A

• Aback - The position of the sails when the wind presses their surface toward the mast, tending to force the vessel astern.
• Abaft - On the after side of. Further towards the stern.
• Abeam - On the side of the vessel, amidship, or right angles. Aboard On board. In, into or inside a vessel. Close alongside.
• About - To go on the opposite tack.
• Abreast - Alongside of. Side by side.
• A-Cock-Bill - The position of the yards of a ship when they are topped up at an angle with the deck. The position of an anchor when it hangs to the cathead.
• Abyss - That volume of ocean lying below 300 fathoms from surface.
• Adrift - Unattached to the shore or ground and at the mercy of wind and tide. Colloquially used to mean missing from its place; absent from place of duty; broken away from fastening.
• Afloat - Resting on the surface of the water.
• Afore - Forward. The opposite of abaft.
• Aft - Near the stern.
• Against the Sun - Anti-clockwise circular motion. Left-handed ropes are coiled down in this way.
• Aground - Touching the bottom
• Ahead - In the direction of the vessel's bow. The opposite of astern.
• Ahull - When a vessel lies with her sails furled and her helm lashed alee.
• Alee - When the helm is in the opposite direction from that in which the wind blows.
• All-Aback - When all the sails are aback.
• All Hands - The entire crew.
• All In The Wind - When all the sails are shaking.
• Aloft - Above the deck.
• Alongside - Close beside a ship, wharf or jetty.
• Altar - Step in a dry dock, on which lower ends of shores rest.
• Anchor Ice - Ice, of any form, that is aground in the sea.
• Apeak - Said of anchor when cable is taut and vertical.
• Apron - A timber fixed behind the lower part of the stem above the fore end of the keel.
• Arm -
• Yard-Arm - The extremity of a yard. Also, the lower part of an anchor, crossing the shank, and terminating in the flukes.
• Arming - A piece of tallow put in the cavity and over the bottom of a lead-line.
• A-stay - Said of anchor cable when its line of lead approximates a continuation of line of fore stay.
• Astern - In the direction of the stern. The opposite of ahead.
• Athwart - Across. Transversely.
• Athwart-Ships - Across the length of a vessel. The opposite to fore-and-aft.
• A-trip - Said of anchor immediately it is broken out of the ground.
• Avast - Order to stop, or desist from, an action.
• Awash - Water washing over.
• Aweather - When the helm is put in the direction from which the wind blows.
• Aweigh - The same as atrip.
• Awning - A covering of canvas over a vessel's deck, or over a boat, to keep off sun or rain.
• Aye - Yes; and is always used in lieu, therefore, at sea as "Aye, aye, sir," meaning "I understand."

