Machadinha de Abordagem Brasileira
Here is a boarding axe said to be Brasilian, of the Paraguai war period (1864-1870), kept in the (Brasilian) National Historic Museum.
Pity i can't access a larger picture. The following is part of a (roughly translated) text i spotted in a blog, connected with this same axe:
" The axe used aboard had a double function; it was part of a sailors gear. This was necessary in occasions to get rid of rigs of an embarcation damaged by storms or enemy fire …
Besides being used as a tool, it could also be used as a weapon and, for that, part of the ship’s crew was equipped with them, being distributed to specific crew members. An artillery manual specified that, among the gun crew, in case of boarding, the first servants would be the equipage of the 1st wave of attack/defense, the gun chiefs the 2nd wave of attack/defense and the second servants, equipped with axes, would be part of the “fire reinforcement” team, that is, more like members of the repairs equipage than combatants, but even so prepared for combat ".
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