Crossword clues for bumboat
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bumboat \Bum"boat`\, n. [From bum the buttocks, on account of its clumsy form; or fr. D. bun a box for holding fish in a boat.] (Naut.) A clumsy boat, used for conveying provisions, fruit, etc., for sale, to vessels lying in port or off shore.
Wiktionary
n. (context nautical English) a small boat used for carrying provisions to ships lying at anchor in a harbour
WordNet
n. a small boat that ferries supplies and commodities for sale to a larger ship at anchor
Wikipedia
A bumboat is a small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore. Originally referring to a scavenger's boat, the name comes from the combination of the Dutch word for a canoe—"boomschuit" ("boom" meaning "tree"), and "boat".
In Tobias Smollett's 1748 novel The Adventures of Roderick Random, a "bumboat woman" conducts business with sailors imprisoned on board a pressing tender moored near the Tower Wharf on the Thames River, London, England.
In Singapore the term "bumboat" is applied to small water taxis and boats that take tourists on short tours.
Usage examples of "bumboat".
They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America.
Corunna, coming on deck the following morning, found Marvin bargaining with the bumboat men whose small craft, laden with horse-meat, water kegs and newly-caught marine delicacies such as mussels and squid, were clustered at the waist of the Olive Branch like squash seeds floating beside a segment of their parent squash.
All that remained was to get rid of the importunate bumboat -- men who swarmed round the vessel in their little craft, each looking like a small floating shop.
And so six times a day all traffic on the carriageway was forced to halt for twenty minutes while that beneath floated through on the tide: hoys and shallops headed upstream with loads of malt and dried haddock, bumboats and pinnaces going downstream with hogsheads of ale and sugar for the merchantmen at Tower Dock, sometimes even the yacht of the King himself on its way to the races at Greenwich, masts swaying and sails crackling.
Since I could not swim, it was a relief when a sailor fished Nux into his bumboat and returned the bedraggled lump to us, in return for the customary bribe, or price of a drink as it is ridiculously called.
They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America.
She was surrounded with bumboats and dghaisas, and as he watched one of her cutters, filled with liberty-men in shore-going rig, shoved off from the side.
The bumboats and water taxis werent running, but Daniel was close enough to the seawall now to see that there was an unusual number of people on the quay.
The bumboats and water taxis weren't running, but Daniel was close enough to the seawall now to see that there was an unusual number of people on the quay.
But half way across the roadstead the gig met the flotilla of bumboats bringing sixpenny whores out to the Surprise: it was a usual though not invariable practice - one that most captains liked on the grounds that it pleased the hands and kept them from sodomy, though others forbade it as bringing the pox and great quantities of illicit spirits aboard, which meant an endless sick-list, fighting, and drunken crime.