Crossword-Solution: GUNNELS 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 8

Six oceans had their will of us To carry all away -- Our galley's in the Baltic, And our boom's in Mossel Bay! We've floundered off the Texel, Awash with sodden deals, We've slipped from Valparaiso With the Norther at our heels: We've ratched beyond the Crossets That tusk the Southern Pole, And dipped our gunnels under To the dread Agulhas roll.

Findlayson saw the fleet open and swing out fanwise to a long-drawn shriek of wire straining across gunnels.

Thus they direct the flying bark before The impelling floods, that lash her to the shore: High o'er the poop the audacious seas aspire, 410 Uproll'd in hills of fluctuating fire; With labouring throes she rolls on either side, And dips her gunnels in the yawning tide; Her joints, unhinged, in palsied languors play, As ice-flakes part beneath the noontide ray.

They choose for the purpose branches of a white and supple wood, such as poplar; which are to form the ribs or curves, and are fastened on the outside with three poles, one at bottom and two on the sides, to form the keel; to these curves two other stouter poles are afterwards made fast, to form the gunnels; then they tighten these sides with cords, the length of which is in proportion to the intended breadth of the canoe: after which they tie fast the ends.

This amused me greatly, and I sent back word to my veritable Sancho Panza that in my many voyages to islands my mate had attended to the customs reports; at which his Excellency chafed considerably, giving the gunnels of his trousers a fitful tug up now and then as he paced the beach, waiting my compliance with the rules of the island.