Category: Nautical Terminology

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16 Bells

16 bells and all’s well

Sixteen bells and all’s well, lights are burning bright!

Since at least the Age of Discovery a ship’s bell has been used to broadcast time aboard ships.

Watch sandglass

A 30 minute sand-hourglass kept the passage of each watch aboard ship. The turning of the hourglass was often the duty of the helmsman or cabin boy. Once the hourglass was turned they would broadcast the time change by striking (ringing) the watch-bell in a distinct manner that told sailors where they were in their watch.

Typical 4 hour watch

In a typical 4 hour watch there is eight half-hour periods. 1 bell meant the sailor had been on duty for 30 minutes, 2 bells meant 1 hour of the watch was completed and so on…8 bells meant that the sailors had reached the end of their watch. When the watch changed, reports were given about the ships condition from the old watch to the new. Most often this was “all’s well and lights are burning bright!”

Bells strikes are  in sets of two with any odd bells coming at the end of the sets. This pattern made it easy to count the bells and know what time it was.

In a classical watch rotation each 24 hour period was divided into 7 watches starting at midnight. Each watch lasted for four hours except for the dog watches (from 4 to 6 and 6 to 8 PM) which were only two hours each. Splitting up one watch made an uneven number so everyone rotated through the watches rather than being stuck with the same one.

The only way to be sure of accurate time at sea was for an officer of the deck, or captain to confirm “high noon” with the use of a  sextant and the sun. The bell ringing pattern for noon would be: 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells.

16 Bells

To mark the New Year they would strike the bell 16 times. The oldest sailor would strike  out the old year with 8 bells and the youngest sailor would strike in the new year with 8 bells.

From all of us at the Willapa Seaport Museum we wish you “Sixteen Bells and All’s Well, Lights Are Burning Bright!”

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Slush Fund

Slush Fund:

Most people know the term “Slush Fund” due to its use in today’s politics, but did you know that it originated as a nautical term relating to the ship’s cook?

The word “Slush”.

The word “Slush” originated in mid 1600’s and meant melting snow just like we use it today.  Later sources use the term to describe the refuse fat from the galley.  Slush is the floating greasy extract obtained when the ship’s cook boiled salted-meat.  Cooks stored their grease in empty salted-meat storage barrels.  Sailors called the accumulated grease  “Slush” because it looked like snowy slush.

How sailors used “Slush”.

Land-lubbers could not stomach the smell of slush,  yet it was valued by seasoned sailors as a spread for their dry hard ship biscuit.  The cook would barter or charge such a sailor a small pittance for a scoop of this salty odorous spread that was sometimes fresh and other-times rancid.  Rancid or not, they ate it anyway!  Slush was also valuable to the Bo’s’n and the Master for greasing parts of the running rigging and waterproofing canvas.  It was also used in “Slush Lamps”  to light various dark parts of the ship such as the fo’c’sle berths.

above: Thompson’s Telegraphic Slush Lamp

“Slush’ in journals.

Many sailors wrote journals about being green-hands or boys on sailing ships.  They recorded the job they hated most was  “slush the main-sail from the royal masthead down”, a most dangerous job assigned once a week.  This chore used large amounts of slush but there always seemed to be more.  One sailor recorded in his journal an incident when the night watch headed into the galley to warm up. They went in for some black coffee, ship’s biscuits and salt horse.  While in the galley they opened the slush barrel, knocking it over spreading the rancid grease all over the galley deck, then slipping into it themselves.  As the ship rolled they were tossed  around in the slimy mess until they were covered head to toe.

Cooks and “Slush”.

Usually there was an abundance of slush and every ship’s cook had to deal with it.  “Barnaby Slush”was the name of one of those cooks.  Cooks accumulated their slush in empty salted-meat barrels and later sold the barrels ashore.  Often grease dealers would besiege the galley to bargain with the cook for his slush.  The funds gathered from the sale became known as a “Slush Fund”.  Cooks accumulated slush funds for alcohol or other nefarious deeds, but only if the amount would not garner the attention of the officers.  When officers acquired large sums of cash from the slush sales they used the cash to benefit the sailors, some small luxuray not usually allowed by the ship owners like books for a small ship’s library.   But even officers were not past using the funds for “off the books” purchases of vice or bribes.

Greasing Palms.

The political idea of using the slush fund as a bribe might be more related to the idea of “greasing palms” like running gears than the cook or master using the money for debauchery.