Sailor's Word-book, A - C — Cl
CIVIL WAR.
That between subjects of the same realm, or between factions of the same state.
CLAIMANTS.
Persons appealing to the jurisdiction of the admiralty court.
They are denominated colourable, or fair, according to the informality, or justice, of their claims.
CLAKE.
A name for the barnacle-goose (_Anser bernicla_).
Also, for the _Lepas anatifera_, a cirriped often found attached to vessels or timber by a long fleshy peduncle, sometimes 4 or 5 feet in length.
CLAM.
A well-known bivalve shell-fish.
"As happy as a clam at high-water," a figurative expression for otiose comfort.
CLAMBER.
To climb; to ascend quickly.
CLAMPING.
Applying a cross-head, or stirrup-piece, in a socket.
CLAMP-NAILS.
Such nails as are used to fasten clamps; they are short and stout, with large heads.
CLAMPS.
Pieces of timber applied to a mast or yard, to prevent the wood from bursting.
Also, thick planks lying fore and aft under the beams of the first orlop or second deck, the same as the rising-timbers are to the deck.
They are securely fayed to all the timbers, to which they are fastened by nails through the clamp, and penetrating two-thirds of the thickness of the timbers.
Also, substantial strakes, worked inside, on which the ends of the beams rest.
Also, smooth crooked plates of iron forelocked upon the trunnions of cannon; these, however, are more properly termed cap-squares.
(_See_ CARRIAGE.
) Also, any plate of iron made to open and shut, so as to confine a spar.
A one-cheeked block; the spar to which it is fastened being the other cheek.
--_To clamp_, is to unite two bodies by surfaces or circular plates.
--_Clamped_, is when a piece of board is fitted with the grain to the end of another piece of board across the grain.
CLAMS.
Strong pieces used by shipwrights for drawing bolts, &c. Also, a kind of forceps used for bringing up specimens of the bottom in sounding; a drag.
(_See_ CLAM.
) CLANG.
The rattling or clashing of arms.
CLAP-BOARD [German, _klapp-bord_].
An east-country commercial plank, which ought to be upwards of 13 feet in length; cask-staves are also clap-boards.
Clap-board, in the colonies, is the covering the side of a house with narrow boards, "lapping fashion," in contradistinction to shingling, or tiling, or clench-built.
CLAP-MATCH.
A sort of seal, distinct from the fur-seal.
CLAP ON!
The order to lay hold of any rope, in order to haul upon it.
Also, to "Clap on the stoppers before the bitts," _i.
e. _ fasten the stoppers; or, "Clap on the cat-fall," _i.
e. _ lay hold of the cat-fall.
--_To clap a stopper over all_, to stop a thing effectually; to clap on the stopper before the bitts next to the manger or hawse-hole;
to order silence.
--_To clap in irons_, to order an offender into the bilboes.
--_To clap on canvas_, to make more sail.
CLAPPER.
A name for the valve of a pump-box.
Also, a plank or foot-bridge across a running stream; also, the clapper of a bell.
CLAP-SILL.
The lockage of a flood-gate.
CLARTY.
In north-country whalers, used for _wet_, _slippery_.
CLASHY.
Showery weather.
CLASP-HOOK.
An iron clasp, in two parts, moving upon the same pivot, and overlapping one another.
Used for bending chain-sheets to the clues of sails, jib-halliards, &c. (_See_ SPAR-HOOK.
) CLASS.
Order or rank; specially relating to dockyard men.
CLASSIFICATION OF SHIPS.
A register made of vessels according to the report rendered in by special surveyors.
(_See_ NAVY and LLOYD'S REGISTER.
) CLAW, OR CLAW OFF, TO.
To beat, or turn to windward from a lee-shore, so as to be at sufficient distance from it to avoid shipwreck.
It is generally used when getting to windward is difficult.
CLAYMORE.
Anciently a two-handed sword of the Highlanders, but latterly applied to their basket-hilted sword.
CLEACHING NET.
A hand-net with a hoop and bar, used by fishermen on the banks of the Severn.