B

• Back - To back an anchor, is to carry out a smaller one ahead of the one which the vessel rides, to take off some of the strain.
• Backstays - Rigging running from the masthead to the vessel's side, slanting a little aft, or to the deck near the stern.
• Bag - A sail bags when the leech is taut, and the canvas slack.
• Balance-Reef - The closest reef, and makes the sail triangular, or nearly so.
• Bald-Headed - Said of a schooner having no topmasts.
• Bail - To bail a boat, is to throw water out of her. (Also bale.)
• Ballast - Heavy material, as iron, lead, or stone, placed in the bottom of the hold, to keep a vessel steady.
• Balloon Jib - A large triangular head-sail used in light and moderate weather, with a free wind.
• Bank - A boat is double banked when two oars, one opposite the other, are pulled by men seated on the same thwart.
• Bar - A bank or shoal. Capstan-bars are heavy pieces of wood by which the capstan is worked.
• Bare-Poles - The condition of a vessel when she has no sail set.
• Barge - A large double-banked boat, usually used by the commander of a vessel in the navy.
• Bark, or Barque - Sailing vessel with three or more masts fore and aft rigged on aftermast, square rigged on all others.
• Barnacle - A shell-fish often found on a vessel's bottom.
• Barquentine - Sailing vessel with three or more masts. Square rigged on foremast, fore and aft rigged on all others.
• Barratry - Any wrongful act knowingly done by the master or crew of a vessel to the detriment of the owner of either ship or cargo; and which was done without knowledge or consent of owner or owners.
• Bar Taut - Said of a rope when it is under such tension that it is practically rigid.
• Battens - The strips of wood put around the hatches, to keep the tarpaulin down. Also, put upon rigging to keep it from chafing. A large batten widened at the end, and put upon rigging, is called a scotchman. Battens are often used on yachts on the leech of a mailsail to make it set flat.
• Beacon - A post or buoy placed over a shoal or bank to warn vessels of danger. Also a signalmark on land.
• Beams - Strong pieces of timber stretching across the vessel, to support the decks.
• Beams Ends - Vessel said to be "on her beam ends" when she is lying over so much that her deck beams are nearly vertical.
• Bear - An object bears so and so, when it is in such direction from the persons looking in such direction from the person looking.
• Bearing - The direction of an object from the person looking. The bearings of a vessel are the widest part of her below the plank-sheer. The part of her hull which is on the water-line when she is at anchor and in her proper trim.
• Bear Off - To thrust away; to hold off. Order given to bowman of boat when he is required to push boat's head away from jetty, gangway or other fixture at which boat is alongside. Order given, also, when it is required to thrust away, or hold off, an approaching object.
• Beating - Going toward the direction of the wind, by alternate tacks.
• Becket - A piece of rope placed so as to confine a spar or another rope. A handle made of rope, in the form of a circle; the handle of a chest is called a becket.
• Bees - Pieces of plank bolted to the outer end of the bowsprit, to reeve the foretopmast stays through.
• Before the Mast - Said of a man who goes to sea as a rating, and lives forward. Forward of a mast.
• Before the Wind - Said of a sailing vessel when the wind is coming from aft, over the stern.
• Belay - To make fast a rope by turning up with it around a cleat, belaying pin, bollard, etc. Often used by seamen in the sense of arresting, stopping or canceling; e.g. "Belay the last order'.
• Below - Beneath, or under, the decks. One goes below when going down into the cabin.
• Bend - To make fast.
• Bends - The strongest part of a vessel's side, to which the beams, knees, and foot-hooks are bolted. The part between the water's edge and the bulwarks.
• Bergy Bits - Pieces of ice, about the size of a small house, that have broken off a glacier, or from hummocky ice.
• Berth - Place in which a vessel is moored or secured. Space around a vessel at anchor, and in which she will swing. An allotted accommodation in a ship. Employment aboard a ship. To berth a vessel is to place he in a desired or required position.
• Beset - Said of a vessel when she is entirely surrounded by ice.
• Between Decks - The space between any two decks of a ship.
• Bibbs - Pieces of timber bolted to the hounds of a mast, to support the trestle-tree.
• Bight - The double part of a rope when it is folded. Any part of a rope may be called the bight, except the ends. Also, a bend in the shore, making a small bay or inlet.
• Bilge - The interior of the hull below the floor boards.
• Bilgeways - Timbers placed beneath a vessel when building.
• Bill - The point at extermity of a fluke of an anchor.
• Binnacle - A receptable placed near the helm, containing the compass, etc.
• Bitts - Perpendicular pieces of timber going through the deck, to secure ropes to. The cables are fastened to them, if there is no windlass. There are also bitts to secure the windlass, and on each side of the heel of the bowsprit.
• Bitter, or Bitter End - The inboard end of an anchor cable secured to the bitt, or below decks to some strong structural member.
• Blade - The flat part of an oar which goes into the water.
• Blanket - A vessel to windward of another is said to blanket the leeward vessel when she takes the wind from the latter's sail, due to their relative positions.
• Bleed the Monkey - Surreptitiously to remove spirit from a keg or cask by making a small hole and sucking through a straw.
• Block - A piece of wood with sheaves, or wheels, through which the running rigging passes, to add to the purchase.
• Bluff - A vessel which is full and square forward.
• Board - The strtch a vessel makes upon one tack, when she is beating.
• Boat - Small craft not normally suitable for sea passages but useful in sheltered waters and for short passages.
• Boat-Hook - An iron hook with a long staff.
• Boatswain - A ship's officer who has charge of the rigging and who calls the crew to duty.
• Bobstays - Used to confine the bowsprit to the stem or cutwater.
• Bolsters - Pieces of soft wood, covered with canvas, placed on the trestle-trees, for the eyes of the rigging to rest upon
• Bolt-Rope - The rope which goes round a sail, and to which the canvas is sewed.
• Bone - Foam at stem of a vessel underway. When this is unusually noticeable she is said to "have a bone in her teeth".
• Bonnet - An additional piece of canvas attached to the foot of a jib by lacings.
• Booby Hatch - Sliding cover that has to be pushed away to allow passage to or from a store room, cabin of small craft, or crew's quarters.
• Boom - A spar used to extend the foot of a for-and-aft sail or studdingsail.
• Boomkin - A short spar projecting from the stern, to which a sheet block is secures, for an overhanging boom.
• Bottomry - A term in marine law referring to mortagaging on ships.
• Bound - Proceeding in a specified direction, or to a specified place.
• Bouse - To heave, or haul, downwards on a rope. Originally, and strictly, heave meant an upward pull, haul meant a horizontal pull, bouse meant a downward pull but these distinctions have not survived.
• Bow - The rounded part of a vessel, forward.
• Bower - A working anchor, the cable of which is bent and reeved through the hawsehole.
• Bowline - A rope leading forward from the leech of a square sail, to keep the leech well out when sailing close-hauled. A vessel is said to be on a bowline, or on a taut bowline, when she is close-hauled. Also a knot tied in the end of a line to form a loop that will not slip.
• Bowse - To pull downward on a rope or fall.
• Bowsprit - A large, strong spar, standing from the bows of a vessel.
• Box-Hauling - Wearing a vessel by backing the head sail.
• Box - To box the compass, is to repeat the thirty-two points of the compass in order.
• Brace - A rope by which a yard is turned about.
• Brackish - Said of a mixture of fresh water and salt sea water.
• Brails - Ropes by which the foot or lower corners of fore-and-aft sails are hauled up.
• Brake - The handle of a ship's pump.
• Braker - A small cask containing water.
• Breakers - Waves broken by ledges of shoals.
• Brash - Ice broken into pieces, about 6 ft. in diameter and projecting very little above sea level.
• Breach - Said of waves that break over a vessel.
• Breast - Mooring line leading approximately perpendicular to ship's fore and aft line.
• Breast-Fast - A rope used to confine a vessel broadside to a wharf, or to some other vessel.
• Breast-Hooks - Knees in the forward part of a vessel, across the stem, to secure the bows.
• Breast Rope - Mooring rope, leading from bow or quarter, at about right angles to ship's fore and aft line.
• Breech - The outside angle of a knee-timber. The after end of a gun.
• Breeching - A strong rope used to secure the breech of a gun to the ship's side.
• Bridle - Spans of rope attached to the leeches of square sails to which the bowlines are made fast. Bridle-port. The foremost port, used for stowing the anchors.
• Brig - Vessel with two masts and square rigged on both of them.
• Brigantine - Originally, a ship of brigands, or pirates. Up to end of 19th century was a two-masted vessel square rigged on fore-mast and main topmast, but with fore and aft mainsail. Latterly, a two-masted vessel with foremast square rigged, and mainmast fore and aft rigged.
• Bring to - The act of stopping a sailing vessel by bringing her head up into the wind.
• Broach-to - To slew round when running before the wind.
• Broadside - The whole side of a vessel.
• Broken-Bac - k When a vessel is so strained to drop at each end.
• Brow - Substantial gangway used to connect ship with shore when in a dock or alongside a wharf.
• Bucklers - Blocks of wood made to fit in the hawse-holes, or holes in the half-ports, when at sea. Those in the hawse-holes are sometimes called hawse-blocks.
• Bucko - A bullying and tyrannical officer.
• Bulk - The whole cargo when stowed.
• Bulkhead - Transverse, or fore and aft, vertical partition in a vessel to divide interior into compartments. Not necessarily water-tight. Increases rigidity of structure, localizes effects of fire and, when watertight, localizes inflow of water.
• Bull - A sailor's term for a small keg, holding a gallon or two
• Bulls Eye - A small piece of stout wood with a hole in the centre for a stay or rope to reeve through, without a sheave, and with a groove round it for the strap, which is usually of iron. Also, a piece of thick glass inserted in the deck to let in light.
• Bulwarks - Wood work around a vessel above deck, fastened to stanchions.
• Bum-Boats - Boats which lie alongside a vessel in port with provisions, fruit, etc, to sell.
• Bumpkin - Pieces of timber projecting from the vessel to board the fore tack to; also from each quarter, for the main brace-blocks.
• Bunk - Bed on board a ship.
• Bunt - The middle of a sail.
• Bunting - The woolen stuff of which flags are made.
• Buntlines - Ropes used for hauling up the body of a sail.
• Buoy - A floating cask, or piece of wood, attached by a rope to an anchor, to show its position. Also, floated over a shoal, or other dangerous place as a beacon.
• Buoyage - The act of placing buoys. 2. Establishment of buoys and buoyage systems. Applied collectively to buoys placed or established.
• Burgee - A small flag, either pointed or swallowtail.
• Burgoo - Seaman's name for oatmeal porridge. First mentioned in Edward Coxere's Adventures by Sea" (1656)
• Burton - A tackle, rove in a particular manner.
• Bush - The center piece of a wooden sheave in a block.
• Butt - The end of a plank where it unites with the end of another.
• Buttock - That part of the convexity of a vessel abaft, under the stern, contained between the counter above and the after part of the bilge below, and between the quarter on the side and the stern-post.
• By the Board - Overboard and by the ship's side.
• By the Head - When the head of a vessel is lower in the water than her stern. If the stern is lower, she is by the stern.
• By the Wind - Close-hauled.

