Gig: usually the Captain’s personal boat manned by a crew of eight (six oars and the two boatmen, one of whom would be the Captain’s personal coxswain). The gig was often the handsomest boat, and its crew were dressed according to the Captain’s personal taste.
Lugger: a large boat, frequently with two or more masts each carrying a single sail fixed to an upper yard in a fore and aft fashion. The larger versions of these craft could be decked in with accommodation below deck. Fast and handy, they had a variety of uses.
Weapons
32-pounder cannon: fired a ball of thirty-two pounds weight over a distance of roughly three and a half miles. Used a standard 8-pound gunpowder charge and a crew of sixteen per gun. These guns were the largest broadside gun and were always carried on the lowest gun deck.
24-pounder cannon: ball of twenty-four pounds, powder charge six to eight pounds, range roughly three miles, crew of twelve.
16-pounder cannon: ball sixteen pounds, powder charge of four to five pounds, range up to three miles at maximum charge, usually around two miles, crew of ten to twelve men.
Swivel guns: usually a two-pounder, mounted on a swivel post or some other fixture, which could be loaded and fired by one man but usually two or three. Often mounted in the fighting tops of larger ships and frequently loaded with grape shot.
Carronades: short-barrelled cannon sized to fire twelve, twenty-four, thirty-two or sixty-eight-pound balls of hollow cast iron filled with musket balls or shrapnel of iron. They generally burst on impact spraying a large area with their contents. At close range, the ball usually penetrated the enemy’s hull, and the result was lethal on a crowded gun deck, hence the French name for them “devil gun” and the British name “smashers.”
Mortars: large bore with a very short barrel and a high trajectory. A hollow ball filled with gunpowder could be detonated inside an enemy fortification by means of a measured fuse fired by a match just before the mortar was fired at its target. Ships that carried these were generally ketch rigged with the mainmast stepped further back than usual. Their foredecks were heavily reinforced to absorb the recoil of the pair of mortars carried there.
Musket: the standard issue to the Royal Marines was the “Brown Bess” flintlock with a bayonet.
Half pike: a short handled spear-like weapon with a “bill hook” on one side of the blade and an axe blade to the lower side; deadly in the hands of a man trained to use it in the confines of a gun deck during an attempt to board.
Cutlass: a short bladed sword used by seamen and sometimes officers during boarding operations. The blade carries an edge on one side and a half edge on the back of the blade. The blade is twenty-two inches (a sword is between twenty-six and thirty-two), and it is very useful in confined quarters.
Dirk: not a fancy knife, but a small sword worn by midshipmen, and quite useful in close combat. Blade of fifteen to twenty inches, frequently curved (until its shape was standardised in the nineteenth century), and weighted and sized to a boy or youth’s physique.
Belaying pin: not strictly a weapon, but a means for securing a halyard to a “belaying” point. These pins were movable and were frequently used in close quarter combat to lay out an opponent with a quick blow to the head. A hit on an elbow, knee or any other joint could cripple him and render him helpless.
Grape shot: A bag of musket balls or, in larger guns, a wooden form with around forty large iron balls (though not exactly round) attached and held in place by a canvas jacket. Fired from a cannon, this behaved in much the same manner as buckshot; also called canister.
Langridge shot: A pair of weighted half balls linked by solid iron bars that spread apart and whirled about in flight cutting through rigging and men; also chain shot, two half balls tethered to each other by a short length of chain.
Shot garlands and brass monkeys: Shot for ready use was stowed next to the guns on planks into which holes of the appropriate size had been drilled. A brass plate protected the wood, and in very cold weather, the difference in expansion rates between brass and iron sometimes caused the shot to fall out of the holes as the brass shrank.
Powder monkey: A boy, usually aged between twelve and fifteen (but sometimes younger since no one actually demanded proof of age) whose job in battle was to run between the magazines and the guns carrying cartridge cases with the powder for the guns. These boys were usually “volunteered” by an “uncle” or other relative and were frequently orphans or the illegitimate sons of sailors and prostitutes. The British Navy provided a home, clothing, food and a basic education for them, and many survived to make a success of their lives in the Navy or in other marine trades. Anyone with the surname Gunn is probably descended from one of these boys.
Orders for Sailing the Ship
“Put the helm down” was the order to turn the tiller to leeward. This would swing the ship’s head into the wind and cause a turn “through the wind.” Until the late nineteenth century, all helm orders were given as tiller movements. So “helm a lee” meant the tiller went to leeward and the ship turned into and through the wind.
“Put the helm up” was the order to turn the tiller to windward, which turned the ship away from the wind and…
“Gybe” her onto the other tack by turning with the wind over her stern. This was also referred to as “wearing” the ship.
“Full and by” was the order to keep the ship’s head in such a position that the ship had the wind on her quarter so that all sails were drawing wind, and the ship would lie easily on the set course.
“Heave to” was the order to bring the ship ’round and stop her using opposing forces by reversing the set of sails on one mast so that the ship is trying to move forward but is held back by the pressure trying to reverse her.
“Shorten sail” was the order to either take in sails or to “reef” them by using tie points on the sail itself to reduce the sail area exposed to the wind.
Bailing is the act of emptying water from the bilges of a small boat by means of buckets or any other receptacle.
“Break out an anchor” has a dual meaning: 1.) to break the anchor free of the ground, particularly when anchored in stony ground where the anchor could become jammed in the rocky bottom. Often a ship anchoring in these conditions would attach a second cable to the fluke end of the anchor and fasten the line to the cable by means of lengths of twine. Once the cable had been hove short, the anchor could then be “tripped” by winching in the second line (causing the twine to break as the strain became uneven) and raising the anchor flukes out of the ground before hauling in the main cable. b.) To break out a spare anchor and bring it from its storage place somewhere in the hold and get it on deck for use.
“Heave short” or “hove short”: A ship at anchor needs to pay out three times the length of cable as the water is deep beneath her in order to ensure that the anchor holds correctly. Thus, the order to “heave short” on the cable meant to haul in the slack until the cable was roughly one third more than the depth of water. It would then be hauled in further until the anchor was “up and down,” which meant the ship was now free of the bottom and could be brought under sail while the rest of the cable and the anchor was recovered.
Harry Heron: Midshipman's Journey Page 37
