BALANCE-REEF. A reef-band that crosses a sail from the outer head-earing to the tack diagonally, making it nearly triangular, and is used to contract it in very blowing weather. (2) A balance reef-band is generally placed in all gaff-sails; the band runs from the throat to the clew, so that it may be reefed either way--by lacing the foot or lower half; or by lacing the gaff drooped to the band: the latter is only done in the worst weather.--This is a point on which seamen may select--but the old plan, as first given, affords more power; (2) is applicable to the severest weather. BALANCING-POINT. A familiar term for centre of gravity. (_See_ GRAVITY.) BALANDRA. A Spanish pleasure-boat. A lighter, a species of schooner. BALANUS. The acorn-shell. A sessile cirriped. BALCAR. _See_ BALKAR. BALCONY. The projecting open galleries of old line-of-battle ships' sterns, now disused. They were convenient and ornamental in hot climates, but were afterwards inclosed within sash windows. BALDRICK. A leathern girdle or sword-belt. Also the zodiac. BALE. A pack. This word appears in the statute Richard II. c. 3, and is still in common use. BALE, TO. To lade water out of a ship or vessel with buckets (which were of old called _bayles_), cans, or the like, when the pumps are ineffective or choked. BALEEN. The scientific term for the whalebone of commerce, derived from _balæna_, a whale. It consists of a series of long horny plates growing from each side of the palate in place of teeth. BALE GOODS. Merchandise packed in large bundles, not in cases or casks. BALENOT. A porpoise or small whale which frequents the river St. Lawrence. BALESTILHA. The cross-staff of the early Portuguese navigators. BALINGER, OR BALANGHA. A kind of small sloop or barge; small vessels of war formerly without forecastles. The name was also given by some of the early voyagers to a large trading-boat of the Philippines and Moluccas. BALISTES. A fish with mailed skin. File-fish. BALIZAS. Land and sea marks on Portuguese coasts. BALK. Straight young trees after they are felled and squared; a beam or timber used for temporary purposes, and under 8 inches square. Balks, of timber of any squared size, as mahogany, intended for planks, or, when very large, for booms or rafts. BALKAR. A man placed on an eminence, like the ancient Olpis, to watch the movements of shoals of fish. In our early statutes he is called _balcor_. BALL. In a general sense, implies a spherical and round body, whether naturally so or formed into that figure by art. In a military view it comprehends all sorts of bullets for fire-arms, from the cannon to the pistol: also those pyrotechnic projectiles for guns or mortars, whether intended to destroy, or only to give light, smoke, or stench. BALLAHOU. A sharp-floored fast-sailing schooner, with taunt fore-and-aft sails, and no top-sails, common in Bermuda and the West Indies. The fore-mast of the ballahou rakes forward, the main-mast aft.