2d cast loose your guns

chained_bear commented on the word 2d cast loose your guns

"2d. Cast loose your guns.—The muzzle lashing is to be taken off from the guns, and (being coiled up in a small compass) is to be made fast to the eye-bolt above the port gunport. The lashing-tackles at the same time to be cast loose, and the middle of the breeching seized to the thimble of the pomelion. The sponge to be taken down, and, with the crow, handspike, &c. laid upon the deck by the gun.

"When prepared for engaging an enemy, the seizing within the clinch of the breeching is to be cut, that the gun may come sufficiently within-board for loading, and that the force of the recoil may be more spent before it acts upon the breeching."

—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1815

October 10, 2008