The Sailor's Word-Book Part 29

BILLET. The allowance to landlords for quartering men in the royal service; the lodging-money charged by consuls for the same.

BILLET-HEAD. A carved prow bending in and out, contrariwise to the fiddle-head (scroll-head). Also, a round piece of wood fixed in the bow or stern of a whale-boat, about which the line is veered when the whale is struck. Synonymous with bollard.

BILLET-WOOD. Small wood mostly used for dunnage in stowing ships'

cargoes, also for fuel, usually sold by the fathom; it is 3 feet 4 inches long, and 7-1/2 inches in compa.s.s.

BILL-FISH. _See_ GAR-FISH.

BILL-HOOK. A species of hatchet used in wooding a ship, similar to that used by hedgers.

BILL OF EXCHANGE. A means of remitting money from one country to another. The receiver must present it for acceptance to the parties on whom it is drawn without loss of time, he may then claim the money after the date specified on the bill has elapsed.

BILL OF FREEDOM. A full pa.s.s for a neutral in time of war.

BILL OF HEALTH. A certificate properly authenticated by the consul, or other proper authority at any port, that the ship comes from a place where no contagious disorder prevails, and that none of the crew, at the time of her departure, were infected with any such distemper. Such const.i.tutes a _clean_ bill of health, in contradistinction to a _foul_ bill.

BILL OF LADING. A memorandum by which the master of a ship acknowledges the receipt of the goods specified therein, and promises to deliver them, in like good condition, to the consignee, or his order. It differs from a charter-party insomuch as it is given only for a single article or more, laden amongst the sundries of a ship's cargo.

BILL OF SALE. A written doc.u.ment by which the property of a vessel, or shares thereof, are transferred to a purchaser.

BILL OF SIGHT, OR OF VIEW. A warrant for a custom-house officer to examine goods which had been shipped for foreign parts, but not sold there.

BILL OF STORE. A kind of license, or custom-house permission, for re-importing unsold goods from foreign ports duty free, within a specified limit of time.

BILLOWS. The surges of the sea, or waves raised by the wind; a term more in use among poets than seamen.

BILLS. The ends of compa.s.s or knee timber.

BILLY BOY OR BOAT. A Humber or east-coast boat, of river-barge build, and a trysail; a bluff-bowed north-country trader, or large one-masted vessel of burden.

BINARY SYSTEM. When two stars forming a double-star are found to revolve about each other.

BIND. A quant.i.ty 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 princ.i.p.al 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-sh.o.r.e, 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 compa.s.s, and a light to illuminate the compa.s.s 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 compa.s.s-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 _Asterinidae_, 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 quant.i.ty 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 4_d._ to 6_d._ In America it is 12-1/2 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-b.u.mP. 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, windla.s.s-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.