The Sailor's Word-Book Part 38

BREADTH EXTREME. _See_ EXTREME BREADTH OR BEAM.

BREADTH LINE. A curved line of the ship lengthwise, intersecting the timbers at their greatest extent from the middle line of the ship.

BREADTH-MOULDED. _See_ MOULDED BREADTH.

BREADTH-RIDERS. Timbers placed nearly in the broadest part of the ship, and diagonally, so as to strengthen two or more timbers.

BREAK, TO. To deprive of commission, warrant, or rating, by court-martial.

BREAK. The sudden rise of a deck when not flush; when the aft, and sometimes the fore part, of a vessel's deck is kept up to give more height below, and at the drifts.--_Break of the p.o.o.p_, where it ends at the foremost part.

BREAKAGE. The leaving of empty s.p.a.ces in stowing the hold. In marine insurance, the term alludes to damage occurring to goods.

BREAK-BEAMS. Beams introduced at the break of a deck, or any sudden termination of planking.

BREAK-BULK. To open the hold, to begin unloading and disposing of the goods therein, under legal provisions.

BREAKERS. Small barrels for containing water or other liquids; they are also used in watering the ship as gang-casks. (_See_ BAREKA.) Also, those billows which break violently over reefs, rocks, or shallows, lying immediately at, or under, the surface of the sea. They are distinguished both by their appearance and sound, as they cover that part of the sea with a perpetual foam, and produce loud roaring, very different from what the waves usually have over a deeper bottom. Also, a name given to those rocks which occasion the waves to break over them.--_Breakers ahead!_ the common pa.s.s-word to warn the officer of broken water in the direction of the course. (_See also_ SHIP-BREAKER.)

BREAK-GROUND. Beginning to weigh, or to lift the anchor from the bottom. On sh.o.r.e it means to begin the works for besieging a place, or opening the trenches.

BREAKING. Breaking out stores or cargo in the hold. The act of extricating casks or other objects from the hold-stowage.

BREAKING LIBERTY. Not returning at the appointed time.

BREAKING OF A GALE. Indications of a return of fine weather; short gusts at intervals; moaning or whistling of the wind through the rigging.

BREAKING-PLATE DISTANCE. The point within which iron-plated ships, under concentrated fire, may be damaged.

BREAKING THE EY. _See_ EYGHT.

BREAKING-UP OF THE MONSOON. A nautical term for the violent storms that attend the shifting of periodical winds.

BREAK-OFF. (_See_ BROKEN-OFF). "She breaks off from her course," applied only when the wind will not allow of keeping the course; applies only to "close-hauled" or "on a wind."--_Break-off!_ an order to quit one department of duty, to clap on to another.

BREAK-SHEER, TO. When a ship at anchor is laid in a proper position to keep clear of her anchor, but is forced by the wind or current out of that position, she is said to break her sheer. Also, for a vessel to break her sheer, or her back, means destroying the gradual sweep lengthways.

BREAK-UP, TO. To take a ship to pieces when she becomes old and unserviceable.

BREAK-WATER. Any erection or object so placed as to prevent the sea from rolling inwards. Where there is no mole or jetty the hull of an old ship may be sunk at the entrance of a small harbour, to break off or diminish the force of the waves as they advance towards the vessels moored within. Every bar to a river or harbour, intended to secure smooth water within, acts as a break-water.

BREAM. A common fresh as well as salt water fish (_Abramis brama_), little esteemed as food.

BREAMING. Cleaning a ship's bottom by burning off the gra.s.s, ooze, sh.e.l.ls, or sea-weed, which it has contracted by lying long in harbour; it is performed by holding kindled furze, f.a.ggots, or reeds to the bottom, which, by melting the pitch that formerly covered it, loosens whatever filth may have adhered to the planks; the bottom is then covered anew with a composition of sulphur, tallow, &c., which not only makes it smooth and slippery, so as to divide the fluid more readily, but also poisons and destroys those worms which eat through the planks in the course of a voyage. This operation may be performed either by laying the ship aground after the tide has ebbed from her or by docking or careening.

BREAST, TO. To run abeam of a cape or object. To cut through a sea, the surface of which is poetically termed breast.--_To breast the sea_, to meet it by the bow on a wind.--_To breast the surf_, to brave it, and overcome it swimming.--_To breast a bar_, to heave at the capstan.--_To breast to_, the act of giving a sheer to a boat.

BREAST-BACKSTAYS. They extend from the head of an upper-mast, through an out-rigger, down to the channels before the standing backstays, for supporting the upper spars from to windward. When to leeward, they are borne abaft the top-rim. (_See_ BACKSTAYS.)

BREAST-BEAMS. Those beams at the fore-part of the quarter-deck, and the after-part of the forecastle, in those vessels which have a p.o.o.p and a top-gallant forecastle.

