LOW LATITUDES. Those regions far removed from the poles of the earth towards the equator, 10° south or north of it.

LOW SAILS. The courses and close-reefed top-sails.

LOW WATER. The lowest point to which the tide ebbs. (See Tide.) Also, used figuratively for being in distress, without money.

LOXODROMIC. The line of a ship's way when sailing oblique to the meridian.

LOXODRONIUS. The traverse table.

LOZENGE. The diamond-cut figure. (See Rhombus.)

LUBBER, or Lubbart. An awkward unseamanlike fellow; from a northern word implying a clownish dolt. A boatswain defined them as "fellows fitted with teeth longer than their hair," alluding to their appetites.

LUBBER-LAND. A kind of El Dorado in sea-story, or country of pleasure without work, all sharing alike.

LUBBER'S HOLE. The vacant space between the head of a lower-mast and the edge of the top, so termed from timid climbers preferring that as an easier way for getting into the top than trusting themselves to the futtock-shrouds. The term has been used for any cowardly evasion of duty.

LUBBER'S POINT. A black vertical line or mark in the compass-bowl in the direction of the ship's head, by which the angle between the magnetic meridian and the ship's line of course is shown.

LUBRICATOR. The oil or similar material applied to the bearings of machinery to obviate friction. Also, special preparations of the same included in cartridges for rifled fire-arms, to prevent the fouling from the burnt powder adhering to the interior of the bore.

LUCE. The old word for a full-grown pike or jack, immortalized by Shakspeare.

LUCIDA. The bright star or α of each constellation.

LUCKEN. An unsplit haddock half-dry.

LUCKY MINIE'S LINES. The long stems of the sea-plant Chorda filum.

LUCKY-PROACH. A northern term for father-lasher, Cottus scorpius.

LUFF, or Loofe. The order to the helmsman, so as to bring the ship's head up more to windward. Sometimes called springing a luff. Also, the air or wind. Also, an old familiar term for lieutenant.

Also, the fullest or roundest part of a ship's bows. Also, the weather-leech of a sail.

LUFF AND LIE. A very old sea-term for hugging the wind closely.

LUFF AND TOUCH HER! Try how near the wind she will come. (See Touching.)

LUFF INTO A HARBOUR, To. To sail into it, shooting head to wind,[459] gradually. A ship is accordingly said to spring her luff when she yields to the effort of the helm, by sailing nearer to the wind, or coming to, and does not shake the wind out of her sails until, by shortening all, she reaches her anchorage.

LUFF ROUND, or Luff A-lee. The extreme of the movement, by which it is intended to throw the ship's head up suddenly into the wind, in order to go about, or to lessen her way to avoid danger.

LUFF-TACKLE. A purchase composed of a double and single block, the standing end of the rope being fast to the single block, and the fall coming from the double. This name is given to any large tackle not destined for any particular place, but to be variously used as occasion may require. It is larger than the jigger-tackle, but smaller than the fore and main yard-tackles or the stay-tackles. (See Luff upon Luff.)

LUFF UPON LUFF. One luff-tackle applied to the fall of another, to afford an increase of purchase.

LUG. The Arenicola piscatorum, a sand-worm much used for bait. Also, of old, the term for a perch or rod used in land-measuring, containing 161⁄2 feet, and which may have originated the word log.

LUGAR [Sp.] A name for watering-places on the Spanish coast.

LUG-BOAT. The fine Deal boats which brave the severest weather; they are rigged as luggers, and dip the yards in tacking. They really constitute a large description of life-boat.

LUGGER. A small vessel with quadrilateral or four-cornered cut sails, set fore-and-aft, and may have two or three masts. French coasters usually rig thus, and are called chasse marées; but with us it is confined to fishing craft and ships' boats; some carry top-sails. During the war of 1810 to 1814 French luggers, as well as Guernsey privateers, were as large as 300 tons, and carried 18 guns. One captured inside the Needles in 1814, carried a mizen-topsail.

The Long Bet of Plymouth, a well-known smuggler, long defied the Channel gropers, but was taken in 1816.

LUGS. The ears of a bomb-shell, to which the hooks are applied in lifting it.

LUG-SAIL. A sail used in boats and small vessels. It is in form like a gaff-sail, but depends entirely on the rope of the luff for its stability. The yard is two-thirds of the breadth at foot, and is slung at one-fourth from the luff. On the mast is an iron hoop or traveller, to which it is hoisted.

