Conference thebay::joyoflex

997.0. "obscure sailing terminology..." by STARCH::HAGERMAN (Flames to /dev/null) Thu Aug 13 1992 13:12

Article 14705 of rec.boats:
Path: pa.dec.com!decwrl!olivea!uunet!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!stefan
From: [email protected] (Stefan Michalowski)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Frapped again
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 12 Aug 92 20:58:13 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Mr News)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Lines: 33

The practise of frapping loose hayards to the shrouds was
recently discusses on our newsgroup. I just came across
a related usage in "The Yomah - and After", a novel of
windjammer days by F.C. Hendry, published around 1932
(with the obligatory Introduction by A.J. Villiers).

     ...the boatswain and the men of the port watch
     discovered to their horror that the mousing round
     the cliphooks with which the lee clew-garnet was
     attached to the clew of the [main]sail had been
     chafed through, and that one of the hooks had got
     adrift... The boatswain shook his head. He had 
     never met a problem quite like this before...

     "Send a man down the leach in a bowline from the
     yard-arm"        

     "Right. Up you go."

     The "Down-Easter" climbed up the weather shrouds...
     He slipped the bight of the bowline round his legs..
     and let himself go...When low enough to reach the 
     cliphooks his real struggle commenced; with one hand
     he hooked on the loose hook, but he had to use both
     to fasten the hooks together with a mousing... The 
     veins were standing out on his forehead and great 
     drops of perspiration were dripping from his face,
     but he hung on and finished the job.

     A heaving line had been passed round the rope above
     the bowline, and with it he was frapped into the 
     rigging. He descended to the deck just as eight bells 
     went...

    I must be missing something.  What's obscure about that?
    
    --------
    
    mousing == light line (rope) used to whip the end of a larger line to
    prevent fraying or to secure lines together
    
    cliphook == hook like those on animal leashes, with a spring-loaded
    piece to keep the hook from falling free
    
    lee == away from the wind
    
    clew == the lower corner of a sail, also the metal grommet in the
    corner of a sail
    
    clew-garnet == line for manipulating a sail == sheet
    
    chafe == wear
    
    bowline == a nonslipping, nonjamming bend (like a knot, but not a knot -
    seriously!) that makes a bight - see below for def of bight
    
    yard-arm == the horizontal wooden bar/boom from which a square-rigger
    sail is suspended
    
    weather == side toward the wind
    
    shrouds == the lines of standing rigging that secure the mast

    "Down Easter" == a person from northern New England, especially Maine
    
    bight == loop at the end of a line
    
    heaving line == a lightweight line usually secured to the end of a
    cable (heavy line) so the heaving line can be thrown across to another
    ship and then used to tow the cable across
    
    frap == draw or press securely
    
    --------
    
    -dick

>>    I must be missing something.  What's obscure about that?

	Dick, I'll bight.  A lot of us didn't have a clew.

	Di

    KNOT!