BIGHT. The loop of a rope when it is folded, in contradistinction to the end; as, her anchor hooked the bight of our cable, i.e. caught any part of it between the ends. The bight of his cable has swept our anchor, i.e. the bight of the cable of another ship as she ranged about has entangled itself about the flukes of our anchor. Any part of the chord or curvature of a rope between the ends may be called a bight.
BIG-WIGS. A cant term for the higher officers.
BILANCELLA. A destructive mode of fishing in the Mediterranean, by means of two vessels towing a large net stretched between them.
BILANCIIS DEFERENDIS. A writ directed to a corporation, for the carrying of weights to such a haven, there to weigh the wool that persons, by our ancient laws, were licensed to transport.
BILANDER. A small merchant vessel with two masts, particularly distinguished from other vessels with two masts by the form of her main-sail, which is bent to the whole length of her yard, hanging fore and aft, and inclined to the horizon at an angle of about 45°. Few vessels are now rigged in this manner, and the name is rather indiscriminately used.
BILBO. An old term for a flexible kind of cutlass, from Bilbao, where the best Spanish sword-blades were made. Shakspeare humorously describes Falstaff in the buck-basket, like a good bilbo, coiled hilt to point.
BILBOES. Long bars or bolts, on which iron shackles slid, with a padlock at the end; used to confine the legs of prisoners in a manner similar to the punishment of the stocks. The offender was condemned to irons, more or less ponderous according to the nature of the offence of which he was guilty. Several of them are yet to be seen in the Tower of London, taken in the Spanish Armada. Shakspeare mentions Hamlet thinking of a kind of fighting,
"That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."
BILCOCK. The northern name for the water-rail.
BILGE, or Bulge. That part of the floor in a ship—on either side of the keel—which approaches nearer to a horizontal than to a perpendicular direction, and begins to round upwards. It is where the floors and second futtocks unite, and upon which the ship would rest if laid on the ground; hence, when a ship receives a fracture in this part, she is said to be bilged or bulged.—Bilge is also the largest circumference of a cask, or that which extends round by the bung-hole.
BILGE-BLOCKS. See Sliding Bilge-blocks.
BILGE-COADS. In launching a ship, same with sliding-planks.
BILGE-FEVER. The illness occasioned by a foul hold.
BILGE-FREE. A cask so stowed as to rest entirely on its beds, keeping the lower part of the bilge at least the thickness of the hand clear of the bottom of the ship, or other place on which it is stowed.
BILGE-KEELS. Used for vessels of very light draught and flattish bottoms, to make them hold a better wind, also to support them upright when grounded. The Warrior and other iron-clads are fitted with bilge-keels.
BILGE-KEELSONS. These are fitted inside of the bilge, to afford strength where iron, ores, and other heavy cargo are shipped. Otherwise they are the same as sister-keelsons.
BILGE-PIECES. Synonymous with bilge-keels.
BILGE-PLANKS. Certain thick strengthenings on the inner and outer lines of the bilge, to secure the shiftings as well as bilge-keels.
BILGE-PUMP. A small pump used for carrying off the water which may lodge about the lee-bilge, so as not to be under the action of the main pumps. In a steamer it is worked by a single link off one of the levers.
BILGE-TREES. Another name for bilge-coads.
BILGE-WATER. The rain or sea-water which occasionally enters a vessel, and running down to her floor, remains in the bilge of the ship till pumped out, by reason of her flat bottom, which prevents it from going to the well of the pump; it is always (especially if the ship does not leak) of a dirty colour and disgusting penetrating smell. It seems to have been a sad nuisance in early voyages; and in the earliest sea-ballad known (temp. Hen. VI.) it is thus grumbled at:—
"A sak of strawe were there ryght good,
For som must lyg theym in theyr hood,
I had as lefe be in the wood
W'out mete or drynk.
For when that we shall go to bedde,
The pumpe was nygh our bedde's hedde;
A man were as good to be dede
As smell thereof ye stynk."
The mixture of tar-water and the drainings of sugar cargo is about the worst perfume known.
BILL. A weapon or implement of war, a pike or halbert of the English infantry. It was formerly carried by sentinels, whence Shakspeare humorously made Dogberry tell the sleepy watchmen to have a care that their bills be not stolen. Also, the point or tapered extremity of the fluke at the arm of an anchor. Also a point of land, of which a familiar instance may be cited in the Bill of Portland.
BILLAT. A name on the coast of Yorkshire for the piltock or coal-fish, when it is a year old.
BILL-BOARDS. Doubling under the fore-channels to the water-line, to protect the planking from the bill of the anchor.
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 71⁄2 inches in compass.
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 pass 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 constitutes 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 document 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 compass 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