Recruits needed for Quest! (Part II)

[Butterbeer]

A boatswain, often (at least since 1868) phonetically spelled and pronounced bosun, is a warrant officer who is foreman of a ship's crew and is also third mate.



Originally, onboard a sailing ship such as a man-of-war or a galleon, the boatswain was in charge of a ship's anchors, cordage, colors, deck crew and the ship's boats. It remains his duty to summon the crew to work by a whistle known as boatswain's pipe.

In the Royal Navy, in so far as that task did not fall to the master at arms he would also administer physical punishments, both informally with his boatswain's cane on the boys (and Girls ) or with a rope's end on the adult sailors, at his own accord, and formally on deck on captain's or court martial's orders, usually birching or wielding the cat o' nine tails; in a large crew he could delegate this to one or more boatswain's mate(s), who might alternate after each dozen of lashes.

By tradition and superstition, only the boatswain is allowed to whistle while on board, lest an unwitting sailor "whistle up the wind". Hence the phrase, "Only fools and boatswains..."