The Sailor's Word-Book Part 46

CANAICHE, OR CANASH. An inner port, as at Granada in the West Indies.

Ca.n.a.l-BOAT. A barge generally towed by horses, but furnished with a large square-sail for occasional use.

CAN-BODIES. The old term for anchor-buoys, now can-buoys.

CAN-BUOYS. Are in the form of a cone, and therefore would countenance the term cone-buoys. They are floated over sands and other obstructions in navigation, as marks to be avoided; they are made very large, to be seen at a distance; where there are several, they are distinguished by their colour, as black, red, white, or chequered; &c.

CANCELLED TICKET. One rendered useless by some subsequent arrangement or clerk's error. In either case the word "cancelled" is to be written across in large characters, and due record made. The corner cut off cancels good character, yet they are a certificate for time.

CANCER. The Crab; the fourth sign of the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 21st of June, and commences the summer solstice.

CANDLE-BARK. A cylindrical tin box for candles.

CANE. The rattan (_Calamus rudentum_), is extensively used in the East for rigging, rope, and cables. The latter have remained for years at the bottom of the sea uninjured by teredo, or any destructive crustacea. The cables, too, resist any but the sharpest axes, when used to connect logs as booms, to stop the navigation of rivers.

CANEVAS. The old word for hempen canvas; but many races, even the Chinese, make sails entirely of cane. The Americans frequently use cotton, and term that cloth duck. In the islands of the South Pacific it is made from the bark of various trees, gra.s.ses, &c.

CAN-HOOKS. They are used to sling a cask by the chimes, or ends of its staves, and are formed by reeving the two ends of a piece of rope or chain through the eyes of two flat hooks, and there making them fast.

The tackle is then hooked to the middle of the bight.

CANISTER SHOT. _See_ CASE-SHOT.

CANNIKIN. A small drinking-vessel.

CANNON. The well-known piece of artillery, mounted in battery on board or on sh.o.r.e, and made either of bra.s.s or iron. The princ.i.p.al parts are:--1st. The breech, together with the cascable and its b.u.t.ton, called by seamen the pommelion. The breech is of solid metal, from the bottom of the concave cylinder or chamber to the cascable. 2d. The trunnions, which project on each side, and serve to support the cannon, hold it almost in equilibrio. 3d. The bore or caliber, is the interior of the cylinder, wherein the powder and shot are lodged when the cannon is loaded. The entrance of the bore is called the mouth or muzzle. It may be generally described as gradually tapering, with the various modifications of first and second reinforce and swell, to the muzzle or forward end. (_See_ GUN.)

CANNONADE. The opening and continuance of the fire of artillery on any object attacked. Battering with cannon-shot.

CANNON-PERER. An ancient piece of ordnance used in s.h.i.+ps of war for throwing stone shot.

CANNON-PETRONEL. A piece of ordnance with a 6-inch bore which carried a 24-lb. ball.

CANNON, RIFLED. Introduced by Captain Blakely, Sir W. Armstrong, and others.

CANNON ROYAL. A 60-pounder of eight and a half inches bore. (_See_ CARTHOUN.)

CANNON-SERPENTINE. An old name for a gun of 7-inches bore.

CANOE. A peculiar boat used by several uncivilized nations, formed of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and sometimes of several pieces of bark joined together, and again of hide. They are of various sizes, according to the uses for which they are designed, or the countries to which they belong. Some carry sail, but they are commonly rowed with paddles, somewhat resembling a corn-shovel; and instead of rowing with it horizontally, as with an oar, they manage it perpendicularly. In Greenland and Hudson Bay, the Esquimaux limits of America, skin-boats are chiefly in use, under the name of kaiack, oomiak, baidar, &c.

CANOPUS. The lucida of Argo Navis, and a Greenwich star. Also, a city of cla.s.sical importance, visited by the heroes of the Trojan war, the reputed burial-place of the pilot of Menelaus, &c. But, as some ancient places have been so fortunate as to renew their cla.s.sical importance in modern times, so this, under the modern name of Abukeir, has received a new "stamp of fate," by its overlooking, like Salamis, the scene of a naval battle, which also led to a decision of the fate of nations. In this bay Nelson, at one blow, destroyed the fleet of the enemy, and cut off the veteran army of France from the sh.o.r.es of Egypt. The Canopian mouth of the Nile was the most westerly of all the branches of that celebrated river.

