DRAW. A sail draws when it is filled by the wind. A ship draws so many feet of water. —To let draw a jib is to cease from flattening-in the sheet. —Draw is also a term for halliards in some of the northern fishing-boats.

—To draw. To procure anything by official demand from a dockyard, arsenal, or magazine. —To draw up the courses. To take in. —To draw upon a ship is to gain upon a vessel when in pursuit of her.

DRAWBACK. An abatement or reduction of duties allowed by the custom-house in certain cases; as for stores to naval officers in commission.

DRAW-BELLOWS. A northern term for limber-holes (which see).

DRAWING. The state of a sail when there is sufficient wind to inflate it, so as to advance the vessel in her course.

DRAWING UP. Adjusting a ship's station in the line; the converse of dropping astern.

DRAWING WATER. The number of feet depth which a ship submerges.

DRAWN BATTLE. A conflict in which both parties claim the victory, or retire upon equal terms.

DRAW-NET. Erroneously used for drag-net.

DRAWN FOR THE MILITIA. When men are selected by ballot for the defence of the country.[263]

DRAW THE GUNS. To extract the charge of wad, shot, and cartridge from the guns.

DREDGE. An iron scraper-framed triangle, furnished with a bottom of hide and stout cord net above, used for taking oysters or specimens of shells from the bottom.

DREDGER-BOAT. One that uses the net so called, for turbots, soles, sandlings, &c.

DREDGING. Fishing by dragging the dredge.

DREDGING MACHINE. A large lighter, or other flat-bottomed vessel, equipped with a steam-engine and machinery for removing the mud and silt from the bottom, by the revolution of iron buckets in an endless chain.

DREDGY. The ghost of a drowned person.

DREINT. The old word used for drowned, from the Anglo-Saxon.

DRESS, To. To place a fleet in organized order; also, to arrange men properly in ranks; to present a true continuous line in front. —To dress a ship. To ornament her with a variety of colours, as ensigns, flags, pendants, &c. , of various nations, displayed from different parts of her masts, rigging, &c.

, on a day of festivity.

DREW. A name in our northern isles for the Fucus loreus, a narrow thong-shaped sea-weed.

DRIBBLE. Drizzling showers; light rain.

DRIES. A term opposed to rains on the west coast of Africa.

DRIFT. The altered position of a vessel by current or falling to leeward when hove-to or lying-to in a gale, when but little head-way is made by the action of sails. In artillery, a priming-iron of modern introduction used to clear the vent of ordnance from burning particles after each discharge. Also, a term sometimes used for the constant deflection of a rifled projectile. (See Deflection.)

DRIFTAGE. The amount due to lee-way. (See Drift.)

DRIFT-BOLTS. Commonly made of steel, are used as long punches for driving out other bolts.

DRIFT-ICE. The debris of the main pack. (See Open Ice.)

DRIFTING-UP. Is used as relating to sands which are driven by the winds. As at Cape Blanco, on the coast of Africa, off the tail of the Desert of Zahara, where the houses and batteries have been thus obliterated.

DRIFT-MUD. Consisting chiefly of an argillaceous earth, brought down by the rivers, floated about, and successively deposited in banks; forming the alluvial and fertile European settlements of Guiana.

DRIFT-NET. A large net, with meshes of one inch, used in the pilchard fishery in August; also, for herrings and mackerel in March: used in drifting in the Chops of the Channel. Also, of strong gauze, for molluscs.

DRIFT-PIECES. Solid pieces fitted at the drifts, forming the scrolls on the drifts: they are commonly mitred into the gunwale.

DRIFTS. Detached masses of soil and underwood torn off the shore by floods and floating about, often mistaken for rocks and dangers. Also,[264] in ship-building, those parts where the sheer is raised, and the rails are cut off, ending with a scroll; as the drift of the quarter-deck, poop-deck, and forecastle.

DRIFT-SAIL. A contrivance, by means of immersing a sail, to diminish the drift of a ship during a gale of wind. (See Drags.)

DRIFT-WAY. Synonymous with lee-way.

DRILL. Systematized instruction in the practice of all military exercises.

DRILL-SHIPS. A recent establishment of vessels in which the volunteers composing the Royal Naval Reserve are drilled into practice.

DRINK-PENNY. Earnest money at rendezvous houses, &c.

DRIP-STONE. The name usually given to filters composed of porous stone.

DRIVE, To [from the Anglo-Saxon dryfan]. A ship drives when her anchor trips or will not hold. She drives to leeward when beyond control of sails or rudder; and if under bare poles, may drive before the wind. Also, to strike home bolts, tree-nails, &c.

DRIVER. A large sail formerly used with the wind aft or quartering. It was a square sail cut like a studding-sail, and set with a great yard on the end of the spanker-boom, across the taffrail. The name latterly has been officially applied to the spanker, both being the aftermost sails of a ship, the ring-tail being only an addition, as a studding or steering sail. (See Steering-sail.

) Also, the foremost spur in the bilge-ways, the heel of which is fayed to the fore-side of the foremost poppet, and the sides of it look fore and aft. Also, a sort of fishing-boat.

DRIVER-BOOM. The boom to which the driver is hauled out.

DRIVING A CHARGE. Ramming home the loading of a piece of ordnance.

DRIVING PILES. The motion of a ship bobbing in a head sea, compared to the vertical fall of monkeys on pile heads.

DROG. A Gaelic term, still in use, to express the agitation of the sea.

DROGHER. A small craft which goes round the bays of the West India Islands, to take off sugars, rum, &c., to the merchantmen.—Lumber-drogher is a vessel built solely for burden, and for transporting cotton and other articles coastwise.