C

• Cable - Nautical unit of distance, having a standard value of 1/10th of a nautical mile (608 ft.). For practical purposes a value of 200 yards is commonly used.
• Caboose - A house on deck, where the cooking is done. Commonly called the Galley.
• Call - Bos'n's call used for piping orders.
• Calving - Breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier or iceberg.
• Camber - Arched form of a deck or beam to shed the water. Standard camber for weather decks is 1/50th of vessel's breadth.
• Camel - Hollow vessel of iron, steel or wood, that is filled with water and sunk under a vessel. When water is pumped out, the buoyancy of camel lifts ship. Usually employed in pairs. Very valuable aid to salvage operations. At one time were usual means of lifting a vessel over a bar or sandbank. Were used in Rotterdam in 1690.
• Can-Hooks - Two flat hooks running freely on a wire or chain sling. Hooks are put under chime of casks, weight is taken on chain sling or wire. Weight of lift prevents unhooking.
• Cant-Timbers - Timbers at both ends of a vessel, raised obliquely from the keel. Lower Half Cants. Those parts of frames situated forward and abaft the square frames or the floor timbers which cross the keel.
• Canvas - The cloth of which sails are made.
• Cap - A thick, strong block of wood with two holes through it, one square and the other round, used to confine together the head of one mast and the lower part of the mast next above it.
• Capsize - To overturn.
• Capstan - A machine placed perpendicularly on the deck, used for heaving or hoisting.
• Captain - Rank in R.N. between Commander and Commodore. In Merchant Navy is a courtesy title for a Master Mariner in command of a ship.
• Cardinal Points - The four main points of the compass.
• Careen - To list a vessel so that a large part of her bottom is above water. Formerly done to remove weed and marine growth, to examine the bottom, to repair it and to put on preservative or anti-fouling. Still done with small craft.
• Carlings - Pieces of timber running between the beams.
• Carrick-Bend - A kind of knot. Carrick bitts are the windlass bitts.
• Carry-Away - To break a spar, or part a rope.
• Carry on - To continue sailing under the same canvas despite the worsening of the wind.
• Carvel - Smooth-planked, as distinguished from lapstrake.
• Cast - To pay a vessel's head off, in getting under way, on the tack she is to start upon. To cast off a line is to let go.
• Cat - The tackle used to hoist the anchor up to the cat-head. Cat-block, the block of this tackle.
• Cat Boat - A sailboat having one mast, well forward, and no headsails.
• Catching up Rope - Light rope secured to a buoy to hold vessel while stronger moorings are attached.
• Catenary - Originally, length of chain put in middle of a tow rope to damp sudden stresses. Now applied to any weight put in a hawser for same purpose. 2). Curve formed by chain hanging from two fixed points.
• Cat-Harpin - An iron leg used to confine the upper part of the rigging to the mast.
• Cat-Head - Large timbers projecting from the vessel's side, to which the anchor is secured.
• Cat's Paw - A kind of hitch made in a rope. A light current of air on the surface of the water.
• Cat's Skin - Light, warm wind on surface of sea.
• Caulk - To fill the seams of a vessel with oakum or caulking cotton.
• Celing - The inside sheating of a vessel.
• Centerboard - A pivoted board or metal plate, housed in a trunk, which can be lowered to reduce a sailboat's tendancy to make leeway when tacking.
• Chains - Strong links or plates of iron, the lower end of which are bolted through the ship's side to the timbers. Their upper ends are secured to the bottom of the dead-eyes in the channels. The chain of a vessel is called familiarly her chain. Rudder-chains lead from the outer and upper end of the rudder to the quarters.
• Chain-Plates - Plates of iron bolted to the side of a ship, to which the chains and dead-eyes of the lower rigging are conaected.
• Chamfer - To take off the edge, or bevel the plank.
• Channels - Broad pieces of plank bolted edgewise to the outside of a vessel. Used in narrow vessels for spreading the lower rigging.
• Charter - Party A contract in marine law.
• Cheeks - The projections on each side of a mast upon which the trestle-trees rest. The sides of the shell of a block.
• Check - To ease a rope a little, and then belay it.
• Checking - Slacking a rope smartly, carefully and in small amounts.
• Chine Log - Longitudinal member used at the intersection of sides and bottom of flat or V-bottom boats.
• Chinse - To drive oakum into seams.
• Chips - Nickname for ship's carpenter.
• Chocks
  1. A fitting through which anchor or mooring lines are led. Usually U-shaped to reduce chafe.
  2. Wedges used to secure anything with, or to rest upon. The long boat rests upon two chocks, when it is stowed. Chock-a-block. When the lower block of tackle is run close up to the upper one, so that you can hoist no higher. This is also called two-blocks.
• Chuch - Name sometimes given to a fairlead.
• Cistern - An apartment in the hold of a vessel, having a pipe leading out through the side, with a sea-clock, by which water may be let in.
• Clamps - Thick planks on the inside of vessels, to support the ends of beams.
• Clawing Off - To work off close-hauled from lee shore.
• Clear - A vessel clears from a port when necessary papers are put in order at the custom house, preparatory to sailing. Lines or rigging are cleared when tangled gear is straightened out. Land is cleared when left as a vessel sails. The bilge is cleared when pumped out.
• Cleat - Belaying Pin. A piece of wood used in different parts of a vessel to belay ropes to.
• Clew - The lower corner of square sails, and the after corner of fore-and-aft sails.
• Clewline - A rope that hauls up the clew of a square sail.
• Clinch - A half-hitch, stopped to its own part.
• Clinker - Lapstrake planking =, in which planks overlap at the edges, as ditinguished from carvel (smooth).
• Clock Calm - Absolutely calm weather with a perfectly smooth sea.
• Close Aboard - Close alongside, Very near.
• Close-Hauled - When a vessel is sailing as close to the wind as she will go.
• Close-Reefed - When all the reefs are taken in.
• Clove-Hitch - Two half-hitches round a spar or other rope.
• Clove-Hook - Aniron clasp, in two parts, moving upon the same pivot, and overlapping.
• Clubbing - Drifting down a current with an anchor out.
• Coal Tar - Tar made from bituminous coal.
• Coamings - Raised work around the hatches, to prevent water going into the hold.
• Coat - Mast-coat is a piece of canvas, tarred or painted, placed around a mast or bowsprit, where it enters the deck to keep out water.
• Cock-Bill - To cock-bill a yard or anchor.
• Cockpit - An apartment in a vessel of war, used by the the surgeon during an action. A space or well, sunken below the sheer line. Usually aft, but small forward cockpits are also in common use on motor cruisers.
• Code Signals - Flag signals for speaking at sea.
• Codline - An eighteen thread line.
• Coil - To lay a rope up in a circle, with one turn or fake over another. A coil is a quantity of rope laid up in this manner.
• Cold front - The leading edge of a relatively colder airmass which separates two air masses in which the gradients of temperature and moisture are maximized. In the northern hemisphere winds ahead of the front will be southwest and shift into the northwest with frontal passage.
• Colimation - Correct alignment of the optical parts of an instrument.
• Collar - An eye in the end or bight of a shroud or stay, to go over the mast-head.
• Collier - A vessel used in coal trade.
• Combined Seas - The combination of both wind waves and swell which is generally referred to as "seas".
• Companion - A wooden covering over the staircase to a cabin.
• Compass - The instrument which shows the course of a vessel.
• Complex gale/storm - An area in which gale/storm force winds are forecast or are occurring, but in which more than one center is the generating these winds.
• Composite - A vessel with iron or metal frame and wooden skin.
• Conning, or Cunning - Directing the helmsman in steering a vessel.
• Corinthian - Amateur.
• Counter - That part of a vessel between the bottom of the stern and the wing-transom and buttock. Counter-timbers are short timbers put in to strengthen the counter.
• Courses - The common term for the sails that hang from a ship's lower yards. The foresail is called the fore course and the mainsail the main course.
• Coxswain - The person who steers a boat and has charge of her.
• Crab - To catch a crab is to catch the oar in the water by feathering it too soon.
• Crack on - To carry sail to full limit of strength of masts, yards, and tackles.
• Cradle - A frame to hold a vessel up right when hauling her up.
• Craft - Vessel or vessels of practically any size or type.
• Cranes - Pieces of iron or timber at the vessel's sides, used to stow boats or spar upon. A machine used for hoisting.
• Crank - Said of a vessel with small stability, whether due to build or to stowage of cargo.
• Cranse Iron - A cap or ring at end of bowsprit.
• Creep - To search for a sunken object by towing a grapnel along bottom.
• Creeper - An iron instrument, with four claws, used for dragging the bottom of a harbor or river.
• Crew - Personnel, other than Master, who serve on board a vessel. In some cases a differentiation between officers and ratings is made; but officers are "crew" in a legal sense.
• Cringle - A short piece of rope with each end spliced into the bolt-rope of a sail confining an iron ring or thimble.
• Crimp - Person who decoys a seaman from his ship and gains money by robbing and, or, forcing him on board another vessel in want of men.
• Cross-Jack - The cross-jack yard is the lower yard on the mizzen mast.
• Cross-Pawl - A piece of timber connecting two bitts.
• Cross-Spales - Pieces of timber placed across a vessel, and nailed to the frames, to keep the sides together until the knees are bolted.
• Cross-Trees - Pieces of oak supported by the cheeks and trestle-trees at the mastheads, to sustain the tops on the lower mast, and to spread the rigging at the topmasthead.
• Crow-Foot - A number of small lines rove, through the enrou to suspend an awning by.
• Crown - The crown of an anchor, is the place where the arms are joined to the shank. To crown a knot, is to pass the strands over and under each other above the knot.
• Cruise - Voyage made in varying directions. To sail in various directions for pleasure, in search, or for exercise.
• Crutch - A knee or piece of knee-timber placed inside of a vessel to secure the heels of the cant-timbers abaft. Also the clock upon which the spanker-boom rests when the sail is not set.
• Cuckold's Neck - A knot by which a rope is secured to a spar, the two parts of the rope crosssing each other, and seized together.
• Cuddy - A cabin in the fore part of a boat.
• Culage - Laying up of a vessel, in a dock, for repairs.
• Customary Dispatch - Usual and accustomed speed.
• Cut-Water - The foremost part of a vessel's bow, which projects forward of the bows.
• Cutter - A small boat. Also, a kind of sloop.