BREAST-FAST. A large rope or chain, used to confine a ship's broadside to a wharf or quay, or to some other ship, as the head-fast confines her forward, and the stern-fast abaft.

BREAST-GASKETS. An old term for bunt-gaskets.

BREAST-HOOKS. Thick pieces of timber, incurvated into the form of knees, and used to strengthen the fore-part of a ship, where they are placed at different heights, directly across the stem internally, so as to unite it with the bows on each side, and form the princ.i.p.al security, supporting the hawse-pieces and strain of the cables. The breast-hooks are strongly connected to the stem and hawse-pieces by tree-nails, and by bolts driven from without through all, and forelocked or clinched upon rings inside.

BREAST-RAIL. The upper rail of the balcony; formerly it was applied to a railing in front of the quarter-deck, and at the after-part of the forecastle-deck. Also, fife-rail.

BREAST-ROPE. The lashing or laniard of the yard-parrels. (_See also_ HORSE.) Also, the bight of a mat-worked band fastened between the shrouds for the safety of the lad's-man in the chains, when sounding, so that he may hang over the water, and let the lead swing clear.

BREAST-WORK. A sort of bal.u.s.trade of rails, mouldings, or stanchions, which terminates the quarter-deck and p.o.o.p at the fore ends, and also incloses the forecastles both before and behind. (_See_ PARAPET.) Now applicable to the p.o.o.p-rails only. In fortification, it signifies a parapet thrown up as high as the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the men defending it.

BREATHER. A tropical squall.

BREATH OF WIND. All but a dead calm.

BREECHING. A strong rope pa.s.sing through at the cascable of a gun, used to secure it to the ship's side, and prevent it recoiling too much in time of battle, also to secure it when the ship labours; it is fixed by reeving it through a thimble stropped upon the cascable or k.n.o.b at the breech of the gun; one end is rove and clinched, and the other is pa.s.sed through the ring-bolt in the ship's side, and seized back. The breeching is of sufficient length to let the muzzle of the cannon come within the ship's side to be charged, or to be housed and lashed.

Clinch-shackles have superseded the ring-bolts, so that guns may be instantly unshackled and shifted.

BREECHING-BOLT. Applies to the above.

BREECH-LOADER. A gun, large or small, charged at the breech. The method is a very old one revived, but with such scientific modifications as to have enormously increased the effectiveness of small-arms; with cannon its successful practical application to the larger natures has not yet been arrived at, but with field-guns it has added largely to accuracy of practice and facility of loading.

BREECH OF A CANNON. The after-end, next the vent or touch-hole. It is the most ma.s.sive part of a gun; strictly speaking, it is all the solid metal behind the bottom of the bore. Also, the outside angle formed by the knee-timber, the inside of which is the throat.

BREECH-SIGHT. The notch cut on the base ring of a gun.

BREEZE. This word is widely understood as a pleasant zephyr; but among seamen it is usually applied as synonymous with wind in general, whether weak or strong.

BREEZE, SEA OR LAND. A shifting wind blowing from sea and land alternately at certain hours, and sensibly only near the coasts; they are occasioned by the action of the sun raising the temperature of the land so as to draw an aerial current from sea-ward by day, which is returned as the earth cools at night.

BREEZE, TO KICK UP A. To excite disturbance, and promote a quarrelsome row.

BREEZING UP. The gale freshening.

BREEZO. A toast given by the presiding person at a mess-table; derived from _brisee generale_.

BREVET. A rank in the army higher than the regimental commission held by an officer, affording him a precedence in garrison and brigade duties.

Something approaching this has been attempted afloat, under the term "staff."

BREWING. The appearance of a collection of black and tempestuous clouds, rising gradually from a particular part of the hemisphere, as the forerunner of a storm.

BRICKLAYER'S CLERK. A contemptuous expression for lubberly pretenders to having seen "better days," but who were forced to betake themselves to sea-life.

BRIDGE. A narrow gangway between two hatchways, sometimes termed a bridge. Military bridges to afford a pa.s.sage across a river for troops, are constructed with boats, pontoons, casks, trusses, trestles, &c.

Bridge in steam-vessels is the connection between the paddle-boxes, from which the officer in charge directs the motion of the vessel. Also, the middle part of the fire-bars in a marine boiler, on either side of which the fires are banked. Also, a narrow ridge of rock, sand, or shingle, across the bottom of a channel, so as to occasion a shoal over which the tide ripples. That between Mount Edgecombe and St. Nicholas' Isle, at Plymouth, has occasioned much loss of life.

BRIDGE-ISLET. A portion of land which becomes insular at high-water--as Old Woman's Isle at Bombay, and among others, the celebrated Lindisfarne, thus _tidally_ sung by Scott:--