Crossword-Solution: SWABBERS 8 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 15

From immediately below him came the swish of mops and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo'sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle.

The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen, ordinary seamen, grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys and swabbers.

Swabbers were the weakest men of the crew; men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns, and therefore set to menial and dirty duties.

They alternated thus throughout the twenty-four hours, each watch having four hours below, after four hours on deck, unless "some flaw of winde come, some storm or gust, or some accident that requires the help of all hands." In these cases the whole ship's company remained on deck until the work was done, or until the master discharged the watch below.[24] The decks were washed down by the swabbers every morning, before the company went to breakfast.

The swabbers brought pans of burning pitch or brimstone into every corner, so that the smoke might penetrate everywhere.