dolphin striker

dolphin striker (plural dolphin strikers)

1. (nautical) A near-vertical spar between the bowsprit and martingale
   • 1844, William Graeme Rhind, The Creation: A Series of Letters from a Father to His Children:

     meanwhile some of the sailors, with an imitative flying fish, get to that part of the vessel just under the bowsprit, called “the dolphin striker,” and with a bottle midway to their bait, they suddenly jerk it out of the water, to imitate the flying fish.

   • 1846, Jack's Life at Sea: By an Old Irish Captain of the Head., page 366:

     I ordered the Captain of the forecastle, to run out on the bowsprit with the end of a two inch at once, and throw a running bowline knot over his shoulders, and by-and-by, when he broke adrift from the dolphin striker, we hauled him in by the head; and the same night or next morning, I had a good beefsteak cut off him near his tail, and a capital one it was, too, you would hardly have known it from the regular beef.

   • 1857, John McNeill Boyd, A Manual for Naval Cadets, page 173:

     The dolphin striker is slung near the cap; and the sprit-sail gaffs near the rigging by "jaw ropes,” and supported at their ends by lifts from the bowsprit cap.

   • 1865, Sir George Strong Nares, Seamanship, page 71:

     An iron band with studs for the martingale and back ropes to be fitted to is frequently used on the dolphin striker.