CLEAN.
Free from danger, as clean coast, clean harbour; in general parlance means quite, entirely.
So Shakspeare represents AEgeon "Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia."
Also, applied to a ship's hull with a fine run fore and aft.
--_Clean entrance_, clean run.
--_To clean a ship's bottom.
_ (_See_ BREAMING and HOG.
) CLEAN BILL.
(_See_ BILL OF HEALTH.
) When all are in health.
CLEAN DONE.
Quite.
In a seamanlike manner; purpose well effected;
adroitly tricked.
(_See_ WEATHERED.
) CLEAN-FISH.
On the northern coasts, a salmon perfectly in season.
CLEAN-FULL.
Keeping the sail full, bellying, off the wind.
CLEAN OFF THE REEL.
When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted.
Also, upright conduct.
Also, any performance without stop or hindrance, off-hand.
CLEAN SHIP.
A whale-ship unfortunate in her trip, having no fish or oil.
CLEAR.
Is variously applied, to weather, sea-coasts, cordage, navigation, &c. , as opposed to foggy, to dangerous, to entangled.
It is usually opposed to _foul_ in all these senses.
CLEAR, TO.
Has several significations, particularly to escape from, to unload, to empty, to prepare, &c. , as:--_To clear for action.
_ To prepare for action.
--_To clear away_ for this or that, is to get obstructions out of the way.
--_To clear the decks.
_ To remove lumber, put things in their places, and coil down the ropes.
Also, to take the things off a table after a meal.
--_To clear goods.
_ To pay the custom-house dues and duties.
--_To clear the land.
_ To escape from the land.
--_To clear a lighter, or the hold.
_ To empty either.
CLEARANCE.
The document from the customs, by which a vessel and her cargo, by entering all particulars at the custom-house, and paying the dues, is permitted to clear out or sail.
CLEAR FOR GOING ABOUT.
Every man to his station, and every rope an-end.
CLEARING LIGHTERS.
All vessels pertaining to public departments should be cleared with the utmost despatch.
CLEAR THE PENDANT.
_See_ UP AND CLEAR THE PENDANT.
CLEAR WATER.
A term in Polar seas implying no ice to obstruct navigation, well off the land, having sea-room.
CLEAT A GUN, TO.
To nail large cleats under the trucks of the lower-deckers in bad weather, to insure their not fetching way.
CLEATS, OR CLEETS.
Pieces of wood of different shapes used to fasten ropes upon: some have one and some two arms.
They are called belaying cleat, deck-cleat, and a thumb-cleat.
Also, small wedges of wood fastened on the yards, to keep ropes or the earing of the sail from slipping off the yard.
Mostly made of elm or oak.
CLEAVAGE.
The splitting of any body having a structure or line of cleavage: as fir cleaves longitudinally, slates horizontally, stones roughly, smoothly, conchoidal, or stratified, &c. CLEFTS.
Wood sawn lengthways into pieces less in thickness than in breadth.
(_See_ PLANK.
) CLENCH, TO.
To secure the end of a bolt by burring the point with a hammer.
Also, a mode of securing the end of one rope to another.
(_See_ CLINCH.
) CLENCHED BOLTS.
Those fastened by means of a ring, or an iron plate, with a rivetting hammer at the end where they protrude through the wood, to prevent their drawing.
CLENCH-NAILS.
They are much used in boat-building, being such as can be driven without splitting the boards, and drawn without breaking.
(_See_ ROVE and CLENCH.
) CLEP.
A north-country name for a small grapnel.
CLERK.
Any naval officer doing the duty of a clerk.
CLETT.
A northern or Erse word to express a rock broken from a cliff, as the holm in Orkney and Shetland.
CLEUGH.
A precipice, a cliff.
Also, a ravine or cleft.
CLEW.
Of a hammock or cot.
(_See_ CLUE.
) CLICKS.
Small pieces of iron falling into a notched wheel attached to the winches in cutters, &c. , and thereby serving the office of pauls.
(_See_ RATCHET, or RATCHET-PAUL, in machinery.
