A pair of back-stays is usually formed of one rope, which is doubled in the middle, and fastened there so as to form an eye, which passes over the mast-head, from whence the two ends hang down, and are stretched to the channels by dead-eyes and laniards. See DEAD-EYES, &c. The figure of the back-stays, and their position, is exhibited in the article RIGGING, to which the reader is further referred. BADGE, _bouteille, fausse galerie_, in ship-building, a sort of ornament, placed on the outside of small ships, very near the stern, containing either a window, for the convenience of the cabin, or the representation of it: it is commonly decorated with marine figures, martial instruments, or such like emblems. See QUARTER. To BALANCE, (_balancer_, Fr.) to contract a sail into a narrower compass, in a storm, by retrenching or folding up a part of it at one corner; this method is used in contradistinction to _reefing_, which is common to all the principal sails; whereas balancing is peculiar to few, such as the mizen of a ship, and the main-sail of those vessels, wherein it is extended by a boom. See BOOM and REEF. The BALANCE of the mizen, _fanon_, is thus performed: the mizen-yard is lowered a little, then a small portion of the sail is rolled up at the _peek_, or upper corner, and fastened to the yard about one fifth inward from the outer end, or yard-arm, toward the mast. See MIZEN. A boom-main-sail is balanced, after all its reefs are taken in, by rolling up a similar portion of the hindmost, or aftmost lower-corner, called the _clue_, and fastening it strongly to the boom, having previously wrapped a piece of old canvas round the part (which is done in both cases) to prevent the sail from being fretted by the cord which fastens it. BALLAST, _lest_, (_ballaste_, Dut. _ballastro_, Span.) a certain portion of stone, iron, gravel, or such like materials, deposited in a ship’s hold, when she has either no cargo, or too little to bring her sufficiently low in the water. It is used to counter-ballance the effort of the wind upon the masts, and give the ship a proper stability, that she may be enabled to carry sail without danger of over-turning. There is often great difference in the proportion of ballast required to prepare ships of equal burthen for a voyage; the quantity being always more or less, according to the sharpness or flatness of the ship’s bottom, which seamen call the _floor_.