afterguard

noun

1. (historical)The seaman or seamen stationed on the poop or after part of a ship, to attend the after-sails.

   “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.”

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

2. The members of a yacht's crew who attend to the aft sails

   “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.