Cracking On Like Smoke and Oakum

[Bobcat]

Jack Aubrey uses this expression for a ship sailing fast. I understand what it means, but not why it means what it means. :D

[Paul Pless]

He did make up a lot of stuff.sorta the very essence of fiction eh;)

[Thorne]

I did a quick Google search, and most of the places it is used refer to O'Brian's works, characters, or similar usage.

HOWEVER, I did find a semi-period (1858) example of the phrase "smoke and oakum" -- but can't quite tell what it means:
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/furtradeletters.shtml

"

Upper Fort Garry,
9th Mar., 1858.

Wm. McMurray, Esqre.
My Dear Sir:
I received your welcome letter of date 30th January and was glad to hear of your welfare, we are still jogging on in the old way, our troops [14 (http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/furtradeletters.shtml#14)] are very quiet and orderly so far. I am glad you are like to put a Stopper on the McGillie's - do sweat them up if possible. I should like to see them come back to the R.R.S. with a little less smoke and oakum about them than in days gone by..."

AND I found this Google Books Search page which describes it as an early 19th C. RN slang term:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tvRp1whVFUsC&pg=PA1097&lpg=PA1097&dq=%22smoke+and+oakum%22&source=bl&ots=gQ4S7WXD3E&sig=BFvWfHfEIMax95IuXQIInS30-zQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

Source = WN Glasscock "Sketch-Book" 1825

In this example (you'll have to enlarge the view), listing is near the end of the first definition for "smoke". "Like smoke" = rapidly, with the Royal Navy version being "like smoke and oakum". So that roughly matches O'Brien's usage.

Whew!

[seanz]

Just a thought...was white oakum used for fuses?

[PeterSibley]

Soaked in sodium nitrate , it would work well .

[Thorne]

Don't know about all that -- a lot of pretty fuzzy conjecture on this exact phrase in the Internet, but not necessarily done by folks what know a futtock from a buttock, if you catch my drift...

I use LOTS of various types of match, from various types of fiber and rope/cordage. Getting hemp to take the nitrate (ish) solution can be a chore but there is no need to unravel the cordage to do this -- you want it to stay braided or twisted into a tight bundle.

Match (not fuse, really) is soaked in the nitrate / whatever solution, and when dry will retain the nitrate crystals for quite some time if you don't beat it about.

A fuse would have been much faster-burning, often made from an empty quill filled with fine gunpowder. A powder train would have been made by pouring fine powder onto the deck or ground to make a trail to the explosive device.

My quick n' dirty web research shows that the phrase was used in the early 1800's. But I didn't see any authoritative historical sources saying much about the 'oakum' part of the phrase = and there are many possible reasons why it was included in the phrase by the RN.

It could have been included just for the onomonopoetic effect -- "s-moake" and "oak-um". Could have been the rapidity with which the oakum strands would blow overboard in high winds while paying seams. Etc, etc, etc.

http://www.luckhardt.com/rrflat9.jpg http://www.luckhardt.com/rrflat10.jpg

[Ian McColgin]

I have a vague memory of Masons using the term but I'm not an initiate . . .

[Jay Greer]

To my knowledge, there is no refference to the term in Masonic ritual.
Jay