D

• Davy Jones - The spirit of the sea. Davy Jones' Locker is the bottom of the sea.
• Davits - Pieces of timber or iron, with sheaves or blocks at their ends, projecting over a vessel's sides or stern, to hoist up boats. Also, a spar with a roller or sheave at its end, used for fishing the anchor, called a fish-davit.
• Day Beacon - An unlighted fixed aid that is used to assist mariners during daylight hours. Retro-reflective material may be used to help mariners identify it at night using their own search light.
• Daymark - Similar to a daybeacon in function, but the structure on which it is placed is lighted at night.
• Dead Eye - A circular block of wood, with holes through it, for the lanyards of rigging to reeve through, without sheaves, and with a groove round it for an iron strap.
• Dead-Light - Ports placed in the cabin windows.
• Dead on End - Said of wind when exactly ahead; and of another vessel when her fore and aft line coincides with observer's line of sight.
• Dead Reckoning - A reckoning kept by observing a vessel's courses and distances by the log.
• Dead-Rising or Rising-Line - Those parts of a vessel's floor, throughout her length, where the the floor-timbers terminate upon the lower futtock.
• Dead-Water - The eddy under a vessel's counter when in motion.
• Dead-Wood - Blocks of timber, laid upon each end of the keel, where the vessel narrows.
• Deck - The planked floor or a vessel, resting upon the beams.
• Deck-Stopper - A stopper used for securing the cable forward of the windlass or capstan, while it is being overhauled.
• Deep-Sea-Lead - The lead used in sounding at great depths.
• Dense fog - Over the marine environment the term dense fog refers to visibility less than 1/2 NM. Fog is the visible aggregate of minute water droplets suspended in the atmosphere near the surface. Usually dense fog occurs when air that is lying over a warmer surface such as the Gulf Stream is advected across a colder water surface and the lower layer of the airmass is cooled below its dew point.
• Departure - The easting or westing made buy a vessel. The bearing of an object on the coast from which a vessel commences dead reckoning.
• Deratisation - Extermination of all rats aboard a vessel.
• Derelict - A vessel forsaken on the high seas.
• Derrick - A single spar, supported by stays and guys, to whch a purchase is attached, used to unload vessels, and for hoisting heavy objects.
• Developing gale - Refers to an extratropical low or an area in which gale force winds of 34 knots (39 mph) to 47 knots (54 mph) are "expected" by a certain time period. On surface analysis charts a developing gale indicates gale force winds within the next 36 hours. When the term developing gale is used on the 48 hour surface forecast and 96 hour surface forecast charts, gale force winds are expected to develop by 72 hours and 120 hours, respectively.
• Developing storm - Refers to an extratropical low or an area in which storm force winds of 48 knots (55 mph) or greater are "expected" by a certain time period. On surface analysis charts a developing storm indicates storm force winds forecast within the next 36 hours. When the term developing storm is used on the 48 hour surface and 96 hour surface charts, storm force winds are expected to develop by 72 hours and 120 hours, respectively.
• Dingbat - Slang term for a small swab made of rope and used for drying decks.
• Dighy - A small open boat.
• Displacement - The weight of water displaced by any vessel.
• Ditty Bag - Small canvas bag in which a seaman keeps his small stores and impedimenta.
• Ditty Box - Small wooden box, with lock and key, in which seamen of R.N. keep sentimental valuables, stationery, and sundry small stores.
• Diurnal - Daily. Occurring once a day.
• Dog - A short iron bar, with a fang or teeth at one end, and a ring at the other. Used for a purchase, the fang being placed against a beam or knee, and the block of a tackle hooked to the ring.
• Dog-Vane - A small vane, usually made of bunting, to show the direction of the wind.
• Dog Watches - Half watches of two hours each, from 4 to 6 and 6 to 8 P.M.
• Dolphin - A rope or strap around a mast to support the puddening, where the lower yard rest in the slings. Also, a spar or buoy, to which vessel may bend their cables.
• Dolphin-Striker - The martingale boom, a spar projecting down from the bowsprit cap to spread the martingale stays which run out to the jib boom and counteract the strain of head stays.
• Donkeyman - Rating who tends a donkey boiler, or engine, and assists in engine-room.
• Donkey's Breakfast - Merchant seaman's name for his bed or mattress.
• Douse - To lower suddenly.
• Downhaul - A rope used to haul down jibs, staysails, and studdingsails.
• Draft / Draught - The depth of the water which a vessel requires to float her.
• Drag - A machine with a bag net, used for dragging on the bottom for anything lost. A sea anchor to keep the head of the vessel to the wind, in bad weather.
• Draw - A sail draws when it is filled by the wind.
• Drift Ice - Ice in an area containing several small pieces of floating ice, but with total water area exceeding total area of ice.
• Drifts - Pieces in the sheer-draught were the rails are cut off.
• Drive - To scud before a gale, or to drift in a current.
• Driver - The fifth mast of six-masted schooner. Also the small fore-and-aft spanker sail set at the stern of a full-rigged ship.
• Drop - The depth of a sail, from head to foot, amidship.
• Drum-Head - The top of the capstan.
• Dub - To reduce the end of a timber.
• Duck - A kind of cloth, lighter and finer than canvas; used for small sails.
• Dunnage - Any material, permanent or temporary, that is used to ensure good stowage, and protect cargo during carriage.

