er to find the longitude. Also, a phrase used when a
man sleeps during a conversation.

WORKING AN OBSERVATION. Reducing the altitudes or distances of heavenly
bodies by calculation.

WORKING PARTIES. Gangs of hands employed on special duties out of the
ship or dockyard.

WORKING TO WINDWARD. Sailing against the wind by alternate tacks. (_See_
BEATING.)

WORKING UP. The keeping men at work on needless matters, beyond the
usual hours, for punishment.

WORKS. All fortificational constructions, whether permanent, field, or
makeshifts of the moment; from the most solid bastion to the rudest
rifle-pit.

WORK UP JUNK, TO. To draw yarns from old cables, &c., and therewith to
make foxes, points, gaskets, sinnet, or spun-yarn.

WORM. An iron tool shaped like a double cork-screw on the end of a long
staff, for withdrawing charges, ignited remains of cartridges, &c., from
fire-arms. Called also a wad-hook in artillery. (_See also_ TEREDO
NAVALIS.)--_To worm._ The act of passing a rope spirally between the
lays of a cable; a smaller rope is wormed with spun-yarn. Worming is
generally resorted to as a preparative for serving. (_See_ LINK WORMING.)

WORM-EATEN, OR WORMED. The state of a plank or of a ship's bottom when
perforated by a particular kind of boring mollusk, _Teredo navalis_,
which abounds in the tropics.

WORMS. Timber is preserved against worms by several coats of common
whale-oil, or by the patents of Payne, Sir W. Burnett, Kyan, and others.

WRACK. The English name for the fucus; the sea-weed used for the
manufacture of kelp, and in some places artificially grown for that
purpose.

WRACK-RIDER. A species of brandling faintly barred on both sides.

WRAIN-BOLT. A ring-bolt with two or more forelock-holes in it,
occasionally to belay or make fast towards the middle. It is used, with
the wrain-staff in the ring, for _setting-to_ the planks.

WRAIN-STAFF. A stout billet of tough wood, tapered at its ends, so as to
go into the ring of the wrain-bolt, to make the necessary setts for
bringing-to the planks or thick stuff to the timber.

WRASSE. The _Crenilabrus tinca_, a sea-fish, sometimes called old-wife.

WRECK. The destruction of a ship by stress of weather, rocks, &c.; also
the ruins of the ship after such accidents; also the goods and fragments
which drive on shore after a ship is stranded. It is said that the term
is derived from the sea-weed called _wrack_, denoting all that the sea
washes on shore a