BOUILLI. Termed by seamen bully-beef; disliked because all the substance is boiled away to enrich the cook's grease-tub, and the meat is useless as food; rejected even by dogs. In one ship of war it produced mutiny; vide Adams' account of the Bounty miseries. It is also the name given to highly cooked meat in hermetically sealed tin canisters.

BOULDER-HEAD. A work against the encroachment of the sea, made of wooden stakes.

BOULDERS. Stones worn and rounded by the attrition of the waves of the sea: the word, on the authority of Hunter, was considered a technical term in the fourteenth century, as appears in a warrant of John of Gaunt for the repair of Pontefract Castle—"De peres, appelés buldres, a n're dit chastel come nous semblerez resonables pur la defense de meisme."

BOULEPONGES. A drink to which many of the deaths of Europeans in India were ascribed; but in Bernier's "Travels," in the train of Aurungzebe, in 1664, we are informed that "bouleponge is a beverage made of arrack, sugar, lemon-juice, and a little muscadine." Probably a corruption of bowls of punch. (See Punch.)[123]

BOUNCE. The larger dog-fish.

BOUNCER. A gun which kicks violently when fired.

BOUND. Destined for a particular service. Intended voyage to a place. —Ice-bound. Totally surrounded with ice.

—Tide-bound, or be-neaped. (See Neaped. )—Wind-bound. Prevented from sailing by contrary wind. —Where are you bound to?

—i. e. To what place are you going? —Bound on a cruise. A corruption of the old word bowne, which is still in use on the northern coasts, and means to make ready, to prepare.

BOUNTY. A sum of money given by government, authorized by act of parliament or royal proclamation, to men who voluntarily enter into the army or navy; and the widow of such volunteer seaman killed or drowned in the service was entitled to a bounty equal to a year's pay.

BOUNTY-BOATS. Those which fished under the encouragement of a bounty from government.

BOUNTY-LIST. A register of all persons who have received the bounty to which they are entitled after having passed three musters in the service.

BOURN. See Burn.

BOURSE. A place where merchants congregate. An exchange.

BOUSE. See Bowse.

BOUT. A turn, trial, or round. An attack of illness; a convivial meeting.—'Bout ship, the brief order for "about ship."

BOW. The fore-end of a ship or boat; being the rounding part of a vessel forward, beginning on both sides where the planks arch inwards, and terminating where they close, at the rabbet of the stem or prow, being larboard or starboard from that division. A bold bow is broad and round; a lean bow, narrow and thin. —On the bow. An arc of the horizon (not exceeding 45°) comprehended between some distant object and that point of the compass which is right ahead.

Four points on either bow is met by four points before the beam.

BOW. An astronomical instrument formerly used at sea, consisting of only one large graduated arc of 90°, three vanes, and a shank or staff. Also the bow of yew, a weapon of our early fleets.

BOW. She bows to the breeze; when the sails belly out full, and the ship inclines and goes ahead, pitching or bowing over the blue waves.

BOW-BYE. The situation of a ship when, in stays, she falls back off the wind again, and gets into irons, which demands practical seamanship for her extrication. This was deemed a lubberly act in our fleets of old.

BOW-CHASERS. Two long chase-guns placed forward in the bow-ports to fire directly ahead, and being of small bore for their length, carry shot to a great distance.[124]

BOWD-EATEN. An old expression for eaten by weevils.

BOWER-ANCHORS. Those at the bows and in constant working use. They are called best and small, not from a difference of size, but as to the bow on which they are placed; starboard being the best bower, and port the small bower. The appropriated cables assume the respective names. (See also Spare Anchor, Sheet, Stream, Coasting, Kedge, &c.)

BOW-FAST. A rope or chain for securing a vessel by the bow. (See Fast.)

BOWGE, or Bouge. An old term for bilge.

BOWGER. A name given in the Hebrides to the coulter-neb, or puffin (Fratercula arctica).

BOWGRACE. A kind of frame or fender of old junk, placed round the bows and sides of a ship to prevent her receiving injury from floating ice or timbers. (See Bon Grace.)

BOWING. An injury done to yards by too much topping, and letting their weights hang by the lifts. The state of a top-sail yard when it arches in the centre from hoisting it too tautly. Also of the mast when it bellies or is crippled by injudiciously setting up the rigging too taut.

BOWING THE SEA. Meeting a turbulent swell in coming to the wind.

BOWLINE. A rope leading forward which is fastened to a space connected by bridles to cringles on the leech or perpendicular edge of the square sails: it is used to keep the weather-edge of the sail tight forward and steady when the ship is close hauled to the wind; and which, indeed, being hauled taut, enables the ship to come nearer to the wind. Hence the ship sails on a bowline, or stands on a taut bowline.—To check or come up a bowline is to slacken it when the wind becomes large or free.—To sharp or set taut a bowline is to pull it as taut as it can well bear.

BOWLINE-BEND. The mode of bending warps or hawsers together by taking a bowline in the end of one rope, and passing the end of the other through the bight, and making a bowline upon it.

BOWLINE-BRIDLE. The span attached to the cringles on the leech of a square sail to which the bowline is toggled or clinched.

BOWLINE-CRINGLE. An eye worked into the leech-rope of a sail; usually in that of a fore-sail two, a main-sail three, and the fore-topsails three, but the main-topsail four. By these the sails are found in the dark, by feeling alone.

