_Companion-way_, the staircase to the cabin. _Companion-ladder._ The ladder leading from the poop to the main deck. COMPASS. The instrument which tells the course of a vessel. _Compass-timbers_ are such as are curved or arched. CONCLUDING-LINE. A small line leading through the centre of the steps of a rope or Jacob's ladder. CONNING, or CUNNING. Directing the helmsman in steering a vessel. COUNTER. (See PLATE 3.) That part of a vessel between the bottom of the stern and the wing-transom and buttock. _Counter-timbers_ are short timbers put in to strengthen the counter. _To counter-brace_ yards, is to brace the head-yards one way and the after-yards another. COURSES. The common term for the sails that hang from a ship's lower yards. The foresail is called the _fore course_ and the mainsail the _main course_. CRANES. Pieces of iron or timber at the vessel's sides, used to stow boats or spars upon. A machine used at a wharf for hoisting. CRANK. The condition of a vessel when she is inclined to lean over a great deal and cannot bear much sail. This may be owing to her construction or to her stowage. CREEPER. An iron instrument, like a grapnell, with four claws, used for dragging the bottom of a harbor or river, to find anything lost. CRINGLE. A short piece of rope with each end spliced into the bolt-rope of a sail, confining an iron ring or thimble. CROSS-BARS. Round bars of iron, bent at each end, used as levers to turn the shank of an anchor. CROSS-CHOCKS. Pieces of timber fayed across the dead-wood amidships, to make good the deficiency of the heels of the lower futtocks. CROSS-JACK. (Pronounced _croj-jack_.) The cross-jack yard is the lower yard on the mizzen mast. (See PLATE 1.) CROSS-PAWLS. Pieces of timber that keep a vessel together while in her frames. CROSS-PIECE. A piece of timber connecting two bitts. CROSS-SPALES. Pieces of timber placed across a vessel, and nailed to the frames, to keep the sides together until the knees are bolted. CROSS-TREES. (See PLATE 1.) Pieces of oak supported by the cheeks and trestle-trees, at the mast-heads, to sustain the tops on the lower mast, and to spread the topgallant rigging at the topmast-head. CROW-FOOT. A number of small lines rove through the uvrou to suspend an awning by. CROWN of an anchor, is the place where the arms are joined to the shank. _To crown a knot_, is to pass the strands over and under each other above the knot. (See PLATE 5, page 46.) CRUTCH. A knee or piece of knee-timber, placed inside of a vessel, to secure the heels of the cant-timbers abaft. Also, the chock upon which the spanker-boom rests when the sail is not set. CUCKOLD'S NECK. A knot by which a rope is secured to a spar, the two parts of the rope crossing each other, and seized together. CUDDY. A cabin in the fore part of a boat.