Naut. [SPANKER1 3.] The boom on which the spanker is set.
1813. Examiner, 25 April, 261/2. Spanker-boom, gaff, and trysail-mast.
1834. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 244. Perch yourself upon the spanker-boom, and let me know when you’ve rode to London.
1854. Miss C. L. Balfour, Working Women, 155. The next minute the spanker boom, an immense piece of timber, snapped like a reed.
attrib. 1849. Cupples, Green Hand, vii. (1856), 70. Men … hauling on the spanker-boom guys.
1891. C. Roberts, Adrift Amer., 231. I crawled right aft to the taffrail, and quietly put the end of the spanker boom sheet over.