BOWLINE HAUL. A hearty and simultaneous bowse. (See One! two! three!

) In hauling the bowline it is customary for the leading man to veer, and then haul, three times in succession, singing out one, two, three—at the last the weight of all the men is thrown[125] in together: this is followed by "belay, oh! " When the bowlines are reported "bowlines hauled, sir," by the officer in command of the fore-part of the ship, the hands, or the watch, return to their duties.

BOWLINE-KNOT. That by which the bowline-bridles were fastened to the cringles: the bowline-knot is made by an involution of the end and a bight upon the standing part of a rope. A further involution makes what is termed a bowline on a bight. It is very difficult to explain by words:—holding the rope some distance from the end by the left hand, the end held in the right is laid on the main part, and by a twist given screw-fashion to the right, a loop or kink is formed inclosing this end, which is then passed behind, and back in the same direction with the former, and then jammed home. It is rapidly done, easily undone, and one of the most seamanlike acts, exhibiting grace as well as power.

It can be made by a man with but one arm.

BOW-LINES. In ship-building, longitudinal curves representing the ship's fore-body cut in a vertical section.

BOWLING-ALONG. Going with a free wind.

BOW-LOG TIMBERS. A provincial name for hawse-wood.

BOWMAN. In a single-banked boat he who rows the foremost oar and manages the boat-hook; called by the French "brigadier de l'embarcation." In double-banked boats there are always two bowmen. Also an archer, differently pronounced.

BOW-OAR. The foremost oar or oars, in pulling a boat.

BOW-PIECES. The ordnance in the bows; also in building.

BOW-RAIL. A rail round the bows.

BOWSE, To. To pull upon any body with a tackle, or complication of pulleys, in order to remove it, &c. Hauling upon a tack is called "bowsing upon a tack," and when they would have the men pull all together, they cry, "Bowse away. " Also used in setting up rigging, as "Bowse away, starboard;" "Bowse away, port. " It is, however, mostly a gun-tackle term.

—Bowse up the jib, a colloquialism to denote the act of tippling: it is an old phrase, and was probably derived from the Dutch buyzen, to booze.

BOWSPRIT, or Bolt-sprit. A large spar, ranking with a lower-mast, projecting over the stem; beyond it extends the jib-boom, and beyond that again the flying jib-boom. To these spars are secured the stays of the fore-mast and of the spars above it; on these stays are set the fore and fore-topmast staysails, the jib, and flying-jib, which have a most useful influence in counter-balancing the pressure of the after-sails, thereby tending to force the ship ahead instead of merely turning her round. In former times underneath these spars were set a sprit-sail, sprit-topsail, &c.

BOWSPRIT, Running. In cutter-rigged vessels. (See Cutter.)[126]

BOWSPRIT-BITTS. Are strong upright timbers secured to the beams below the deck; they have a cross-piece bolted to them, the inner end of the bowsprit steps between them, and is thus prevented from slipping in. The cross-piece prevents it from canting up.

BOWSPRIT-CAP. The crance or cap on the outer end of the bowsprit, through which the jib-boom traverses.

BOWSPRIT-GEAR. A term denoting the ropes, blocks, &c., belonging to the bowsprit.

BOWSPRIT-HEART. The heart or block of wood used to secure the lower end of the fore-stay, through which the inner end of the jib-boom is inserted. It is seldom, if ever, used now, an iron band round the bowsprit, with an eye on each side for the fore-stays, being preferred.

BOWSPRIT-HORSES. The ridge-ropes which extend from the bowsprit-cap to the knight-heads.

BOWSPRIT-LADDER. Skids over the bowsprit from the beak-head in some ships, to enable men to run out upon the bowsprit.

BOWSPRIT-NETTING. The netting placed just above a vessel's bowsprit, for stowing away the fore-topmast staysail; it is usually lashed between the ridge-ropes.

BOWSPRIT-SHROUDS. Strong ropes or chains leading from nearly the outer end of the bowsprit to the luff of the bow, giving lateral support to that spar.

BOW-STAVES. Early supplied to our men-of-war.

BOW-TIMBERS. Those which form the bow of the ship.

BOX. The space between the back-board and the stern-post of a boat, where the coxswain sits.

BOXES OF THE PUMPS. Each ordinary pump has an upper and lower box, the one a fixture in the lower part of its chamber, the other attached to the end of the spear or piston-rod; in the centre of each box is a valve opening upwards.

BOXHAULING. Is an evolution by which a ship is veered sharp round on her heel, when the object is to avoid making a great sweep. The helm is put a-lee, the head-yards braced flat aback, the after-yards squared, the driver taken in, and the head-sheets hauled to windward; when she begins to gather stern-way the helm is shifted and sails trimmed. It is only resorted to in emergencies, as a seaman never likes to see his ship have stern-way. With much wind and sea this evolution would be dangerous.

BOXING. A square piece of dry hard wood, used in connecting the frame timbers. Also, the projection formerly left at the hawse-pieces, in the wake of the hawse-holes, where the planks do not run through; now disused. The stem is said to be boxed when it is joined to the fore end of the keel by a side scarph. (See Boxing of Rudder.)[127]

BOXING OFF. Is performed by hauling the head-sheets to windward, and laying the head-yards flat aback, to pay the ship's head out of the wind, when the action of the helm alone is not sufficient for that purpose; as when she is got "in irons."