SLING. To set a cask, spar, gun, or other article, in ropes, so as to put on a tackle and hoist or lower it. SLINGS. The ropes used for securing the centre of a yard to the mast. _Yard-slings_ are now made of iron. Also, a large rope fitted so as to go round any article which is to be hoisted or lowered. SLIP. To let a cable go and stand out to sea. (See page 90.) SLIP-ROPE. A rope bent to the cable just outside the hawse-hole, and brought in on the weather quarter, for slipping. (See page 90.) SLOOP. A small vessel with one mast. (See PLATE 4.) SLOOP OF WAR. A vessel of any rig, mounting between 18 and 32 guns. SLUE. To turn anything round or over. SMALL STUFF. The term for spunyarn, marline, and the smallest kinds of rope, such as ratline-stuff, &c. SNAKE. To pass small stuff across a seizing, with marling hitches at the outer turns. SNATCH-BLOCK. A single block, with an opening in its side below the sheave, or at the bottom, to receive the bight of a rope. SNOTTER. A rope going over a yard-arm, with an eye, used to bend a tripping-line to in sending down topgallant and royal yards in vessels of war. SNOW. A kind of brig, formerly used. SNUB. To check a rope suddenly. SNYING. A term for a circular plank edgewise, to work in the bows of a vessel. SO! An order to 'vast hauling upon anything when it has come to its right position. SOLE. A piece of timber fastened to the foot of the rudder, to make it level with the false keel. SOUND. To get the depth of water by a lead and line. (See page 85.) The pumps are _sounded_ by an iron _sounding rod_, marked with a scale of feet and inches. SPAN. A rope with both ends made fast, for a purchase to be hooked to its bight. SPANKER. The after sail of a ship or bark. It is a fore-and-aft sail, setting with a boom and gaff. (See PLATE 2.) SPAR. The general term for all masts, yards, booms, gaffs, &c. SPELL. The common term for a portion of time given to any work. _To spell_, is to relieve another at his work. _Spell ho!_ An exclamation used as an order or request to be relieved at work by another. SPENCER. A fore-and-aft sail, set with a gaff and no boom, and hoisting from a small mast called a _spencer-mast_, just abaft the fore and main masts. (See PLATES 2 and 4.) SPILL. To shake the wind out of a sail by bracing it so that the wind may strike its leech and shiver it. SPILLING LINE. A rope used for spilling a sail. Rove in bad weather. SPINDLE. An iron pin upon which the capstan moves. Also, a piece of timber forming the diameter of a made mast. Also, any long pin or bar upon which anything revolves. SPIRKETING. The planks from the water-ways to the port-sills. SPLICE. (See PLATE 5 and page 44.) To join two ropes together by interweaving their strands. SPOON-DRIFT. Water swept from the tops of the waves by the violence of the wind in a tempest, and driven along before it, covering the surface of the sea.