BE-NEAPED. The situation of a vessel when she is aground at the height of spring-tides. (See Neaped.)
BENGAL LIGHT. See Blue Light.
BENJY. A low-crowned straw-hat, with a very broad brim.
BENK. A north-country term for a low bank, or ledge of rock; probably the origin of bunk, or sleeping-places in merchant vessels. (See Bunk.)
BENN. A small kind of salmon; the earliest in the Solway Frith.
BENT. The trivial name of the Arundo arenaria, or coarse unprofitable grass growing on the sea-shore.
BENTINCK-BOOM. That which stretches the foot of the fore-sail in many small square-rigged merchantmen; particularly used in whalers among the ice, with a reefed fore-sail to see clearly ahead. The tack and sheet are thus dispensed with, a spar with tackle amidships brings the leeches taut on a wind. It is principally worked by its bowline.
BENTINCKS. Triangular courses, so named after Captain Bentinck, by whom they were invented, but which have since been superseded by storm staysails. They are still used by the Americans as trysails.
BENTINCK-SHROUDS. Formerly used; extending from the weather-futtock staves to the opposite lee-channels.
BENT ON A SPLICE. Going to be married.
BERG. A word adopted from the German, and applied to the features of land distinguished as steppes, banquettes, shelves, terraces, and parallel roads. (See Iceberg.)
BERGLE. A northern name for the wrasse.
BERM. In fortification, a narrow space of level ground, averaging about a foot and a half in width, generally left between the foot of the exterior slope of the parapet and the top of the escarp; in permanent fortification its principal purpose is to retain the earth of the parapet, which, when the latter is deformed by fire or by weather, would otherwise fall into the ditch; in field fortification it also serves to protect the escarp from the pressure of a too imminent parapet.
BERMUDA SAILS. See 'Mudian.
BERMUDA SQUALL. A sudden and strong wintry tempest experienced in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Bermudas; it is preceded by heavy clouds, thunder, and lightning. It belongs to the Gulf Stream, and is felt, throughout its course, up to the banks of Newfoundland.
BERMUDIANS. Three-masted schooners, built at Bermuda during the war of 1814; they went through the waves without rising to them, and consequently were too ticklish for northern stations.
BERNAK. The barnacle goose (Anser bernicla).
BERSIS. A species of cannon formerly much used at sea.
BERTH. The station in which a ship rides at anchor, either alone, or in a fleet; as, she lies in a good berth, i.e. in good anchoring ground, well sheltered from the wind and sea, and at a proper distance from the shore and other vessels.—Snug berth, a place, situation, or establishment. A sleeping berth.—To berth a vessel, is to fix upon, and put her into the place she is to occupy.—To berth a ship's company, to allot to each man the space in which his hammock is to be hung, giving the customary 14 inches in width.—To give a berth, to keep clear of, as to give a point of land a wide berth, is to keep at a due distance from it.
BERTH. The room or apartment where any number of the officers, or ship's company, mess and reside; in a ship of war there is commonly one of these between every two guns as the mess-places of the crew.
BERTH AND SPACE. In ship-building, the distance from the moulding edge of one timber to the moulding edge of the next timber. Same as room and space, or timber and space.
BERTH-DECK. The 'tween decks.
BERTHER. He who assigns places for the respective hammocks to hang in.
BERTHING. The rising or working up of the planks of a ship's sides; as berthing up a bulk-head, or bringing up in general. Berthing also denotes the planking outside, above the sheer-strake, and is called the berthing of the quarter-deck, of the poop, or of the forecastle, as the case may be.
BERTHING OF THE HEAD. See Head-boards.
BERVIE. A haddock split and half-dried.
BERWICK SMACK. The old and well-found packets of former days, until superseded by steamers. (See Barrack Smack.)
BESET IN ICE. Surrounded with ice, and no opening for advance or retreat, so as to be obliged to remain immovable.
BESIEGE, To. To endeavour to gain possession of a fortified place defended by an enemy, by directing against it a connected series of offensive military operations.
BESSY-LORCH. A northern name of the Gobio fluviatilis or gudgeon.
BEST BOWER. See Bower-anchors.
BETELGUESE. The lucida of Orion, α Orionis, and a standard Greenwich star of the first magnitude.
BETHEL. See Floating Bethel.
BETTY MARTIN. See Martin.
BETWEEN DECKS. The space contained between any two whole decks of a ship.
BETWIXT WIND AND WATER. About the line of load immersion of the ship's hull; or that part of the vessel which is at the surface of the water.
BEVEL. An instrument by which bevelling angles are taken. Also a sloped surface.
BEVELLING. Any alteration from a square in hewing timber, as taken by the bevel, bevelling rule, or bevelling boards.—A standing bevelling is that made without, or outside a square; an under-bevelling within; and the angle is optionally acute or obtuse. In ship-building, it is the art of hewing a timber with a proper and regular curve, according to a mould which is laid on one side of its surface.
BEVELLING-BOARD. A piece of board on which the bevellings or angles of the timbers are described.
BEVERAGE. A West India drink, made of sugar-cane juice and water.
BEWPAR. The old name for buntin, still used in navy office documents.
BEWTER. A northern name for the black-wak, or bittern.
BEZANT. An early gold coin, so called from having been first coined at Byzantium.
BIBBS. Pieces of timber bolted to the hounds of a mast, to support the trestle-trees.
BIBLE. A hand-axe. Also, a squared piece of freestone to grind the deck with sand in cleaning it; a small holy-stone, so called from seamen using them kneeling.
BIBLE-PRESS. A hand rolling-board for cartridges, rocket, and port-fire cases.
BICKER, or Beaker. A flat bowl or basin for containing liquors, formerly made of wood, but in later times of other substances. Thus Butler:
"And into pikes, and musqueteers,
Stamp beakers, cups, and porringers."
BID-HOOK. A small kind of boat-hook.
BIEL-BRIEF. The bottomry contract in Denmark, Sweden, and the north of Germany.
BIERLING. An old name for a small galley.
BIFURCATE. A river is said to bifurcate, or to form a fork, when it divides into two distinct branches, as at the heads of deltas and in fluvial basins.
BIGHT. A substantive made from the preterperfect tense of bend. The space lying between two