°. The norther came on about midnight, and at 8 A. M. the temperature had fallen to 12°, and icicles were hanging from the eaves of the houses. The Tiempo di Vendavales, or southers of Western America, is an opposite, blowing heavily home to the coast.

The taifung of China, or typhoon of the Indian seas, is indeed precisely similar to the hurricane of the West Indies.

WIND-SAIL. A funnel of canvas employed to ventilate a ship by conveying a stream of fresh air down to the lower decks. It is suspended by a whip through the hatchways, and kept open by means of hoops; the upper part is also open on one side, and guyed to the wind. Ships of war in hot climates have generally three or four of these wind-sails.

WIND-TAUT. A vessel at anchor, heeling over to the force of the wind.

WIND-TIGHT. A cask or vessel to contain water is said to be wind-tight and water-tight.[735]

WINDWARD. The weather-side; that on which the wind blows; the opposite of leeward (which see). Old sailors exhort their neophytes to throw nothing over the weather-side except ashes or hot water: a hint not mistakable.

WINDWARD SAILING, or Turning to Windward. That mode of navigating a ship in which she endeavours to gain a position situated in the direction whence the wind is blowing. In this case progress is made by frequent tacking, and trimming sail as near as possible to the wind.

WINDWARD SET. The reverse of leeward set.

WINDWARD TIDE. See Weather-tide.

WINE OF HEIGHT. A former perquisite of seamen on getting safely through a particular navigation.

WING. The projecting part of a steamer's deck before and abaft each of the paddle-boxes, bounded by the wing-wale.

WING-AND-WING. A ship coming before the wind with studding-sails on both sides; also said of fore-and-aft vessels, when they are going with the wind right aft, the fore-sail boomed out on one side, and the main-sail on the other.

WINGERS. Small casks stowed close to the side in a ship's hold, where the large casks would cause too great a rising in that part of the tier.

WINGS. Those parts of the hold and orlop-deck which are nearest to the sides. This term is particularly used in the stowage of the several materials contained in the hold, and between the cable-tiers and the ship's sides. In ships of war they are usually kept clear, that the carpenter and his crew may have access round the ship to stop shot-holes in time of action. Also, the skirts or extremities of a fleet, when ranged in a line abreast, or when forming two sides of a triangle.

It is usual to extend the wings of a fleet in the daytime, in order to discover any enemy that may fall in their track; they are, however, generally summoned by signal to form close order before night. In military parlance, the right and left divisions of a force, whether these leave a centre division between them or not. —Wing-transom. The uppermost transom in the stern-frame, to which the heels of the counter-timbers are let on and bolted.

WING UP BALLAST, To. To carry the dead weight from the bottom as high as consistent with the stability of a ship, in order to ease her quick motion in rolling.

WING-WALE. A thick plank extending from the extremity of a steamer's paddle-beam to her side; it is also designated the sponson-rim.

WINNOLD-WEATHER. An eastern-county term for stormy March weather.

WINTER-FISH. This term generally alludes to cured cod and ling.

WINTER-QUARTERS. The towns or posts occupied during the winter by troops who quit the campaign for the season. Also, the harbour to which a blockading fleet retires in wintry gales. In Arctic parlance, the spot where ships are to remain housed during the winter months—from the 1st October to the 1st July or August.[736]

WINTER-SOLSTICE. See Capricornus.

WIPER. A cogged contrivance in machinery by which a rotatory motion is converted into a reciprocating motion.

WIPER-SHAFT. An application to the valve equipoise of a marine-engine: their journals or bearings lie in bushes, which are fixed upon the frame of the engine.

WIRE-MICROMETER. An instrument necessary for delicate astronomical measurements. It contains vertical and horizontal wires, or spider-lines, acting in front of a comb or scale for distances, and on a graduated circle on the screw-head for positions.

WIRE-ROPE. Rigging made of iron wire galvanized, and laid up like common cordage.

WISBUY LAWS. A maritime code which, though framed at a town in the now obscure island of Gothland, in the Baltic, was submissively adopted by Europe.

WISHES [from the British usk, water]. Low lands liable to be overflowed.

WISHY-WASHY. Any beverage too weak. Over-watered spirits.

WITH. An iron instrument fitted to the end of a boom or mast, with a ring to it, through which another boom or mast is rigged out and secured. Also, in mechanics, the elastic withe handles of cold chisels, set-tools, &c., which prevent a jar to the assistant's wrist.

WITH A WILL. Pull all together.

WITHERSHINS. See Widdershins.

WITHEYS. Any low places near rivers where willows grow.

WITHIN-BOARD. Inside a ship.

WITHOUT. Outside, as, studding-sail without studding-sail; or, without board, outside a ship.

WITH THE SUN. Ropes coiled from the left hand towards the right; but where the sun passes the meridian north of the observer, it is of course the reverse.

WITNESSES, or Temoins, are certain piles of earth left in digging docks, or other foundations, to judge how many cubic feet of earth have been removed.

WITTEE-WITTEE. The ingeniously-constructed fish-hook of the Pacific islanders, made of mother-of-pearl, with hair tufts, serving at once both as hook and bait.

WOARE. An old term for sea-weed. Also, the shore margin or beach.

WOBBLE, To. In mechanics, to sway or roll from side to side. (See Wabble.)

WOLD. An extensive plain, covered with grass and herbs, but bare of trees.

WOLF. A kind of fishing-net.

WOLF-FISH. Anarhichas lupus, also called cat-fish. A fish of the northern seas, from 2 to 3 feet long, with formidable teeth, with which it crushes the shells of the crustaceans and mollusks on which it feeds.[737]

WOLYING. The old way of spelling woolding.

WONDER-CHONE. An old term, mentioned by Blount as a contrivance for catching fish.

WONGS. A term on our east coast, synonymous with low lands or wishes (which see).

WOOD, To. A gun is said to wood when it takes the port-sills or port-sides, or the trucks the water-ways.—To wood. When wooding-parties are sent out to cut or procure wood for a ship.

WOOD AND WOOD. When two pieces of timber are so let into each other as to join close. Also, when a tree-nail is driven through, its point being even with the inside surface.

WOODEN BUOYS. Buoyant constructions of wood of various shapes, with a ring-bolt at each end, to which vessels can make fast for a time. (See Dolphin.)

WOOD-ENDS. See Hood-ends.

WOODEN WALLS. A term signifying the fleet, and though thought to be peculiarly English, was used by the Delphic oracle, when applied to by the Athenians on the Persian invasion: "Defend yourselves by wooden walls."

WOODEN-WINGS. The lee-boards, for keeping barges to windward.

WOOD-LOCKS of the Rudder. Pieces of timber sheathed with copper, in coppered ships, placed in the throating or scores of the stern-post, to prevent the rudder from rising or unshipping.

WOOD-MULLS. Large thick hose worn by the men in coasters and fishing-boats.

WOOD-SHEATHING. All plank applied to strengthen a vessel. (See Double.)

WOOF. A northern name of the gray gurnard.

WOOLDERS. Bandages. The bolt of a Spanish windlass is called a woolder.

WOOLDING. The act of winding a piece of rope about a mast or yard, to support it where it is fished, or when it is composed of several pieces. Also, the rope employed in this service.

WOOL-PACKS. In meteorology, light clouds in a blue sky.