WHEEL. A general name for the helm, by which the tiller and rudder[729] are worked in steering the ship; it has a barrel, round which the tiller-ropes or chains wind, and a wheel with spokes to assist in moving it.

WHEEL AND AXLE. A well-known mechanical power, to which belong all turning or wheel machines, as cranes, capstans, windlasses, cranks, &c.

WHEEL-HOUSE. A small round-house erected in some ships over the steering-wheel for the shelter of the helmsman.

WHEEL-LOCK. A small machine attached to the old musket for producing sparks of fire.

WHEEL-ROPES. Ropes rove through a block on each side of the deck, and led round the barrel of the steering-wheel. Chains are also used for this purpose.

WHEELS. See Trucks.

WHEFT. More commonly written waft (which see). Although wheft is given in the official signal-book, bibliophilists ignore the term.

WHELK. A well-known shell-fish, Buccinum undatum.

WHELPS. The brackets or projecting parts which rise out of the barrel or main body of the capstan, like buttresses, to enlarge the sweep, so that a greater portion of the cable, or whatever rope encircles the barrel, may be wound about it at one turn without adding much to the weight of the capstan. The whelps reach downwards from the lower part of the drumhead to the deck. The pieces of wood bolted on the main-piece of a windlass, or on a winch, for firm holding, and to prevent chafing, are also called whelps.

WHERE AWAY? In what bearing? a question to the man at the mast-head to designate in what direction a strange sail lies.

WHERRY. A name descended from the Roman horia, the oare of our early writers. It is now given to a sharp, light, and shallow boat used in rivers and harbours for passengers. The wherries allowed to ply about London are either scullers worked by one man with two sculls, or by two men, each pulling an oar. Also, a decked vessel used in fishing in different parts of Great Britain and Ireland: numbers of them were notorious smugglers.

WHETHER OR NO, TOM COLLINS. A phrase equivalent to, "Whether you will or not, such is my determination, not to be gainsaid."

WHICH WAY DOES THE WIND LIE? What is the matter?

WHIFF. The Rhombus cardina, a passable fish of the pleuronect genus. Also, a slight fitful breeze or transient puff of wind.

WHIFFING. Catching mackerel with a hook and line from a boat going pretty fast through the water.

WHIFFLERS. The old term for fifers, preceding the body of archers who cleared the way, but more recently applied to very trifling fellows. Smollett named Captain Whiffle in contempt.

WHIMBREL. The smaller species of curlew, Numenius phæopus.

WHIMSEY. A small crane for hoisting goods to the upper stories of warehouses.[730]

WHINYARD. A sort of hanger, serving both as a weapon and a knife. An archaism for a cutlass. See the Gentleman in the Cobler of Canterburie, 1590:—

WHIP. A single rope rove through a single block to hoist in light articles. Where greater and steadier power is demanded, a block is added, and the standing part is made fast near the upper block. Thus it becomes a double whip. —To whip.

To hoist by a whip. Also, to tie twine, whipping fashion, round the end of a rope to prevent its untwisting.

WHIP, or Whip-staff. A strong staff fastened into the helm for the steersman to move the rudder thereby.

WHIP-JACK. An old term, equivalent to fresh-water sailor, or a sham-shipwrecked tar. (See Turnpike-sailors.)

WHIPPERS. Men who deliver the cargoes of colliers in the river Thames into lighters.

WHIPPING-TWINE. Used to whip the ends of ropes.

WHIP-RAY. A ray with a long tail ending in a very fine point. It is armed with a dangerous serrated spine, jagged like a harpoon. Called also sting-ray and stingaree.

WHIP-SAW. The largest of that class of useful instruments, being that generally used at the saw-pit.

WHIP UPON WHIP. A sort of easy purchase, much used in colliers. It consists of one whip applied to the falls of another.

WHIRL, or Rope-winch. Small hooks fastened into cylindrical pieces of wood which communicate by a leather strap with a spoke-wheel, whereby three of them are set in motion at once. Used for spinning yarn for ropes. Now more commonly made of iron.

WHIRLER, or Troughton's Top. An ingenious instrument invented by Troughton, and intended to serve as an artificial horizon at sea; but it was found that its centrifugal force was incapable of counteracting the ordinary motion of a ship.

WHIRLPOOL. An eddy or vortex where the waters are continually rushing round. In rivers they are very common, from various accidents, and are usually of little consequence. In the sea they are more dangerous, as the classical Charybdis, and the celebrated Maelstrom and Saltenstrom, both on the coast of Norway.

WHIRLWIND. A revolving current of wind of small diameter that rises suddenly, but is soon spent.

WHISKERS. Two booms, half-yards, or iron spars projecting on each side before the cat-heads; they are for spreading the guys of the jib-boom, instead of having a spritsail-yard across. In many vessels the sprit-sail (then termed spread-yard) is lashed across the forecastle so as to rest before the cat-heads on the gunwale, and the guys rove through holes bored in it, and set up in the fore-channels.

WHISTLE. From the Ang.-Sax. wistl. (See Call.)[731]

WHISTLE FOR THE WIND, To. A superstitious practice among old seamen, who are equally scrupulous to avoid whistling during a heavy gale.—To wet one's whistle. To take a drink. Thus Chaucer tells us that the miller of Trumpington's lady had

WHISTLING PSALMS TO THE TAFFRAIL. Expending advice to no purpose.

WHITE BAIT OR BITE. The Clupea alba, a well-known fish caught in the Thames, but strictly a sea-fish, erroneously held to be mere fry till 1828, when Yarrell raised it to the rank of a perfect fish.

WHITE BOOT-TOP. A painted white line carried fore and aft on the hammock-netting base. It gives a longer appearance to a ship.

