The Sailor's Word-Book Part 227

SOUSE. A method of pickling fish by immersing them in vinegar after being boiled. (_See_ MARL.)

SOUSED GURNET. Best expressed by Falstaff's--"If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet."

SOUTHERN CROSS. The popular name of a group of stars near the South Pole, which are somewhat in the figure of a cross.

SOUTHERN-LIGHTS. _See_ AURORA AUSTRALIS.

SOUTHING. In navigation, implies the distance made good towards the south: the opposite of _northing_.

SOUTHING OF THE MOON. The time at which the moon pa.s.ses the meridian of any particular place. Popularly the term is used to denote the meridian transit of any heavenly body south of the observer.

SOUTH SEA. _See_ PACIFIC OCEAN.

SOUTH-WESTER. A useful water-proof hat for bad weather.

SOUTH-WIND. A mild wind in the British seas with frequent fogs; it generally brings rain or damp weather.

SOW. The receptacle into which the molten iron is poured in a gun-foundry. The liquid iron poured from it is termed _pig_, whence the term pig-ballast.

SPADE. In open speaking, to call a spade a spade is to give a man his real character. The phrase is old and still in use.

SPADO, OR SPADROON. A cut-and-thrust sword [from the Spanish].

SPAKE-NET. A peculiar net for catching crabs.

SPALDING-KNIFE. A knife used for splitting fish in Newfoundland.

SPALDINGS. A north-country name for whitings and other small fish, split and dried.

SPALES. In naval architecture, internal strengthening by cross artificial beams. (_See_ CROSS-SPALES.)

SPAN. A rope with both ends made fast, so that a purchase may be hooked to its bight. Also, a small line or cord, the middle of which is usually attached to a stay, whence the two ends branch outwards to the right and left, having either a block or thimble attached to their extremities. It is used to confine some ropes which pa.s.s through the corresponding blocks or thimbles as a fair leader.

SPAN-BLOCKS. Blocks seized into each bight of a strap, long enough to go across a cap, and allow the blocks to hang clear on each side, as main-lifts, top-mast studding-sail, halliards, blocks, &c.

SPAN IN THE RIGGING, TO. To draw the upper parts of the shrouds together by tackles, in order to seize on the cat-harping legs. The rigging is also "spanned in" when it has been found to stretch considerably on first putting to sea, but cannot be set up until it moderates.

SPANISH-BURN. A specious method of hiding defects in timber, by chopping it in pieces.

SPANISH-BURTON. The _single_ is rove with three single blocks, or two single blocks and a hook in the bight of one of the running parts. The _double_ Spanish-burton is furnished with one double and two single blocks.

SPANISH DISTURBANCE. An epithet given to the sudden armament on the Nootka Sound affair, in 1797, an epoch from which many of our seamen dated their service in the late wars.

SPANISH MACKEREL. An old Cornish name for the tunny, or a s...o...b..r, larger than the horse-mackerel.

SPANISH REEF. The yards lowered on the cap. Also, a knot tied in the head of the jib.

SPANISH WINDLa.s.s. A wooden roller, or heaver, having a rope wound about it, through the bight of which an iron bolt is inserted as a lever for heaving it round. This is a handy tool for turning in rigging, heaving in seizings, &c.

SPANKER. A fore-and-aft sail, setting with a boom and gaff, frequently called the _driver_ (which see). It is the aftermost sail of a ship or bark.

SPANKER-EEL. A northern term for the lamprey.

SPANKING. Going along with a fresh breeze when the spanker tells, as the aft well-boomed out-sail. The word is also used to denote strength, spruceness, and size, as a _spanking breeze_, a _spanking frigate_, &c.

SPANNER. An instrument by which the wheel-lock guns and pistols were wound up; also used to screw up the nuts of the plummer boxes. Also, an important balance in forming the radius of parallel motion in a steam-engine, since it reconciles the curved sweep which the side-levers describe with the perpendicular movement of the piston-rod, by means of which they are driven.

SPANNING A HARPOON. Fixing the line which connects the harpoon and its staff. The harpoon iron is a socketed tool, tapering 3 feet to the barb-heads; on that iron socket a becket is worked; the staff fits in loosely. The harpoon line reeves upwards from the socket through this becket, and through another on the staff, so that on striking the whale the staff leaps out of the socket and does not interfere with the iron, which otherwise might be wrenched out.

SPAN OF RIGGING. The length of shrouds from the dead-eyes on one side, over the mast-head, to the dead-eyes on the other side of the ship.

SPAN-SHACKLE. A large bolt running through the forecastle and spar-deck beams, and forelocked before each beam, with a large triangular shackle at the head, formerly used for the purpose of receiving the end of the davit. Also, a bolt similarly driven through the deck-beam, for securing the booms, boats, anchors, &c.

SPAR. The general term for any mast, yard, boom, gaff, &c. In ship-building, the name is applied to small firs used in making staging.

SPAR-DECK. This term is loosely applied, though properly it signifies a temporary deck laid in any part of a vessel, and the beams whereon it rests obtain the name of skid-beams in the navy. It also means the quarter-deck, gangways, and forecastle of a deep-waisted vessel; and, rather strangely, is applied to the upper entire deck of a double-banked vessel, without an open waist.

SPARE. An epithet applied to any part of a ship's equipage that lies in reserve, to supply the place of such as may be lost or rendered incapable of service; hence we say, spare tiller, spare top-masts, &c.

SPARE ANCHOR. An additional anchor the size of a bower.

SPARE SAILS. An obvious term. They should be pointed before stowing them away in the sail-room.

SPARLING. A name on the Lancashire coasts for the smelt (_Osmerus eperla.n.u.s_).

SPARTHE. An Anglo-Saxon term for a halbert or battle-axe.

SPAT. The sp.a.w.n or ova of the oyster.

SPEAK A VESSEL, TO. To pa.s.s within hail of her for that purpose.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY. The comparative weights of equal bulks of different bodies, water being generally represented as unity.

SPECK-BLOCKS. _See_ FLENSE.

SPECK-FALLS, OR PURCHASE. Ropes rove through two large purchase-blocks at the mast-head of a whaler, and made fast to the _blubber-guy_, for hoisting the blubber from a whale.

SPECKTIONEER. The chief harpooner in a Greenland ship. He also directs the cutting operations in clearing the whale of its blubber and bones.

SPECTRUM. The variously coloured image into which a ray of light is divided on being pa.s.sed through a prism.

SPEED-INDICATOR. A modification of Ma.s.sey's log.

SPELL. The period wherein one or more sailors are employed in particular duties demanding continuous exertion. Such are the spells to the hand-lead in sounding, to working the pumps, to look out on the mast-head, &c., and to steer the ship, which last is generally called the "trick at the wheel." _Spel-ian_, Anglo-Saxon, "to supply another's room." Thus, _Spell ho!_ is the call for relief.

SPENCER. The fore-and-main trysails; fore-and-aft sails set with gaffs, introduced instead of main-topmast and mizen staysails.

SPENT. From _expend_: said of a mast broken by accident, in contradistinction to one shot away.