Boatswain

A boatswain (/ˈboʊsən/, formerly and dialectally also /ˈboʊtsweɪn/), bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, is the senior crewman of the deck department and is responsible for the components of a ship's hull. The boatswain supervises the other members of the ship's deck department, and typically is not a watchstander, except on vessels with small crews. Other duties vary depending on the type of ship, her crewing, and other factors.

History

The word boatswain has been in the English language since approximately 1450. It is derived from late Old English batswegen, from bat (boat) concatenated with Old Norse sveinn (swain), meaning a young man, a follower, retainer or servant. The phonetic spelling bosun has been observed since 1868. This latter spelling was used in Shakespeare's The Tempest written in 1611, and as Bos'n in later editions.

Royal Navy

The rank of boatswain was until recently the oldest rank in the Royal Navy, and its origins can be traced back to the year 1040. In that year, when five English ports began furnishing warships to King Edward the Confessor in exchange for certain privileges, they also furnished crews whose officers were the master, boatswain, carpenter and cook. Later these officers were "warranted" by the British Admiralty. They maintained and sailed the ships and were the standing officers of the navy.

Boatswain (disambiguation)

Boatswain or bosun may refer to:

Boatswain, a seaman's occupation and/or rank

Boatswain's mate (United States Navy), a job classification in the United States Navy

Boatswain's mate (United States Coast Guard), a job classification in the United States Coast Guard

Boatswain is a position on yacht racing crews

Boatswain, the highest petty officer in Sea Scouting

Boatswain (bird), any species of gull of the genus Stercorarius

Boatswain Bird Island, a small uninhabited island and nature reserve home to many endemic species of bird off the coast of Ascension Island

Bosun, the NATO reporting name for the Soviet Tupolev Tu-14 bomber

Bosun (dinghy) a type of sailing dinghy

Bosun's chair, a type of harness that allows a crewmember to climb into the rigging and work safely on the sails, halyards, or other rigging

Boatswain's call, a pipe or whistle used to issue commands onboard ship.

The Boatswain, a minor character in Shakespeare's The Tempest

Boatswain, a Newfoundland dog kept by Lord Byron, who honored him by the poem "Epitaph to a Dog"

Skua

The skuas /ˈskjuːə/ are a group of seabirds with about seven species forming the family Stercorariidae and the genus Stercorarius. The three smaller skuas are called jaegers in the Americas.

The English word "skua" comes from the Faroese name skúgvur [ˈskɪkvʊər] for the great skua, with the island of Skúvoy renowned for its colony of that bird. The general Faroese term for skuas is kjógvi [ˈtʃɛkvə]. The word "jaeger" is derived from the German word Jäger, meaning "hunter".

Skuas nest on the ground in temperate and Arctic regions, and are long-distance migrants. They have even been sighted at the South Pole.

Biology and habits

Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal, and carrion. Many are partial kleptoparasites, comprising up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering birds, by chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to 3 times heavier than the attacking skua). The larger species, such as the great skua, also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been recorded as killing birds as large as a grey heron. On the breeding grounds, the three, more slender northern breeding species commonly eat lemmings. Those species that breed in the southern oceans, largely feed on fish that can be caught near their colonies. The eggs and young of other birds are an important food source for most skua species during the nesting season. In the southern oceans and Antarctica region, some skua species (especially the south polar skua) will readily scavenge the carcasses at breeding colonies of penguins and pinnipeds, sometimes taking live penguin chicks. In these areas, skuas seem to defer to the considerably larger giant petrels.