) It more peculiarly belongs to inferior clock-work, hence click.
CLIFF [from the Anglo-Saxon _cleof_].
A precipitous termination of the land, whatever be the soil.
(_See_ CRAG.
) CLIMATE.
Formerly meant a zone of the earth parallel to the equator, in which the days are of a certain length at the summer solstice.
The term has now passed to the physical branch of geography, and means the general character of the weather.
CLINCH.
A particular method of fastening large ropes by a half hitch, with the end stopped back to its own part by seizings; it is chiefly to fasten the hawsers suddenly to the rings of the kedges or small anchors;
and the breechings of guns to the ring-bolts in the ship's side.
Those parts of a rope or cable which are clinched.
Thus the outer end is "bent" by the clinch to the ring of the anchor.
The inner or tier-clinch in the good old times was clinched to the main-mast, passing under the tier beams (where it was unlawfully, as regards the custom of the navy, clinched).
Thus "the cable runs out to the clinch," means, there is no more to veer.
--_To clinch_ is to batter or rivet a bolt's end upon a ring or piece of plate iron; or to turn back the point of a nail that it may hold fast.
(_See_ CLENCH.
) CLINCH A BUSINESS, TO.
To finish it; to settle it beyond further dispute, as the recruit taking the shilling.
CLINCH-BUILT.
Clinker, or overlapping edges.
CLINCHER.
An incontrovertible and smart reply; but sometimes the confirmation of a story by a lie, or by some still more improbable yarn: synonymous with _capping_.
CLINCHER OR CLINKER BUILT.
Made of clincher-work, by the planks lapping one over the other.
The contrary of _carvel-work_.
Iron ships after this fashion are distinguished as being _lap-jointed_.
CLINCHER-NAILS.
Those which are of malleable metal, as copper, wrought iron, &c. , which clinch by turning back the points in rough-built fir boats where roofs and clinching are thus avoided.
CLINCHER-WORK.
The disposition of the planks in the side of any boat or vessel, when the lower edge of every plank overlaps that next below it.
This is sometimes written as pronounced, _clinker-work_.
CLIPHOOK.
A hook employed for some of the ends of the running rigging.
CLIPPER.
A fast sailer, formerly chiefly applied to the sharp-built raking schooners of America, and latterly to Australian passenger-ships.
Larger vessels now built after their model are termed clipper-built: sharp and fast; low in the water; rakish.
CLIVE.
An old spelling of _cliff_.
CLOCK-CALM.
When not a breath of wind ruffles the water.
CLOCK-STARS.
A name for the nautical stars, which, from their positions having been very exactly ascertained, are used for determining time.
CLOD-HOPPER.
A clownish lubberly landsman.
CLOKIE-DOO.
A west of Scotland name for the horse-mackerel.
CLOSE-ABOARD.
Near or alongside; too close to be safe.
"The boat is close aboard," a caution to the officer in command to receive his visitor.
"The land is close aboard," danger inferred.
CLOSE-BUTT.
Where caulking is not used, the butts or joints of the planks are sometimes rabbeted, and fayed close, whence they are thus denominated.
CLOSE CONTRACT.
One not advertised.
CLOSED PORT.
One interdicted.
CLOSE-FIST.
One who drives a hard bargain in petty traffic.
CLOSE HARBOUR.
That is one gained by labour from the element, formed by encircling a portion of water with walls and quays, except at the entrance, or by excavating the land adjacent to the sea or river, and then letting in the water.
CLOSE-HAULED.
The general arrangement or trim of a ship's sails when she endeavours to progress in the nearest direction possible contrary to the wind; in this manner of sailing the keel of square-rigged vessels commonly makes an angle of six points with the line of the wind, but cutters, luggers, and other fore-and-aft rigged vessels will sail even nearer.
This point of sailing is synonymous with _on a taut bowline_ and _on a wind_.
CLOSE PACK.
The ice floes so jammed together that boring is impossible, and present efforts useless.
(_See_ PACK-ICE.
) CLOSE-PORTS.