E

• Earing - A rope attached to the cringle of a sail, by which it is bent or reefed.
• Ebb - The reflux of the tide.
• Eddy - A circular motion in the water caused by the meeting of opposite currents
• Elbow - Two crosses in a hawse
• Ensign - The flag carried by a ship as the insignia of her nationality
• Equinox - The time the sun crosses the equator
• Even-keel - The position of a vessel when she is so trimmed that it sits evenly upon the water, neither end being down more than the other.
• Euvrou - A piece of wood, by which the legs of the crow-foot to an awning are ex-tended.
• Extratropical - low A low pressure center which refers to a migratory frontal cyclone of middle and higher latitudes. Tropical cyclones occasionally evolve into extratropical lows losing tropical characteristics and become associated with frontal discontinuity.
• Eye - The circular part of a shroud or stay, where it goes over a mast.

F

• Face-Pieces - Pieces of wood wrought on the fore part of knee of the head.
• Facing - Letting one piece of timber into another with a rabbet.
• Fag - A rope is fagged when the is untwisted.
• Fair - To adjust to proper shape or size. ( fairing/hullfairing = (uit)stroken )
• Fair-Leader - A strip of board or plank or metal, with holes in it, for running rigging to lead through. Also, a block or thimble used for the same purpose.
• Fairway - Navigable water in a channel, harbour or river.
• Fake - One circle of a coil or rope. To coil or arrange a rope ornamentally with each fake flat, or almost flat, on the deck, usually in a circle or figure-of-eight pattern. Sometimes called "Cheesing down".
• Fall - That part of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting.
• False Keel - A supplementary keel bolted to the main keel on the outside, to give a vessel mare draft.
• Fancy-Line - A line rove through a block at the jaws of a gaff, used as a downhaul. Also, a line used for cross-hauling the lee topping-lift.
• Fang - Valve of a pump box. 2. To prime a pump.
• Farewell Buoy - Buoy at seaward end of channel leading from a port.
• Fashion-Pieces - The aftermost timbers, forming the shape of the stern.
• Fast - Hawser by which a vessel is secured. Said of a vessel when she is secured by fasts.
• Fast Ice - Ice extending seaward from land to which it is attached.
• Fathom - Six feet (1.83 metres); length covered by a man's outstretched arms. Fathom of wood is a cubical volume 6'x 6'x 6' = 216 cu. ft.
• Feather Spray - Foaming water that rises upward immediately before stem of any craft being propelled through water.
• Fiddles - Wooden fittings clamped to meal tables in heavy weather. They limit movement of dishes, plates, glasses, etc.
• Field Ice - Ice pack whose limits cannot be seen from ship.
• Fixed Aid to Navigation - An artificial or natural object of easily recognizable shape and colour. Its position can be identified on a nautical chart and/or found in the List of Lights, Buoys and Fog Signals.
• Flake - To coil a rope so that each coil, on two opposite sides, lies on deck alongside previous coil; so allowing rope to run freely.
• Fleeting - Shifting the moving block of a tackle from one place of attachment to another place farther along. Moving a man, or men, from one area of work to area next to it.
• Flotsam, Flotson - Goods and fittings that remain floating after a wreck.
• Fly Boat - Fast boat used for passenger and cargo traffic in fairly sheltered waters.
• Fog - Over the marine environment the term fog refers to visibility greater than or equal to 1/2 NM and less than 3 NM. Fog is the visible aggregate of minute water droplets suspended in the atmosphere near the surface.
• Fothering - Closing small leaks in a vessel's underwater body by drawing a sail, filled with oakum, underneath her.
• Founder - To fill with water and sink.
• Frazil - Small, cake-shaped pieces of ice floating down rivers. Name is given, also, to newly-formed ice sheet off coast of Labrador.
• Freezing spray - Spray in which supercooled water droplets freeze upon contact with exposed objects below the freezing point of water. It usually develops in areas with winds of at least 25 knots.
• Freshen the Nip - To veer or haul on a rope, slightly, so that a part subject to nip or chafe is moved away and a fresh part takes its place.
• Frontogenesis - The formation of a front occurs when two adjacent air masses with different densities and temperatures meet and strengthen the discontinuity between the air masses. It occurs most frequently over continental land areas such as over the Eastern US when the air mass moves out over the ocean. It is the opposite of frontolysis.
• Frontolysis - The weakening or dissipation of a front occurs when.
• Full and By - Sailing close-hauled with all sails drawing.
• Futtock - A frame timber other than a floor timber, half-frame, or top timber; one of the middle pieces of a frame.
• Futtock-shrouds - Small shrouds connecting the large shrouds to the platform of the top.
• Furniture - The essential fittings of a ship, such as masts, davits, derricks, winches, etc.

G

• Gaft - A spar, to which the head of a fore-and-aft sail is bent.
• Gaff-Topsail - A light sail set over a gaff, the foot being spread by it.
• Gage - The depth of water of a vessel. Also, the position as to another vessel, as having the weather or lee gage.
• Gale - Refers to an extratropical low or an area of sustained surface winds (one minute) of 34 knots (39 mph) to 47 knots (54 mph).
• Galley - The place where the cooking is done.
• Gallows-Bitts - A strong frame raised amidship to support spare spars, etc.
• Gammoning - The lashing by which the bowsprit is secured to the cutwater.
• Gang Casks - Small casks, used for bringing water on board in boats.
• Gangway - That part of a vessel's side, amidship, where people pass in and out of the vessel.
• Garboard-Strake - The planks next the keel, on each side.
• Garland - A large rope, strap or grommet, lashed to a spar when hoisting it on board.
• Garnet - A purchase on the mainstay, for hoisting.
• Gaskets - Ropes or piece of canvas, used to secure a sail when it is furled.
• Gear - A general term, meaning rigging.
• Gig - Usually, the officers' boat.
• Gilliwatte - Name given to Captain's boat in 17th century.
• Gimbals - The brass ring in which a compass sits to keep it level.
• Gimblet - To turn an anchor around by it's stock. To turn anything around on its end.
• Girtline - A rope wove through a single block aloft, making a whip purchase. (Also known as a gantline.)
• Give Way! - An order t men in a boat to pull with more force, or to begin pulling.
• Glory Hole - Any small enclosed space in which unwanted items are stowed when clearing up decks.
• Gob Line - Back rope of a martingale. 2. A length of rope used in a tug to bowse in the towrope. Gog rope.
• Goose-Neck - An iron ring fitted to the end of a yard or boom.
• Gores - The angles at one or both ends of cloths that increase the breadth or depth of a sail.
• Goring-Cloths - Pieces cut obliquely and put in to add to the breadth of a sail.
• Grafting - Covering a rope by weaving yarns together.
• Grains - An iron with four or more barbed points used for striking small fish.
• Granny Knot - A square knot improperly tied.
• Grapnel - A small anchor with several claws.
• Grating - Open lattice work of wood. Used principally to cover hatches in good weather: alo to let in light and air.
• Greave - To clean a ship's bottom by burning.
• Gripe - The outside timber of the fore-foot, under water, fastened to the lower stem-piece. A vessel gripes when she tends to come up into the wind.
• Gripes - Bars of iron, with lanyards, rings, and clews, by which a boat is lashed to the ring-boltd of the deck Those for a quarter-boat are made of long strips of canvas, going round her and set taut by a lanyard.
• Grommet - A ring formed of rope, by laying around a ingle strand.
• Ground Tackle - General term for anchors, cables, wraps, springs, etc.; anything used in securimng a vessel at anchor.
• Growler - Small iceberg that has broken away from a larger berg.
• Gun-Tackle Purchase - A purchase made by two single blocks.
• Gunwale - The upper rail of a boat or vessel.
• Guy - A rope attached to anything to steady it, and bear it one way or another in hoisting.
• Gybe - To change the position of the sails of a fore-and-aft vessel from one side to the other without going in stays.