The tack may be to windward, or at the heel of the mast amidships. It is powerful, but has the inconvenience of requiring to be lowered and shifted on the mast at every tack, unless the tack be secured amidships. Much used in the barca-longa, navigated by the Spaniards.

LULL. The brief interval of moderate weather between the gusts of wind in a gale. Also, an abatement in the violence of surf.

LULL-BAG. A wide canvas hose in whalers for conducting blubber into the casks, as it is "made off."

LUMBER. Logs as they arrive at the mills. Also, timber of any size, sawed or split for use. Also, things stowed without order.[460]

LUMBERER. One who cuts timber (generally in gangs) in the forests of North America during the winter, and, on the melting of the snow, navigates it, first by stream-driving the separate logs down the spring torrents, then in bays or small rafts down the wider streams, and finally in rafts of thousands of square yards of surface down the navigable rivers, to the mills or to the port of shipment.

LUMIERE CENDREE. A term adopted from the French to signify the ash-coloured faint illumination of the dark part of the moon's surface about the time of new moon, caused by sunlight reflected from the earth.

LUMP. A stout heavy lighter used in our dockyards for carrying anchors, chains, or heavy stores to or from vessels. Also, the trivial name of the baggety, an ugly fish, likewise called the sea-owl, Cyclopterus lumpus. Also, undertaking any work by the lump or whole.—By the lump, a sudden fall out of the slings or out of a top; altogether.

LUMPERS. So named from labouring at lump or task work. Labourers employed to load and unload a merchant ship when in harbour. In the north the term is applied to those who furnish ballast to ships.

LUMP SUM. A full payment of arrears, and not by periodical instalments of money.

LUNAR. The brief epithet for the method of finding the longitude by the moon and sun or moon and stars. (See Working a Lunar.)

LUNAR DAY. The interval between a departure and return of the moon to the meridian.

LUNAR DISTANCES. An important element in finding the longitude at sea, by what is termed nautical astronomy. It is effected by measuring the apparent distance of the moon from the sun, planet, or certain bright stars, and comparing it with that given in the nautical almanac, for every third hour of Greenwich time.

LUNAR INEQUALITY. See Variation of the Moon.

LUNAR OBSERVATIONS. The method of observing the apparent distances between given celestial objects, and then clearing the angles from the effects of parallax and refraction.

LUNAR TABLES. The tabulated logarithmic aid for correcting the apparent distance, and facilitating the reduction of the observations.

LUNATION. The period in which the moon goes through every variety of phase; that is, one synodical revolution.

LUNETTE. In fortification, a work composed of two faces meeting in a salient angle, from the inner extremities of which two short flanks run towards the rear, leaving an open gorge; it is generally applied only in connection with other works. Prize-masters will recollect that lunette is also the French name for a spy-glass or telescope.

LUNGE [a corruption of allonge]. A pass or thrust with a sword; a shove with a boarding-pike.

LUNI-SOLAR. A chronological term; it is the moon's cycle multiplied into that of the sun.

LUNI-SOLAR PRECESSION. See Precession.[461]

LUNT. A match-cord to fire great guns—a match for a linstock.

LUNTRA. See Felucca.

LURCA. An old term for a small Mediterranean coaster.

LURCH. A heavy roll, weather or lee, as occasioned by a sea suddenly striking or receding from the weather-bilge of the vessel.—To be left in the lurch is to be left behind in a case where others make their escape.

LUSH. Intoxicating fluids of any kind. Also, a northern term for splashing in water.

LUSORIÆ. Ancient vessels of observation or pleasure.

LUST. An archaism of list. (See List.)

LUTE-STERN. Synonymous with pink-stern.

LUTINGS. The dough stoppages to the seams of the coppers, &c., when distilling sea water.

LYING. The situation of a whale when favourable for sticking—the "lie" usually occurs after feeding.

LYING ALONG. See Laying Along.

LYING ON HIS OARS. Taking a rest; at ease.

LYING-TO. See Lie-to.

LYM. From the Celtic leim, a port; as Lyme and Lymington.

LYMPHAD. The heraldic term for an old-fashioned ship or galley.

LYNCH-LAW. A word recently imported into our parlance from America, signifying illegal and revengeful execution at the wish of a tumultuous mob.

LYRA. One of the ancient northern constellations. Also, a name of the gray gurnard, or crooner (which see).

LYRIE. The name in the Firth of Forth for the Cottus cataphractus, or armed bull-head.

LYTER. The old orthography for lighter (which see).

LYTHE. A name for the pollack, Gadus pollachius. Also, the coal-fish in its fourth year.