Those which lie up rivers; a term in contradistinction to _out-ports_.
CLOSE-QUARTERS, OR CLOSE-FIGHTS.
Certain strong bulk-heads or barriers of wood, formerly stretching across a merchant ship in several places;
they were used for retreat and shelter when a ship was boarded by an adversary, and were therefore fitted with loop-holes.
Powder-chests were also fixed upon the deck, containing missiles which might be fired from the close quarters upon the boarders.
The old slave-ships were thus fitted in case of the negroes rising, and flat-headed nails were cast along the deck to prevent their walking with naked feet.
In the navy, yard-arm and yard-arm, sides touching.
CLOSE-REEFED.
The last reefs of the top-sails, or other sails set, being taken in.
CLOSE-SIGHT.
The notch in the base-ring of a cannon, to place the eye in a line with the top-sight.
CLOSE THE WIND, TO.
To haul to it.
--_Close upon a tack or bowline_, or _close by a wind_, is when the wind is on either bow, and the tacks or bowlines are hauled forwards that they may take the wind to make the best of their way.
--_Close to the wind_, when her head is just so near the wind as to fill the sails without shaking them.
CLOSE WITH THE LAND, TO.
To approach near to it.
CLOSH [from the Danish _klos_].
A sobriquet for east-country seamen.
CLOTHED.
A mast is said to be clothed when the sail is so long as to reach the deck-gratings.
Also, well clothed with canvas; sails well cut, well set, and plenty of them.
CLOTHES-LINES.
A complete system of parallel lines, hoisted between the main and mizen masts twice a week to dry the washed clothes of the seamen.
CLOTHING.
The rigging of the bowsprit.
--_Clothing the bowsprit_ is rigging it.
Also, the purser's slops for the men.
CLOTH IN THE WIND.
Too near to the wind, and sails shivering.
Also, groggy.
CLOTHS.
In a sail, are the breadths of canvas in its whole width.
When a ship has broad sails they say she spreads much cloth.
CLOTTING.
A west-country method of catching eels with worsted thread.
CLOUD.
A collection of vapours suspended in the atmosphere.
Also, under a cloud of canvas.
CLOUGH.
A word derived from the verb _to cleave_, and signifying a narrow valley between two hills.
(_See_ CLEUGH.
) Also, in commerce, an allowance on the turn of the beam in weighing.
CLOUT.
From the Teutonic _kotzen_, a blow.
Also, a gore of blood.
CLOUT-NAILS [Fr.
_clouter_].
To stud with nails, as ships' bottoms and piles were before the introduction of sheet copper.
CLOUTS.
Thin plates of iron nailed on that part of the axle-tree of a gun-carriage that comes through the nave, and through which the linch-pin goes.
CLOVE-HITCH.
A knot or noose by which one rope is fastened to another.
(_See_ HITCH.
) Two half hitches round a spar or rope.
CLOVE-HOOK.
Synonymous with _clasp-hook_.
CLOVES.
Planks made by cleaving.
Certain weights for wool, butter, &c. Also, long spike-nails [derived from _clou_, Fr.
] CLOW.
A kind of sluice in which the aperture is regulated by a board sliding in a frame and groove.
CLOY, TO.
To drive an iron spike by main force into the vent or touch-hole of a gun, which renders it unserviceable till the spike be either worked out, or a new vent drilled.
(_See_ NAILING and SPIKING.
) CLUBBED.
A fashion which obtained in the time of pig-tails of doubling them up while at sea.
CLUBBING.
Drifting down a current with an anchor out.
CLUBBING A FLEET.
Man[oe]uvring so as to place the first division on the windward side.
CLUBBOCK.
The spotted blenny or gunnel (_Gunnellus vulgaris_).
CLUB-HAUL, TO.
A method of tacking a ship by letting go the lee-anchor as soon as the wind is out of the sails, which brings her head to wind, and as soon as she pays off, the cable is cut and the sails trimmed;
this is never had recourse to but in perilous situations, and when it is expected that the ship would otherwise miss stays.