DROGHING. The carrying trade of the West India coasts.

DROITS OF ADMIRALTY. Rights, or rather perquisites, which flowed originally from the king by grant or usage, and now reserved to the crown by commission. They are of two kinds—viz. the civil, or those arising from wrecks of the sea, flotsam, jetsam, and lagan, royal fishes, derelicts, and deodands, ejectamenta maris, and the goods of pirates, traitors, felons, suicides, and fugitives within the admiralty jurisdiction; and the prize droits, or those accruing in the course of war, comprehending all ships and goods taken without commission, all vessels improperly captured before hostilities have been formally declared, or found or by accident brought within the admiralty, salvage for all ships rescued, and all ships seized, in any of the ports, creeks, or roads of the United Kingdom[265] of Great Britain and Ireland before any declaration of war or reprisals by the sovereign.

DROM-FISH. A large fish taken and cured in quantities in the Portuguese harbours of South America, as well for ship's stores as for the times of fast.

DROMON. A Saracen term denoting the large king's ships from the ninth to the fifteenth century.

DROP, or Droop. When a line diverges from a parallel or a curve. It is also a name generally used to the courses, but sometimes given to the depth of the square sails in general; as, "Her main top-sail drops seventeen yards." The depth of a sail from head to foot amidships.—To drop anchor is simply to anchor:—underfoot, in calms, a kedge or stream is dropped to prevent drift.

DROP ASTERN, To. To slacken a ship's way, so as to suffer another one to pass beyond her. Also, distancing a competitor.

DROP DOWN A RIVER. Synonymous with falling (which see).

DROP-DRY. Completely water-tight.

DROPPING. An old mode of salute by lowering flags or uppermost sails.

DROPS. In ship-building, are small foliages of carved work in the stern munnions and elsewhere. The term also means the fall or declivity of a deck, which is generally of several inches.

DROUD. A fish of the cod kind, frequenting the west coast of Scotland.

DROUGES. Quadrilateral pieces of board, sometimes attached to the harpoon line, for the purpose of checking in some degree the speed of the whale.

DROW. An old northern term for a severe gust of wind accompanied with rain.

DROWNED LAND. Extensive marshes or other water-covered districts which were once dry and sound land.

DROWNING. An early naval punishment; Richard I. enacted that whoever killed a man on ship-board, "he should be bound to the corpse, and thrown into the sea."

DROWNING-BRIDGE. A sluice-gate for overflowing meadows.

DROWNING THE MILLER. Adding too much water to wine or spirits; from the term when too much water has been put into a bowl of flour.

DRUB. To beat. (Captain's despatch.) "We have drubbed the enemy."

DRUDGE. A name truly applied to a cabin-boy.

DRUGGERS. Small vessels which formerly exported fish from Dieppe and other Channel ports, and brought back from the Levant spices and drugs.

DRUM. See Storm-drum.

DRUM-CAPSTAN. A contrivance for weighing heavy anchors, invented by Sir S. Morland, who died in 1695.

DRUMHEAD COURT-MARTIAL. Sudden court held in the field for the immediate trial of thefts or misconduct. (See Provost-Marshal.)[266]

DRUMHEAD OF CAPSTAN. A broad cylindrical piece of elm, resembling a millstone, and fixed immediately above the barrel and whelps. On its circumference a number of square holes are cut parallel to the deck, to receive the bars.

DRUMLER. An ancient transport. (See Dromon.) Also, a small piratical vessel of war.

DRUMMER. The marine who beats the drum, and whose pay is equivalent to that of a private of fourteen years' standing. Also, a singular fish of the corvinas kind, which has the faculty of emitting musical noises, whence it has acquired the name of crocros.

DRUXY. Timber in a state of decay, the condition of which is manifested by veins or spots in it of a whitish tint.

DRY-BULB THERMOMETER. The readings of this instrument, when compared with those of a wet-bulb thermometer, indicate the amount of moisture in the air, and thence the probability of rain.

DRY DOCK. An artificial receptacle for examining and repairing vessels. (See Graving-Dock.)

DRY DUCKING. Suspending a person by a rope a few yards above the surface of the water.

DRY FLOGGING. Punishing over the clothes of a culprit.

DRY GALES. Those storms which are accompanied with a clear sky, as the northers of the Gulf of Mexico, the harmattan of Africa, &c.

DRY HOLY-STONING. See Holy-stone.

DRY-ROT. A disease destructive of timber, occasioned by a fungus, the Merulius lachrymans, which softens wood and finally destroys it; it resembles a dry pithy cottony substance, whence the name dry-rot, though when in a perfect state, its sinuses contain drops of clear water, which have given rise to its specific Latin name. Free ventilation and cleanliness appear to be the best preservatives against this costly evil.

DRY ROWING. "Row dry." Not to dash the spray with the blade of the oar in the faces of those in the stern-sheets.

D.S.Q. Means, in the complete book, discharged to sick quarters.

DUB. A northern term for a pool of deep and smooth water in a rapid river.

DUBB, To. To smooth and cut off with an adze the superfluous wood.—To dubb a vessel bright, is to remove the outer surface of the plank completely with an adze. Spotting to examine planks with the adze is also dubbing.

DUBBAH, or Dubber. A coarse leathern vessel for holding liquids in India.

DUBHE. A standard nautical star in the Great Bear.

DUCAT. A well-known coin in most parts of Europe; the average gold ducat being nine shillings and sixpence, and the silver three shillings and fourpence.

DUCATOON. A coin of the Dutch Oriental Isles, of seven shillings. Also, a silver coin of Venice, value four shillings and eightpence.[267]

DUCK, To. To dive, or immerse another under water; or to avoid a shot.