Lugger.
A small vessel carrying lug-sails.
Lug-Still. A sail used in boats and small vessels, bent to a yard, which
hangs obliquely to the mast.
Lurch.
The sudden rolling of a vessel to one side.
Lying-To. (See Lie-To.)
M
Made.
A made mast or block is one composed of
different pieces. A ship's lower mast is a made spar, her topmast is a whole
spar.
Mainmast: - the tallest mast of the
ship; on a schooner, the mast furthest aft.
Mainsail:
- The sail set on the mainmast.-the lowest
square sail on the mainmast.
Marlinespike - A tool for opening the
strands of a rope while splicing
Mall, or
Maul. (Pronounced mawl.) A heavy iron hammer used in driving
bolts. (See TOP-MAUL.)
Mallet.
A small maul, made of wood; as, caulking-mallet; also, serving-mallet, used in
putting service on a rope.
Manger. A
coaming just within the hawsehole.
Man-of War. a warship intended for comba,
usually carrying between 20 and 120 guns.
Manropes. Ropes used in going up and down a vessel's side.
Mare Clausum - A navigable body of water. such as
sea, that is under the jurisdication of one nation and closed to all others.
Mare Liberum - A navigable body of water, such as
sea, that is open to navigation by vessels of all nations.
Marl. To
wind or twist a small line or rope round another.
Marline. (Pronounced
mar-lin.) Small two-stranded stuff, used for marling. A finer kind of
spunyarn.
Marling-Hitch. A
kind of hitch used in marling.
Marlinspike. An iron pin, sharpened at one end, and having a hole in the other
for a lanyard. Used both as a fid and a heaver.
Marry.
To join ropes together by a worming over both.
Martingale. A short
perpendicular spar, under the bowsprit-end, used for guying down the head-stays.
(See DOLPHIN STRIKER.)
Mast: - A spar set upright from the
deck, to support rigging, yards and sails. Masts are whole or made.
Mat.
Made of strands of old rope, and used to prevent chafing.
Mate. An officer
under the master.
Maul.
(See MALL.)
Mend. To
mend service, is to add more to it.
Meshes.
The places between the lines of netting.
Mess.
Any number of men who eat or lodge together.
Messenger. A rope
used for heaving in a cable by the capstan.
Midships. The timbers at the broadest part of the vessel. (See AMID-SHIPS.)
Miss-Stays. To fail
of going about from one tack to another.
Mizzenmast. The
aftermost mast of a ship. The spanker is sometimes called the mizzen.
Monkey Block. A small single block strapped with a swivel. Also the blocks
fasterned to the yard through which buntlines are roved.
Monkey Jacket - close fitting serge jacket. also
known as Jackanaapes coat.
Monkey Rail - in older wooden vessels, a
topgallant rail above the quarter-deck or poop bulwarks (quarter boards). In
modern vessels, a small rail above ship's stern enclosing standing-room for an
officer supervising handling of mooring-lines in docking.
Moon-Sail. A small
sail sometimes carried in light winds, above a skysail.
Moor. To
secure by two anchors.
Mooring - the act of
confining and securing a ship in. a particular station, by chains or cables,
which are either fastened to the adjacent shore, or to anchors in the bottom. A
ship may be either moored by the head, (affourcher, Fr.) or by the head and
stern; that is to lay, she may be secured by anchors before her, without any
behind: or the may have anchors out, both before and behind her; or her cables
may be attached to polls, rings, or moorings, which answer the same purpose.
When a ship is moored by the head with her own anchors, they are disposed
according to the circumstances of the place where the lies, and the time she is
to continue therein. Thus wherever a tide ebbs and flows, it is usual to carry
one anchor out towards the flood, and another towards the ebb, particularly
where there is little room to range about; and the anchors are laid in the same
manner, if the vessel is moored head and-stern in the same place. The situation
of the anchors, in a road or bay, is usually opposed to the reigning winds, or
those which are most dangerous; so that the ship rides therein with the effort
of both her cables. Thus if the rides in a bay, or road, which is exposed to a
northerly wind and heavy sea from the same quarter, the anchors passing from the
opposite bows ought to lie east and welt from each other: hence both the cables
will retain the ship in her station with equal effort against the action of the
wind and sea.
Moorings - are usually an assemblage of anchors,
chains, and bridles, laid athwart the bottom of the river, or haven, to ride the
shipping contained therein. The anchors, employed on this occasion, have rarely
more than one fluke, which is sunk in the river near low-water mark. Two
anchors, being fixed , in this manner, on the opposite sides of the river, are
furnished with a chain, extending across from one to the other. In the middle of
the chain is a large square link, whose lower end terminates in a swivel, which
turns round in the chain as about an axis, whenever the ship veers about with
the change of the tide. To this swivel-link are attached the bridles, which are
short pieces of cable, well served,, whose upper ends are drawn into the ship,
at the mooring-ports, and afterwards fastened to the masts, or cable-bits. A
great number of moorings, of this sort, are fixed in the royal ports, or the
harbours adjacent to the king's dock-yards, as Deptford, Chatham, Portsmouth,
Plymouth, &c.
