afterguard

From after- +‎ guard.

afterguard (plural afterguards)

1. (historical, nautical) The seaman or seamen stationed on the poop or after part of a ship, to attend the after-sails.
   • 1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter IX, in The Master of Ballantrae, Cassell:

     There were times when the whole crew refused their duty; and we of the afterguard were twice got under arms—being the first time that ever I bore weapons—in the fear of mutiny.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.:

     Yet from something in the outline and carriage, Billy took him to be, and correctly, one of the afterguard.

2. (sailing) The members of a yacht's crew who attend to the aft sails
   • 2007 July 3, Christopher Clarey, “A Familiar Foe Blocks New Zealand’s Path”, in New York Times‎:

     This is his sixth Cup campaign but his first as skipper, a position he inherited after the helmsman Russell Coutts, Butterworth’s longtime alter ego in the afterguard, bolted from Alinghi in 2004.

3. A drudge; somebody tasked with menial work.

• afterguardsman