CANOPY. A light awning over the stern-sheets of a boat.

CANT, TO. To turn anything about, or so that it does not stand square.

To diverge from a central right line. Cant the boat or s.h.i.+p; _i.e._ for careening her.

CANT. A cut made in a whale between the neck and the fins, to which the cant-purchase is made fast, for turning the animal round in the operation of flensing.

CANTARA. A watering-place.

CANT-BLOCKS. The large purchase-blocks used by whalers to cant the whales round under the process of flensing.

CANT-BODY. An imaginary figure of that part of a s.h.i.+p's body which forms the shape forward and aft, and whose planes make obtuse angles with the mids.h.i.+p line of the s.h.i.+p.

CANTEEN. A small tin vessel for men on service to carry liquids. Also, a small chest containing utensils for an officer's messing. Also, a kind of sutling-house in garrisons.

CANTERA. A Spanish fis.h.i.+ng-boat.

CANT-FALLS. _See_ SPIKE-TACKLE.

CANT-HOOK. A lever with a hook at one end for heavy articles.

CANTICK-QUOINS. Short three-edged pieces of wood to steady casks from labouring against each other.

CANTING BALLAST. Is when by a sudden gust or stress of weather a s.h.i.+p is thrown so far over that the ballast settles to leeward, and prevents the s.h.i.+p from righting.

CANTING-LIVRE. _See_ CONSOLE-BRACKET.

CANT-LINE. Synonymous with _girt-line_, as to cant the top over the lowermast-head.

CANTONMENTS. Troops detached and quartered in different towns and villages near each other.

CANT-PURCHASE. This is formed by a block suspended from the mainmast-head, and another block made fast to the cant cut in the whale.

(_See_ CANT-BLOCKS.)

CANT-RIBBONS. Those ribbons that do not lie in a horizontal or level direction.

CANT-ROPE. _See_ FOUR-CANT.

CANT-SPAR. A hand-mast pole, fit for making small masts or yards, booms, &c.

CANT-TIMBERS. They derive their name from being canted or raised obliquely from the keel. The upper ends of those on the bow are inclined to the stem, as those in the after-part incline to the stern-post above.

In a word, cant-timbers are those which do not stand square with the middle line of the s.h.i.+p. They may be deemed radial bow or stern-timbers.

CANVAS [from _cannabis_, hemp]. A cloth made of hemp, and used for the sails of s.h.i.+ps. It is purchased in bolts, and numbered from 1 to 8, rarely to 9 and 10. Number 1 being the coa.r.s.est and strongest, is used for the lower sails, as fore-sail and main-sail in large s.h.i.+ps. When a vessel is in motion by means of her sails she is said to be under canvas.

CANVAS-BACK DUCK. An American wild duck (_Fuligula valisneria_), which takes this name from the colour of the back feathers; much esteemed as a delicacy.

CANVAS-CLIMBER. A word used by Marston for a sailor who goes aloft; hence Marina tells Leonine--

"And, clasping to a mast, endur'd a sea That almost burst the deck, and from the ladder-tackle Wash'd off a canvas-climber."

CAP. A strong thick block of wood having two large holes through it, the one square, the other round, used to confine two masts together, when one is erected at the head of the other, in order to lengthen it. The princ.i.p.al caps of a s.h.i.+p are those of the lower masts, which are fitted with a strong eye-bolt on each side, wherein to hook the block by which the top-mast is drawn up through the cap. In the same manner as the top mast slides up through the cap of the lower mast, the topgallant-mast slides up through the cap of the top-masts. When made of iron the cap used to be called a crance.--_To cap_ a mast-head is placing tarpaulin guards against weather. The term is applied to any covering such as lead put over iron bolts to prevent corrosion by sea-water, canvas covers over the ends of rigging, &c. &c. Also, pieces of oak laid on the upper blocks on which a vessel is built, to receive the keel. They are split out for the addition of the false keel, and therefore should be of the most free-grained timber. Also, the coating which guards the top of a quill tube. Also, the percussion priming for fire-arms.--_Cap-a-pied_, armed from head to foot.

CAP, TO. To puzzle or beat in argument. To salute by touching the head-covering, as Shakspeare makes Iago's friends act to Oth.e.l.lo. It is now more an academic than a sea-term.

CAPABARRE. An old term for misappropriating government stores. (_See_ Marryat's _Novels_.)