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The first stage, or keel, is made of a tree hollowed out like a trough; for which the longest trees are chosen that can be got, so that there are never more than three in the whole length: The next stage is formed of straight plank, about four feet long, fifteen inches broad, and two inches thick: The third stage, is, like the bottom, made of trunks, hollowed into its bilging form; the last is also cut out of trunks, so that the moulding is of one piece with the upright.
Roused by a sense of their danger, the same seamen, at this moment, in frantic exclamations, demanded of heaven and their fellow-sufferers that succour which their own efforts, timely made, might possibly have procured. 'The ship continued to beat on the rocks; and soon bilging, fell with her broadside towards the shore.
For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then she plunged forward again, her beak-head in splinters, her forecastle smashed, and a gaping hole forward, that was only just above the water-line. Indeed, to make her safe from bilging, Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors, and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.
"And that perhaps you've saved us from bilging?" added Midshipman Hayes. "I'm such a greenhorn about the Navy, sir, that I am afraid I don't follow you in the least, sir," Darrin replied quietly. Then they explained to him that the "pap" is the conduct report, and that "to frap" is to hit. To "frap the pap" means to "get stuck on" the conduct report for a breach of discipline.
We ourselves lay to under a reefed mizzen till noon, when the fog dispersed; and we soon discovered all the ships of the squadron, except the Pearl, which did not join us till near a month afterwards. The Trial sloop was a great way to leeward, having lost her mainmast in this squall, and having been obliged, for fear of bilging, to cut away the wreck.
She was bilging fast, with an ominous list to larboard, and it could be no more than a question of moments before she settled down. The attention of her hands was being entirely given to a desperate endeavour to launch the boats in time.
Roused by a sense of their danger, the same seamen, at this moment, in frantic exclamations, demanded of heaven and their fellow sufferers, that succour which their own efforts timely made might possibly have procured. The ship continued to beat on the rocks, and soon bilging, fell with her broadside towards the shore.
At this moment the slaver let slip her lee braces her head came round till the wind was right astern, and she stood right in behind the reef. It was a moment of anxiety among her crew. In another instant she would strike or go free. In another instant she would be bilging helplessly among the sands of Africa, or would be on her course free and unimpeded for the shores of America!
Even as the skipper of the Swallow signalled the whole side of the Spaniard burst into flame and smoke. The Swallow staggered under the blow, recovered an instant, then listed ominously to larboard. "Hell!" roared Leigh. "She's bilging!" and Sir Oliver saw the Spaniard standing off again, as if satisfied with what she had done. The mate's gun was never fired, nor was the broadside from below.
The anchors carried at the bows of a vessel. An anchor to be shot out or lowered in case of a great danger, carried abaft the forerigging; formerly the largest anchor. Bag-wig. See Wig. Barge. See Boats. Bilging. To bilge = to be stove in, or suffer serious injury in the bilge, which is the bottom part of a ship's hull. Boats: Barge.
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