BRAY, To. To beat and bruise in a mortar.
BREACH. Formerly, what is made by the breaking in of the sea, now applied also to the openings or gaps made in the works of fortified places battered by an enemy's cannon. Also, an old term for a heavy surf or broken water on a sea-coast; by some called brist.
BREACHING. The act of leaping out of the water; applied to whales.
BREACH OF THE SEA. Waves breaking over the hull of a vessel in bad weather, or when stranded.—A clear breach implies the waves rolling clean over without breaking. Shakspeare in "Twelfth Night" uses the term for the breaking of the waves.—Clean-breach, when masts and every object on deck is swept away.
BREACHY. Brackish, as applied to water, probably originating in the sea breaking in.
BREAD. The usual name given to biscuit.
BREAD-BARGE. The tray in which biscuit is handed round.
BREAD-FRUIT (Artocarpus incisa). This most useful tree has a wide range of growth, but the seedless variety produced in Tahiti and some of the South Sea Islands is superior to others; it has an historical interest from its connection with the voyage of the Bounty in 1787.
BREAD-ROOM. The lowest and aftermost part of the orlop deck, where the biscuit is kept, separated by a bulk-head from the rest; but any place parted off from below deck for containing the bread is so designated.
BREAD-ROOM JACK. The purser's steward's help.
BREADTH. The measure of a vessel from side to side in any particular place athwart-ships. (See Straight of Breadth, Height of Breadth, Top-timber Breadth, &c.)—Breadth of beam, extreme breadth of a ship.
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 poop, where it ends at the foremost part.
BREAKAGE. The leaving of empty spaces 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 pass-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 shore 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 grass, ooze, shells, or sea-weed, which it has contracted by lying long in harbour; it is performed by holding kindled furze, faggots, 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 poop 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 principal 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