H

• Hail - To speak or call another vessel, or to men in a different part of the ship.
• Halyards - Ropes or tackles used for hoisting and lowering yards, gaffs, and sails.
• Half-breadth plan - This drawing shows the longitudinal view from above, with a series of level lines (or waterlines) spaced at regular intervals between the keel and the deck edge. This is drawn with for half the breadth (width) only as both sides of the ship are assumed to be identical.
• Hammock - A piece of canvas, suspended by each end, in which seamen sleep.
• Hand - To hand a sail is to furl it. Bear-a-hand; make haste. Lend-a-hand; assist. Hand-over-hand; hauling rapidly on a rope, by putting one hand before the other alternately.
• Hand-Lead - A small lead, used for sounding in rivers and harbors.
• Handsomely - Slowly, carefully. As "Lower Handsomely!"
• Handspike - A long wooden bar, used for heaving at the windlass.
• Handy Billy - A watch-tackle
• Hanks - Rings or hoops of wood, rope, or iron, around a stay.
• Harpings - The fore part of the wales, which encompass the bows of a vessel, and are fastened to the stem.
• Harpoon - A spear used for striking whales and other fish.
• Hatch or Hatchway - An opening in the deck to afford a passage up and down. The coverings over these openings are called hatches.
• Hatch-Bar - An iron bar going across the hatches to keep them down.
• Haul - To pull.
• Hawse-Block - A block of wood fitted into a hawse-hole when at sea.
• Hawse-Hole - The hole in the bows through which the anchor cable runs.
• Hawse-Pieces - Timbers through which the hawse-holes are cut.
• Hawser - Flexible steel wire rope, or fibre rope, used for hauling warping or mooring.
• Haze - Punnishing a man by keeping him unnecessarily at some disagreeable work.
• Hazing - Giving a man a dog's life by continual work, persistent grumbling and petty tyranny.
• Head - The work at the prow of a vessel. If it is a carved figure, it is called a figurehead; if simple carved work, bending over and out, a billet-head; and if bending in, like the head of a violin, a fiddle-head. Also, the upper end of a mast, called the mast-head. On pleasure boats, the toilet compartment is refferred to as the head.
• Head Fast - Mooring rope leading forward from fore end of a vessel.
• Head-Sail - All sails that sit forward of the fore-mast.
• Headway - Forward movement of a ship through the water.
• Heart - A block of wood in the shape of a heart, for stays to reeve through.
• Heart-Yarns - The center yarns of a strand.
• Heave - To lift.
• Heave Short - To heave in on the cable until the vessel is nearly over her anchor.
• Heave-To - To put a vessel in the position of lying-to.
• Heave In Stays - To go about, tacking.
• Heaver - A short wooden bar, tapering at each end, used as a purchase.
• Heavy Floe - Piece of floating ice more than three feet thick.
• Heel - The after part of the keel. The lower end of the mast or boom. Also, the lower end of the stern-post. To heel, is to careen on one side.
• Heeling - The square part of the lower end of a mast, through which the fid-hole is made.
• Helm - The machinery by which a vessel is steered, including the rudder, tiller, wheel, etc.
• Helm-Port - The hole in the counter, through which the rudder head passes.
• High And Dry - The situation of a vessel when she is aground, above water mark.
• High Seas - That portion of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans which extends from 20 to 40 nm off the Western and Eastern US coasts and extends to 35W in the Atlantic ocean and to 160E in the Pacific Ocean. The area includes both the coastal and offshore waters.
• High Pressure - An area of higher pressure identified with a clockwise circulation in the northern hemisphere and a counterclockwise circulation in the southern hemisphere. Also, defined as an anticyclone.
• Hitch - The manner of fastening ropes.
• Hog - A flat, rough broom, used for scrubbing the bottom of a vessel.
• Hogged - Said of a vessel which, as a result of strain, droops at each end.
• Hoist - To lift.
• Hold - The interior of a vessel, where the cargo is stowed.
• Hold Water - To stop the progress of a boat by keeping the oar-blade in the water.
• Holy-Stone - A large stone, used for cleaning a ship's decks.
• Home - The sheets of a sail are said to be home, when the clews are hauled chock out to the sheave-holes. An anchor comes home when it is loosened from the ground an is hove in.
• Hood - A covering for a companion hatch, skylight, etc.
• Hood-Ends or Hooding-Ends - The ends of the planks which fit into the rabbets of the stem or stern-post.
• Hook-And-Butt - The scarfing, or laying the ends of timber over each over.
• Horns - The jaws and booms and gaffs. Also, the ends of crosstrees.
• Horse Marine - Unhandy seaman.
• Hounds - Projections at the mast-head serving as shoulders for the trestle-trees to rest upon.
• House - To house a mast, is to lower it about half its length, and secure it by lashing its heels to the mast below. To house a gun, is to run it in clear of the port and secure it.
• Housing or House-Line - A small rope made of three small yarns, and used for seizings.
• Hove - Heaved.
• Hoveller - Person who assists in saving life or property from a vessel wrecked near the coast. Often applied to a small boat that lies in narrow waters ready to wait on a vessel, if required.
• Hove To - Lying nearly head to wind and stopped, and maintaining this position by trimming sail or working engines.
• Hull - The body of a vessel
• Hull Down - Said of a distant ship when her hull is below horizon and her masts and upper works are visible.
• Hulling - Floating, but at mercy of wind and sea. 2. Piercing the hull with a projectile. 3. Taking in sail during a calm.
• Hurricane - A tropical cyclone with closed contours, a strong and very pronounced circulation, and one minute maximum sustained surface winds 64 knots (74 mph) or greater. A system is called a hurricane over the North Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, North Pacific E of the dateline, and the South Pacific E of 160E.