WHITE CAPS. Waves with breaking crests, specially between the east end of Jamaica and Kingston; but obtaining generally when the sea-breeze, coming fresh over the waves, and travelling faster, turns their tops: termed also white-horses.

WHITE FEATHER. The figurative symbol of cowardice: a white feather in a cock's tail being considered a proof of cross-breeding.

WHITE-FISH. A fish of the salmon family, found in the lakes of North America; also a name of the hard-head (which see). It is a general name for ling, cod, tusk, haddock, halibut, and the like, and for roach, dace, &c. , from the use of their scales to form artificial pearls. Also applied to the beluga or white whale (Beluga leucas), a cetacean found in the Arctic seas and the Gulf of St.

Lawrence. It is from 12 to 15 feet long.

WHITE-HERRING. A pickled herring in the north, but in other parts a fresh herring is so called.

WHITE-HORSE. A name of the Raia fullonica. (See also White Caps.)

WHITE-LAPPELLE. A sobriquet for a lieutenant, in allusion to his former uniform. (See Lappelle.)

WHITE-ROPE. Rope which has not been tarred. Manilla, coir, and some other ropes, do not require tarring.

WHITE SQUALL. A tropical wind said to give no warning; it sweeps the surface with spoon-drift.

WHITE-TAPE. A term amongst smugglers for hollands or gin.

WHITE-WATER. That which is seen over extensive sandy patches, where, owing to the limpidity and shallowness of the sea, the light of the sky is reflected.

WHITING. The name given in Cumberland to the Salmo albus, or white salmon. Also the Gadus merlangus, both split or dried.

WHITTLE [from the Anglo-Saxon hwytel]. A knife; also used for a sword, but contemptuously.—To whittle. To cut sticks.

WHITWORTH GUN. A piece rifled by having a twisted hexagonal bore, and throwing a more elongated shot with a sharper twist than the Armstrong gun, with results experimentally more beautiful, but not yet so practically useful.[732]

WHO COMES THERE? The night challenge of a sentry on his post.

WHOLE-MOULDING. The old method of forming the principal part of a vessel. Boats are now the only vessels in which this method is practised.

WHOLESOME SHIP. One that will try, hull, and ride well, without heavy labouring in the sea.

WHOODINGS. Those ends of planks which are let into the rabbets of the stem, the stern-posts, &c. (See Rabbet and Hood-ends.)

WHO SAYS AMEN? Who will clap on with a will?

WHO SHALL HAVE THIS? An impartial sea method of distributing the shares of short commons. One person turns his back on the portions, and names some one, when he is asked, "Who shall have this?"

WICH. A port, as Harwich, Greenwich, &c.

WICK [Anglo-Saxon wyc]. A creek, bay, or village, by the side of a river.

WICKET. A small door in the gate of a fortress, for use by foot-passengers when the gate is closed.

WIDDERSHINS. A northern term signifying a motion contrary to the course of the sun. The Orkney fishermen consider themselves in imminent danger at sea, if, by accident, their vessel is turned against the sun.

WIDE-GAB. A name of the Lophius piscatorius, toad-fish, or fishing-frog.

WIDOWS' MEN. Imaginary sailors, formerly borne on the books as A. B. 's for wages in every ship in commission; they ceased with the consolidated pay at the close of the war. The institution was dated 24 Geo.

II. to meet widows' pensions; the amount of pay and provisions for two men in each hundred was paid over by the paymaster-general of the navy to the widows' fund.

WILD. A ship's motion when she steers badly, or is badly steered. A wild roadstead implies one that is exposed to the wind and sea.

WILDFIRE. A pyrotechnical preparation burning with great fierceness, whether under water or not; it is analogous to the ancient Greek fire, and is composed mainly of sulphur, naphtha, and pitch.

WILD-WIND. An old term for whirlwind.

WILL, With a. With all zeal and energy.

WILL. A term on our northern shores for a sea-gull.

WILLICK. A northern name for the Fratercula arctica, or puffin.

WILLIE-POURIT. A northern name for the seal.

WILLIWAW. A sort of whirlwind, occurring in Tierra del Fuego.

WILLOCK. A name for the guillemot, Uria troile.

WIMBLE. The borer of a carpenter's centre-bit.

WINCH [from the Anglo-Saxon wince]. A purchase formed by a shaft whose extremities rest in two channels placed horizontally or perpendicularly, and furnished with cranks, or clicks, and pauls. It is employed as a purchase by which a rope or tackle-fall may be more powerfully applied than when used singly. A small one with a fly-wheel is used for making ropes and spun-yarn. Also, a support to the windlass ends.

Also, the name of long iron handles by which the chain-pumps are worked. Also,[733] a small cylindrical machine attached to masts or bitts in vessels, for the purpose of hoisting anything out of the hold, warping, &c.

WINCH-BITTS. The supports near their ends.

WIND [precisely the Anglo-Saxon word]. A stream or current of air which may be felt. The horizon being divided into 32 points (see Compass), the wind which blows from any of them has an assignable name.

WINDAGE. The vacant space left between a shot and the bore of the piece to which it belongs, generally expressed by the difference of their diameters; it is for facility of loading, but the smaller it is the better will be the performance of the gun.

WIND AND WATER LINE. That part of a ship lying at the surface of the water which is alternately wet and dry by the motion of the waves.

WIND A SHIP OR BOAT, To. To change her position by bringing her stern round to the place where the head was. (See Wending.)

WIND AWAY, To. To steer through narrow channels.

WIND-BANDS. Long clouds supposed to indicate bad weather.

WIND-BOUND. Detained at an anchorage by contrary winds.