to one another, which
completes the process of ordinary rope-making; but cables, hawsers, and
other ground tackling, are composed of three strands, each of which is
formed of three lesser ones. (_See_ CABLE, HAWSER, &c.)--_A tough yarn._
A long story, or tale, hard to be believed.

YARN-SPINNING. A figurative expression for telling a story.

YATAGHAN. A crooked sabre used in the Levant. Also, the knife-swords of
India.

YAUGH. An archaic term for a little bark, pinnace, or yacht.

YAW. The quick movement by which a ship deviates from the direct line of
her course towards the right or left, from unsteady steering.

YAWL. A man-of-war's boat, resembling the pinnace, but rather smaller;
it is carvel-built, and generally rowed with twelve oars. The yawl in
the Customs Act is a carvel-built vessel of the cutter class, but
having a jigger or mizen lug, the boom-mainsail being curtailed, so that
its boom traverses clear of the mizen-mast: used also by yachts. Also, a
small fishing-vessel.

YAW-SIGHTED. A nautical term for those who squint.

YAW-YAW. A nickname for the seamen of the shores of the Baltic.

YEAR. The duration of the earth's revolution round the sun, or of the
apparent revolution of the sun in the ecliptic.

YELL. An old sea-term to express a rolling motion.

YELLOW ADMIRAL. A retired post-captain, who, not having served his time
in that rank, is not entitled to his promotion to the active flag.

YELLOW-BELLY. A name given to a person born in the fens along our
eastern shores: also occasionally to half-castes, &c.

YELLOW FEVER. A cant term for drunkenness at Greenwich Hospital; the
sailors when punished wearing a parti-coloured coat, in which yellow
predominates.

YELLOW-FLAG. The signal of quarantine.

YELLOWING. The passing over of captains at a flag promotion.

YELLOW-TAIL. A well-known tropical fish, often in company with
whip-rays; it is about 4 feet long, with a great head, large eyes, and
many fins. _Leiostomas_.

YEO-HEAVE-YEOING. The chant or noise made at the windlass and
purchase-falls in a merchantman, to cheer and lighten labour, but not
permitted in a man-of-war.

YEOMAN. An experienced hand placed in charge of a store-room, who should
be able to keep the accounts of supply and expenditure.

YESTY [from the Anglo-Saxon _gist_]. A foaming breaking sea. Shakspeare
in _Macbeth_ gives great power to this state of the waters:--

"Though the yesty waves
Confound