I

• Idler - Member of a crew who works all day but does not keep night watches e.g. carpenter, sailmaker.
• Indulgence Passenger - Person given a passage in one of H.M. ships; usually on compassionate grounds.
• Irons - A ship is in irons, when, in tacking, she will not bear away one way or the other.

J

• Jack - A common term for the jack-cross-trees.
• Jack-Block - A block used in sending topgallant masts up and down.
• Jack-Cross-Trees - Iron cross-trees at the head of the long topgallant masts.
• Jack Nastyface - Nickname for an unpopular seaman. Originally, nom de plume of a seaman who wrote a pamphlet about conditions in Royal Navy in early years of 19th century.
• Jack-Staff - A short staff, raised at the bowsprit cap, upon which the Union Jack is hoisted.
• Jack-Stays - Ropes strtched taut along a yard to bend the head of the sail to. Also, long strips of wood or iron, used for the same purpose.
• Jack-Screw - A purchase, used for stowing cotton.
• Jacob's Ladde - r A ladder made of rope, with wooden steps.
• Jaws - The inner ends of booms or gaffs, hollowed to go around the mast.
• Jerque - Search of a vessel, by Customs authorities, for unentered goods.
• Jetsam - Goods that have been cast out of a ship and have sunk.
• Jewel-Blocks - Single blocks at the yard-arm, through which the studdingsail halyards lead.
• Jib - A triangular sail set on a stay, forward. The Flying-jib sets outside of the jib.
• Jib-Boom - The boom, rigged out beyond the bowsprit, to which the tack of the jib is lashed.
• Jigger - A small tackle, used about decks or aloft. Small sail set aft on yawls and ketches. Gaff sail on fourth mast of large schooners.
• Jimmy Bungs - Nickname for a ship's cooper.
• Jolly Boat - General purpose boat of a ship.
• Jury-Mast - A temporary mast, rigged at sea, in place of one lost.

K

• Keckling - Winding small rope around a cable or hawser to prevent damage by chafing. 2. The rope with which a cable is keckled.
• Kedge - A small anchor, used for wraping. To kedge, is to wrap a vessel ahead.
• Kedging - Moving a vessel by laying out a small anchor and then heaving her to it.
• Keel - The lowest and principal timber of a vessel, running fore-and-aft the entire length, and supporting the frame. It is composed of several pieces, placed lengthwise, scarfed and bolted together.
• Keel-Haul - To haul a man under a vessel's bottom, by ropes at the yard-arms on each side. Formerly practised as a punishment in ships of war.
• Keelson - A timber placed over the keel on the floor-timbers, and running parallel with it.
• Kelter - Good order and readiness.
• Kenning - Sixteenth-century term for a sea distance at which high land could be observed from a ship. Varied between 14 and 22 miles according to average atmospheric conditions in a given area.
• Kentledge - Permanent pip iron ballast specially shaped and placed along each side of keelson. Name is sometimes given to any iron ballast.
• Kevel or Cavil - A piece of wood, bolted to a timber or stanchion, used for belaying ropes to.
• Kevel-Heads - Timber-heads, used as kevels.
• Key of Keelson - Fictitious article for which greenhorns at sea are sometimes sent.
• Killick - Nautical name for an anchor. Originally, was a stone used as an anchor.
• Kink - A twist in a rope.
• Kippage - Former name for the equipment of a vessel, and included the personnel.
• Knees - Crooked pieces of timber, having two arms, used to connect the beams of a vessel with her timbers.
• Knight-Heads - The timbers next the stem on each side, and continued high enough to from a support for the bowsprit.
• Knittles or Nettles - The halves of two adjoining yarns in a rope, twisted together for pointing or grafting. Also, small line used for seizings and for hammock clews.
• Knot - A division on the log-line, answering to a mile of distance. A nautical mile is 6080 feet; a land mile is 5280 feet.
• Knots per Hour - An expression never used by careful seamen, being tautological and illogical.
• Kraken - Fabulous sea monster supposed to have been seen off coasts of America and Norway. Sometimes mistaken for an island.

L

• Labor - A vessel is said to labor when she rolls or pitches heavily.
• Lading - That which is loaded into a ship. The act of loading.
• Lacing - Rope used to lash a sail to a spar, or bonnet to a sail.
• Lagan - Jettisoned goods that sink and are buoyed for subsequent recovery.
• Land-Fall - Making land. A good land-fall, is when a vessel makes the land as intended.
• Land Ho! - The cry used when land is first seen when coming from sea.
• Lanyard - Rope or cord used for securing or attaching.
• Larboard - The old term for the port of left-hand side of a vessel.
• Large - Said of vessel sailing with wind abaft the beam but not right aft.
• Lascar - Native of east India employed as a seaman.
• Lask - To sail large, with wind about four points abaft beam.
• Latchings - Loops on the head rope of a bonnet, by which it is laced to the foot of the sail.
• Latitude - Distance north or south of the equator.
• Launch - A large boat. The Long-boat.
• Lay - To come or to go; as, Lay aloft! Lay forward! Lay aft! Also, the direction in which the strands of a rope are twisted; as, from left to right, or from right to left.
• Lay Aboard - To come alongside.
• Laying on Oars - Holding oars at right angles to fore and aft line of boat with blades horizontal and parallel to surface of water. Is used also as a sarcastic term for idling, or not pulling one's weight.
• Lay Out - Order to men at mast to extend themselves at intervals along a yard. 2. To keep a vessel at a certain place until a specified time has elapsed.
• Lay the Land - To cause the land to sink below horizon by sailing away from it.
• Lazarette, Lazaretto - Storeroom containing provisions of a ship. 2. Ship or building in which persons in quarantine are segregated.
• Leach Line - A rope used for hauling up the leach of a sail.
• Lead - A piece of lead, in the shape of a cone or pyramid, with a small hole at the base, and a line attached to the upper end, used for sounding. The hole in the base is greased so as to get at the formation of the bottom.
• Leading-Wind - A fair wind. Applied to a wind abeam or quartering.
• League - Measure of distance three miles in length. One-twentieth of a degree of latitude.
• Ledges - A Fair wind. Applied to a wind abeam or quartering.
• Lee - The side opposite to that from which the wind blows; if a vessel has the wind on her starboard side, that will be the weather, and the port will be the lee side.
• Lee-Board - A board fitted to the lee side of flat-bottomed crafts, to prevent their drifting to leeward.
• Lee Lurch - Heavy roll to leeward with a beam wind.
• Leeway - What a vessel loses by drifting to leeward. When sailing close-hauled with all sail set, there should be little leeway.
• Leech or Leach - The border or edge of a square sail, at the sides. In a fore and aft sail, the after edge.
• Leeward - See "Lee"
• Liberty - Leave to go ashore
• Lie - To remain in a particular place or position.
• Lie By - To remain nearly alongside another vessel.
• Lie To - To shop a ship and lie with wind nearly ahead.
• Life-Lines - Ropes carried along yards, booms, etc., or at any part of the vessel, to hold on by.
• Lift - A rope or tackle, going from the yard-arms to the mast-head, to support and move the yards. Also, a term applied to the sails when the wind strikes them on the leeches and raises them slightly.
• Lighter - A craft, used in loading and unloading vessels.
• Light Hand - Youthful but smart seaman.
• Light Port - Scuttle or porthole fitted with glass.
• Limber Holes - Holes in floor timbers, or tank side-brackets, through which bilge water flows to pump suction.
• Line - A light rope or hawser. Small rope used for a specific purpose.
• Lipper - Small sea that rises just above bows or gunwale.
• List - The inclination of a vessel to one side; as, a list to port, or a list to starboard.
• Lobscouse - Nautical stew made with preserved meat and vegetables.
• Locker - A chest, or box, to stow things in. Chain-locker. Where the chain cables are kept. Boatswain's locker. Where tools and small stuff for working upon rigging are kept.
• Log-Book - A journal kept by the chief officer, in which the position of the vessel, winds, weather, courses, distances, and everything of importance that occurs, is noted down.
• Log - An instrument for determining the speed of a vessel.
• Long Boat - The largest boat in a merchant vessel.
• Longitude - Distance east or west of meridian of Greenwich
• Loof - That part of a vessel where the planks begin to bend as they approach the stern.
• Loom - That part of an oar which is within the row-lock. Also, to appear above the surface of the water; to appear larger than natural, as in a fog.
• Loose-Footed - A sail (fore and aft) nt secured along the foot to a boom.
• Lop - Small but quick-running sea.
• Low Pressure - An area of low pressure identified with counterclockwise circulation in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Also, defined as a cyclone.
• Lubber - A clumsy and unskilled man.
• Luff - To put the helm so as to bring the ship up nearer the wind. Also, the round part of a vessl's bow. The forward leech of fore-and-aft sails.
• Luff-Tackle - A purchasa composed of a double and single block.
• Lugger - A small vessel carrying lug-sails.
• Lug-Sail - A sail used in boats and small vessels, bent to a yard which hangs obliquely to the mast.
• Lumper - Man employed in unloading ships in harbour, or in taking a ship from one port to another. Paid "lump" sum for services.
• Lurch - Sudden and long roll of a ship in a seaway.
• Lying to - Said of a vessel when stopped and lying near the wind in heavy weather.

