BUNTING. A name on our southern shores for the shrimp.
BUNTING, or Buntin. A thin woollen stuff, of which the ship's colours, flags, and signals are usually made.
BUNT-JIGGER. A small gun-tackle purchase, of two single blocks, one fitted with two tails, used in large vessels for bowsing up the bunt of a sail when furling: a peculiar combination of two points, fitted to a spar to which it is hooked.
BUNTLINE-CLOTH. The lining sewed up the fore-part of the sail in the direction of the buntline to prevent that rope from chafing the sail.
BUNTLINE-CRINGLE. An eye worked into the bolt-rope of a sail, to receive a buntline. This is only in top-gallant sails, and is seldom used now. In the merchant service all buntlines are generally passed through an eyelet-hole in the sail, and clinched round its own part.
BUNTLINES. Ropes attached to the foot-ropes of top-sails and courses, which, passing over and before the canvas, turn it up forward, and thus disarm the force of the wind; at one-third from each clue, eyelet-holes are worked in the canvas, and by grummets passed through, a toggle is secured on both bights: to this buntline-toggle the buntline attaches by an eye or loop. When the sails are loosed to dry, the bowlines, unbent from the bridles, are attached to these toggles, and haul out the sails by the foot-ropes like table-cloths. The buntline is rove through a block at the mast-head, passes through the buntline span attached to the tye-blocks on the yard to retain them in the bunt, or amidships, down before all, and looped to the toggles aforesaid. By aid of the clue-lines, reef-tackles, and buntlines, a top-sail is taken in or quieted if the sheets carry away, but more especially by the buntlines, as the wind has no hold then to belly the canvas.
BUNTLINE-SPANS. Short pieces of rope with a thimble in one end, the other whipped; the buntlines are rove through these thimbles: they are attached to the tie-blocks to keep the sail in the bunt when hauled up.
BUNTLINE-TOGGLES. See Buntlines and Toggle.
BUNT SLAB-LINES. Reeve through a block on the slings of the yard or under the top, and pass abaft the sail, making fast to its foot. Their object is to lift the foot of a course so as to see underneath it, or to prevent it from chafing. Something of the same kind is used for top-sails, to keep them from rubbing on the stays when flapping in a calm.
BUOY. A sort of close cask, or block of wood, fastened by a rope to the anchor, to show its situation after being cast, that the ship may not come so near it as to entangle her cable about its stock or flukes.—To buoy a cable is to make fast a spar, cask, or the like, to the bight of the cable, in order to prevent its galling or rubbing on the bottom. When a buoy floats on the water it is said to watch. When a vessel slips her cable she attaches a buoy to it in order afterwards to recover it. Thus the blockading squadrons off Brest and in Basque Roads frequently slipped, by signal, and each in beautiful order returned and picked up their cables.—To stream the buoy is to let it fall from the ship's side into the water, which is always done before the anchor is let go, that it may not be fouled by the buoy-rope as it sinks to the bottom.—Buoys of various kinds are also placed upon rocks or sand-banks to direct mariners where to avoid danger.
BUOYANCY. Capacity for floating lightly.—Centre of buoyancy, in naval architecture, the mean centre of that part of the vessel which is immersed in the water. (See Centre of Cavity.)
BUOYANT. The property of floating lightly on the water.
BUOY-ROPE. The rope which attaches the buoy to the anchor, which should always be of sufficient strength to lift the anchor should the cable part; it should also be little more in length than equal to the depth of the water (at high-water) where the anchor lies.—To bend the buoy-rope, pass the running eye over one fluke, take a hitch over the other arm, and seize. Or, take a clove-hitch over the crown on each arm or fluke, stopping the end to its own part, or to the shank.
BUOY-ROPE KNOT. Used where the end is lashed to the shank. A knot made by unlaying the strands of a cable-laid rope, and also the small strand of each large strand; and after single and double walling them, as for a stopper-knot, worm the divisions, and round the rope.
BURBOT. A fresh-water fish (Molva lota) in esteem with fishermen.
BURDEN. Is the quantity of contents or number of tons weight of goods or munitions which a ship will carry, when loaded to a proper sea-trim: and this is ascertained by certain fixed rules of measurement. The precise burden or burthen is about twice the tonnage, but then a vessel would be deemed deeply laden.
BURG [the Anglo-Saxon burh]. A word connected with fortification in German, as in almost all the Teutonic languages of Europe. In Arabic the same term, with the alteration of a letter, burj, signifies primarily a bastion, and by extension any fortified place on a rising ground. This meaning has been retained by all northern nations who have borrowed the word; and we, with the rest, name our towns, once fortified, burghs or boroughs.
BURGALL. A fish of the American coasts, from 6 to 12 inches long: it is also called the blue-perch, the chogset, and the nibbler—the last from its habit of nibbling off the bait thrown for other fishes.
BURGEE. A swallow-tailed or tapered broad pendant; in the merchant service it generally has the ship's name on it.
BURGOMASTER. In the Arctic Sea, a large species of gull (Larus glaucus).
BURGONET. A steel head-piece, or kind of helmet. Shakspeare makes Cleopatra, alluding to Antony, exclaim—
"The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet of men."
In the second part of "Henry VI." Clifford threatens Warwick—
"And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,
And tread it underfoot with all contempt."
BURGOO. A seafaring dish made of boiled oatmeal seasoned with salt, butter, and sugar. (See Loblolly and Skilly.)
BURLEY. The butt-end of a lance.
BURLEY-TWINE. A strong and coarse twine or small string.
BURN, or Bourne. The Anglo-Saxon term for a small stream or brook, originating from springs, and winding through meadows, thus differing from a beck. Shakspeare makes Edgar say in "King Lear"—
"Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me."
The word also signifies a boundary.
BURNETTIZE, To. To impregnate canvas, timber, or cordage with Sir William Burnett's fluid, a solution of chloride of zinc.
BURN THE WATER. A phrase denoting the act of killing salmon in the night, with a lister and lighted torch in the boat.
BURN-TROUT. A northern term for a small species of river-trout.
BURR. The iris or hazy circle which appears round the moon before rain. Also, a Manx or Gaelic term for the wind blowing across on the tide. Also, the sound made by the Newcastle men in pronouncing the letter R.
BURREL. A langrage shot, consisting of bits of iron, bullets, nails, and other matters, got together in haste for a sudden emergency.
BURROCK. A small weir over a river, where weals are laid for taking fish.
BURR-PUMP. A name of the bilge-pump.
BURSER. See Purser.
BURST. The explosion of a shell or any gun.
BURTHEN. See Burden.
BURTON. A small tackle rove in a particular manner; it is formed by two blocks or pulleys, with a hook-block in the bight of the running part; it is generally used to set up or tighten the shrouds, whence it is frequently termed a top-burton tackle; but it is equally useful to move or draw along