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Mortice. A morticed
block is one made out of a whole block of wood with a hole cut in it for the
sheave; in distinction from a made block.
Moulds.
The patterns by which the frames of a vessel are worked out.
Mouse.
To put turns of rope yarn or spunyarn round the end of a hook and its standing
part, when it is hooked to anything, so as to prevent it slipping out.
Mousing.
A knot or puddening, made of yarns, and placed on the outside of a rope.
Muffle.
Putting mats or canvass round their looms in the rowlocks muffles oars.
Munions.
The pieces that separate the lights in the
galleries.
Murderer - Small iron or brass hand gun used for
anti-personnel defence (agains boarders)aboard ship.
A spike was provide to allow the weapon to used a various places around the
ship.
N
Naval Hoods, or Hawse
Bolsters. Plank above and below the hawse-holes.
Navigable-An area with sufficient
depth of water to permit vessel passage.
Navigation-The art of getting vessel
from one port to the next port.
Nautical Mile:
1 nm = 1853 meters
= 2000 yards = 6080 feet Contrary to some earlier replies, a nautical mile is
(or was) the length of a minute of latitude at the latitude in question, not at
the equator. (Since the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, the length on the surface
that is subtended by a degree or a minute of latitude decreases slightly towards
the poles and the length of a nautical mile decreases with it.) The confusion
may have arisen because a "geographic mile", a rarely used unit, is the length
of a minute of _longitude_ on the equator. As someone has already noted, a
nautical mile is approximately 6080 English feet and that is often useful as a
working measurement. I noted above that the definition of "nautical mile" might
no longer be the same because, around 25 years ago, it was admitted as a metric
unit under the System Internationale (SI). Since the original designers of the
metric system, back in about 1780, got their calculations wrong, distances in
kilometres cannot readily be related to the spherical geometry used in
navigation. [Maybe the idea was that one-kilometer should have been the distance
subtended by one centigrade or 1/100 or 1/100 of a right angle, meaning that
10,000 km would have equaled 3,600 nautical miles, though that implies an
unbelievably large error.] So, sometime in the 1970s, the committees, which
control SI, were persuaded to accept the nautical mile as a valid unit.
Unfortunately, they gave it the singularly silly abbreviation "M", which, in
their unlimited wisdom, they knew nobody could confuse with "m" for metre. I
have only seen that used once, by a Russian scientist, and it sure confused
me!
Cheers,
Trevor
Kenchington
While there are
3600 seconds in a degree, there are (of course!) 5400 minutes in a right angle.
Thus, 10,000 km should be equal to 5400 nautical miles, if the former was
defined correctly and the world was a perfect sphere. That makes 1.85185... (the
three figures go on recurring into infinity), which suggests that the people who
marked the metal bar to define the metre had their dimension very close indeed
-- and did not make the substantial error thhat I suggested in my
last.
Trevor
Kenchington
The nautical mile
was originally defined as one minute of angle of the Earth's meridian. Since the
meter originally was defined as a 10.000.000 part of the distance from Equator
to the pole, it follows that a nautical mile is 10000000/5400 = 1851,851851...
meters.
Neap Tides. Low tides, coming at the middle of the moon's second and fourth
quarters. (See SPRING TIDES.)
NEAPED, or
BENEAPED. The situation of a vessel when she is aground at
the height of the spring tides.
Near.
Close to wind. "Near!" the order to the helmsman when he is too near the wind.
Net
Tonnage-Vessels measurement of cargo carrying
capacity.
Netting.
Network of rope or small lines. Used for stowing away sails or hammocks.
Nettles.
(See KNITTLES.)
Ninepin Block. A block in the form of a ninepin, used for a fair-leader in the
rail.
Nip. A short turn
in a rope.
Nippers
A number of yarns marled together, used to secure a cable to the
messenger.
Nock.
The forward upper end of a sail that sets with a boom.
Nun
Buoy-Red tapered navigation buoy.
Nut.
Projections on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock to its
place.
O
Oakum tarred hemp or manila fibers
made from old and condemned ropes, which have been picked apart. They were used
for caulking the seams of decks and sides of a wooden ship in order to make them
watertight.
Oar. A
long wooden instrument with a flat blade at one end, used for propelling boats.
Off-And-On. To stand on different tacks towards and from the land.
Offing. Distance
from the shore.
Orlop.
The lower deck of a ship of the line; or that on which the cables are stowed.
Out-Haul. A rope
used for hauling out the clew of a boom sail.
Out-Rigger. A spar rigged out to windward from the tops or cross-trees, to
spread the breast-backstays.
Overhaul. To
overhaul a tackle, is to let go the fall and pull on the leading parts so as to
separate the blocks.
