The Sailor's Word-Book. W. H. Smyth
SYSTEM. When two stars forming a double-star are found to revolve about each other.
BIND. A quantity of eels, containing 10 sticks of 25 each.
BINDINGS. In ship-building, a general name for the beams, knees, clamps, water-ways, transoms, and other connecting parts of a ship or vessel.
BINDING-STRAKES. Thick planks on the decks, in midships, between the hatchways. Also the principal strakes of plank in a vessel, especially the sheer-strake and wales, which are bolted to the knees and shelf-pieces.
BING. A heap; an old north-country word for the sea-shore, and sometimes spelled being.
BINGE, To. To rinse, or bull, a cask.
BINGID. An old term for locker.
BINK. See Benk.
BINN. A sort of large locker, with a lid on the top, for containing a vessel's stores: bread-binn, sail-binn, flour-binn, &c.
BINNACLE (formerly Bittacle). It appears evidently to be derived from the French term habittacle, a small habitation, which is now used for the same purpose by the seamen of that nation. The binnacle is a wooden case or box, which contains the compass, and a light to illuminate the compass at night; there are usually three binnacles on the deck of a ship-of-war, two near the helm being designed for the man who steers, weather and lee, and the other amidships, 10 or 12 feet before these, where the quarter-master, who conns the ship, stands when steering, or going with a free wind. (See Conn.)
BINNACLE-LIGHT. The lamp throwing light upon the compass-card.
BINOCLE. A small binocular or two-eyed telescope.
BIOR-LINN. Perhaps the oldest of our terms for boat. (See Birlin.)
BIRD-BOLT. A species of arrow, short and thick, used to kill birds without piercing their skins.
BIRD'S-FOOT SEA-STAR. The Palmipes membranaceus, one of the Asterinidæ, with a flat thin pentagonal body, of a bright scarlet colour.
BIRD'S NEST. A round top at a mast-head for a look-out station. A smaller crow's nest. Chiefly used in whalers, where a constant look-out is kept for whales. (See Edible Bird's Nest.)
BIREMIS. In Roman antiquity, a vessel with two rows of oars.
BIRLIN. A sort of small vessel or galley-boat of the Hebrides; it is fitted with four to eight long oars, but is seldom furnished with sails.
BIRT. A kind of turbot.
BIRTH-MARKS. A ship must not be loaded above her birth-marks, for, says a maritime proverb, a master must know the capacity of his vessel, as well as a rider the strength of his horse.
BISCUIT [i.e. bis coctus, or Fr. bis-cuit]. Bread intended for naval or military expeditions is now simply flour well kneaded, with the least possible quantity of water, into flat cakes, and slowly baked. Pliny calls it panis nauticus; and of the panis militaris, he says that it was heavier by one-third than the grain from which it was made.
BISHOP. A name of the great northern diver (Colymbus glacialis).
BISMER. A name of the stickleback (Gasterosteus spinachia).
BIT. A West Indian silver coin, varying from 4d. to 6d. In America it is 121⁄2 cents, and in the Spanish settlements is equal with the real, or one-eighth of a dollar. It was, in fact, Spanish money cut into bits, and known as "cut-money."
BITE. Is said of the anchor when it holds fast in the ground on reaching it. Also, the hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted. Also, to bite off the top of small-arm cartridges.
BITTER. Any turn of a cable about the bitts is called a bitter. Hence a ship is "brought up to a bitter" when the cable is allowed to run out to that stop.
BITTER-BUMP. A north-country name for the bittern.
BITTER-END. That part of the cable which is abaft the bitts, and therefore within board when the ship rides at anchor. They say, "Bend to the bitter-end" when they would have that end bent to the anchor, and when a chain or rope is paid out to the bitter-end, no more remains to be let go. The bitter-end is the clinching end—sometimes that end is bent to the anchor, because it has never been used, and is more trustworthy. The first 40 fathoms of a cable of 115 fathoms is generally worn out when the inner end is comparatively new.
BITT-HEADS. The upright pieces of oak-timber let in and bolted to the beams of two decks at least, and to which the cross-pieces are let on and bolted. (See Bitts.)
BITT-PINS. Similar to belaying-pins, but larger. Used to prevent the cable from slipping off the cross-piece of the bitts, also to confine the cable and messenger there, in heaving in the cable.
BITTS. A frame composed of two strong pieces of straight oak timber, fixed upright in the fore-part of a ship, and bolted securely to the beams, whereon to fasten the cables as she rides at anchor; in ships of war there are usually two pairs of cable-bitts, and when they are both used at once the cable is said to be double-bitted. Since the introduction of chain-cables, bitts are coated with iron, and vary in their shapes. There are several other smaller bitts; as, the topsail-sheet bitts, paul-bitts, carrick-bitts, windlass-bitts, winch-bitts, jear-bitts, riding-bitts, gallows-bitts, and fore-brace bitts.
BITT-STOPPER. One rove through the knee of the bitts, which nips the cable on the bight: it consists of four or five fathoms of rope tailed out nipper fashion at one end, and clench-knotted at the other. The old bitt-stopper, by its running loop on a standing end, bound the cable down in a bight abaft the bitts—the tail twisted round the fore part helped to draw it still closer. It is now disused—chain cables having superseded hemp.
BITT THE CABLE, To. To put it round the bitts, in order to fasten it, or slacken it out gradually, which last is called veering away.
BIVOUAC. The resting for the night in the open-air by an armed party, instead of encamping.
BIZE. A piercing cold wind from the frozen summits of the Pyrénées.
BLACKAMOOR. A thoroughly black negro.
BLACK-BIRD CATCHING. The slave-trade.
BLACK-BIRDS. A slang term on the coast of Africa for a cargo of slaves.
BLACK-BOOK of the Admiralty. An imaginary record of offences. Also, a document of great authority in naval law, as it contains the ancient admiralty statutes and ordinances.
BLACK-FISH. A common name applied by sailors to many different species of cetaceans. The animal so called in the south seas belongs to the genus Globiocephalus. It is from 15 to 20 feet long, and occurs in countless shoals.
BLACK-FISHER. A water-poacher: one who kills salmon in close-time.
BLACK-FISHING. The illegally taking of salmon, under night, by means of torches and spears with barbed prongs.
BLACK-HEAD. The pewitt-gull (Larus ridibundus).
BLACK-HOLE. A place of solitary confinement for soldiers, and tried in some large ships.
BLACK-INDIES. Newcastle, Sunderland, and Shields.
BLACKING. For the ship's bends and yards. A good mixture is made of coal-tar, vegetable-tar, and salt-water, boiled together, and laid on hot.
BLACKING DOWN. The tarring and blacking of rigging; or the operation of blacking the ship's sides with tar or mineral blacking.
BLACK-JACK. The ensign of a pirate. Also, a capacious tin can for beer, which was formerly made of waxed leather. In 1630 Taylor wrote—
"Nor or of blacke-jacks at gentle buttry-bars,
Whose liquor oftentimes breeds household wars."