Nauticle term

[Shiver Metimbers]

Does anyone know what is meant by the terminology "Crossing the Yards"

 

[Coaster]

Nauticle term = word for sailor's testicle?

 

[philip_stevens]

Does anyone know what is meant by the terminology "Crossing the Yards"

There is a description/meaning about it here. This may be wrong, but is one that I found.

"In many books concerning naval warfare in the Napoleanic Wars,
frigates are discussed poking about the enemies harbors watching
the enemy ships through telescopes. They often discuss "Crossed
Yards" as being indicative a fleet not being ready to sail. I
know the yards are the horizontal spars that hold the sails but
what does it mean for them to be "crossed"?"


You, or the book you're quoting, have it backwards. Yards are crossed if
they're in position on the masts. When a ship wasn't planning on going
anywhere for a while, the yards would be taken down and stored on deck,
or on shore, or used by some other ship. Having them up on the masts
means that they, and the equipment that holds them there, need regular
maintenance.

It's a quick and dirty way of telling that the ship is "laid up", and
probably doesn't have a crew, or if it does have a crew, they aren't
being regularly exercised in handling the sails. Putting the yards up
would take several hours, unless your crew was /really/ skilled, so it
does mean you have warning that a ship is becoming capable of sailing.

 

[Twister_Ken]

When going extremely slowly, it was a measure of speed. Opposite of tearing off the miles.

 

[prv]

I was about to answer, but Philip (or his source) has it exactly right. A yard is "crossed" when it's in position, as opposed to sent down on deck.

I'm not aware of any ship nowadays that sends its yards down routinely except for maintenance in port, but in the days of sailing warships the whole upper sections of the rig were regarded as moveable.

Pete

 

[Reverend Ludd]

Does anyone know what is meant by the terminology "Crossing the Yards"

It's the act of setting the yards across the mast to be ready to take a sail.

 

[Shiver Metimbers]

Thanks all, it was a friend of mine had asked after he read Walter Runciman's book, Colliers Brigs and their Sailors. It refers to the ships in Blyth Harbour at the time of the Hartley Pit Disaster as flying their flags at half mast and some Captains ordered the "Crossing of the Yard Arms"

 

[prv]

flying their flags at half mast and some Captains ordered the "Crossing of the Yard Arms"

Hmm. In which case I wonder if this is a different thing. Note that a yard-arm is not the same thing as a yard - the yard is the whole spar, whereas the yard-arm is the outer end (technically I think the boundary is the point where the lifts are attached).

Pete

 

[peterb]

I wonder whether this is a reference to 'cock-billing'? The "Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea" gives:

(2) Yards of a square-rigger are said to be cock-billed, or a-cockbill, when they are canted to their maximum vertical angles as they are in the merchant navies as a sign of mourning. They were canted in opposite directions on each mast and the ends of the spanker gaff and boom were lowered.

Yards canted in opposite directions would appear crossed.

 

[Searush]

I wonder whether this is a reference to 'cock-billing'? The "Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea" gives:

(2) Yards of a square-rigger are said to be cock-billed, or a-cockbill, when they are canted to their maximum vertical angles as they are in the merchant navies as a sign of mourning. They were canted in opposite directions on each mast and the ends of the spanker gaff and boom were lowered.

Yards canted in opposite directions would appear crossed.

That's my understanding from reading Masefield & others.