M

• Made - A made mast or block is one composed of different pieces. A ship's lower mast is usually a made spar, her topmast is a whole spar.
• Main - In all vessels it applies to the principal mast and sail
• Make - To make sail is to set it. To make fast is to secure a line to a bitt, cleat, etc.
• Mallet - A small maul, made of wood; as, caulking-mallet; also, serving-mallet, used in putting service on a rope.
• Manilla - A fibre, made from a sort of banana grown in the Philippines.
• Man-Ropes - Ropes used in going up and down a vessel's side.
• Marconi Rig - Uses tall triangular jib-headed sails, as distinguished from the gaff rig.
• Mariner - In general, a person employed in a sea-going vessel. In some cases, applied to a seaman who works on deck.
• Marks - The markings of a lead line to show depths at a glance or by feeling.
• Marl - To wind or twist a small line or rope around another.
• Marline - Small two-stranded stuff, used for marling. A finer kind of spun yarn.
• Marling-Hitch - A hitch used in marling.
• Marlingspike - An iron pin, sharpened at one end, and having a hole in the other for a lanyard.
• Marry - To join ropes together by a worming over both
• Marry the Gunner's Daughter - Old Navy nickname for a flogging, particularly when across a gun.
• Master - Merchant Navy officer in command of ship. Name was given, formerly, to the navigating officer of H.M. ships.
• Mate - An officer assistant to Master. A "Chief Officer". From time immemorial he has been responsible for stowage and care of cargo and organization of work of seamen, in addition to navigating duties.
• Martingale - A short, perpendicular spar, under the bowsprit end, used for guying the head-stays. Sometimes called a dolphin striker.
• Mast - A spar set upright from the deck, to support rigging, yards, and sails.
• Master - The commander of a vessel.
• Mat - Made of strands of old rope, and used to prevent chafing.
• Mate - An officer ranking next to the master.
• Matthew Walker - A stopper knot which takes its name from the originator.
• Messenger - A rope used for heaving in a cable by the capstan.
• Middle Ground - Shoal area between two navigational channels.
• Midships - The timbers at the broadest part of the vessel.
• Mile - A nautical mile is 1-60 of a degree of latitude, generally 6080 feet.
• Miss-Stays - To fail or going about from one tack to another
• Mizzen-Mast - The aftermost mast of a ship. The spanker is sometimes called the mizzen.
• Monkey Block - A small single block strapped with a swivel.
• Moon-Sail - A small sail sometimes carried in light winds, above a skysail.
• Moor - To secure a ship in position by two or more anchors and cables. 2. To attach a vessel to a buoy, or buoys. 3. To secure a vessel by attaching ropes to positions ashore.
• Mooring - Commonly, the anchor, chain, buoy, pennant, ect., by which a boat is permanently anchored in one location.
• Mop - A cloth broom used on board vessels.
• Moulds - The patterns by which the frames of a vessel are worked out.
• Mouse - To put turns of rope-yarn or spun yarn around the end of a hook and its standing part when it is hooked to anything, so as to prevent its slipping out.
• Mousing - A knot or puddening, made of yarns, and placed on the outside of a rope.
• Muffle - Oars are muffled by putting mats or canvas around their looms in the row-locks.

N

• Narrow Channel Rule - Rule of Collision Regulations. Requires a vessel navigating a narrow channel to keep to that side of mid-channel that is on her starboard hand.
• Navigation - The art of conducting a ship from port to port.
• Neap Tides - Low tides, occurring at the middle of the moon's second and fourth quarters.
• Neaped - The situation of a vessel when she is aground at the height of the spring tides.
• Near - Close to the wind
• Nest - Dories, or small boats, are nested when stowed one inside the other.
• Netting - Network of rope or small lines. Used for stowing away sails or hammocks
• New - The term "NEW" may be used in lieu of a forecast track position of a high or low pressure center when the center is expected to form by a specific time. For example, a surface analysis may depict a 24-hour position of a new low pressure center with an "X" at the 24-hour position followed by the term " NEW", the date and time in UTC which indicates the low is expected to form by 24 hours.
• Nip - A short turn in a rope.
• Nipped - Said of a vessel when pressed by ice on both sides.
• Nock - The forward upper end of a sail that sets with a boom.
• Nog - Treenail in heel of a shore supporting a ship on the slip.
• Nunatak - Isolated rocky peak rising from a sheet of inland ice.
• Nun-Buoy - A buoy tapering at each end.
• Nut - Projections on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock to its place.

O

• Oakum - Stuff made by picking rope-yarns to pieces. Used for caulking, and other purposes.
• Oar - A long wooden instrument with a flat blade at one end, used for propelling boats.
• Occluded front - The union of two fronts, formed as a cold front overtakes a warm front or quasi-stationary front refers to a cold front occlusion. When a warm front overtakes a cold front or quasi-stationary front the process is termed a warm front occlusion. These processes lead to the dissipation of the front in which there is no gradient in temperature and moisture.
• Off and Fair - Order to take off a damaged member of a vessel, to restore it to its proper shape and condition, and to replace it in position.
• Off-and-On - To stand on different tacks towards and from the land.
• Off the Wind - Said of a boat sailing with sheets eased (slacked off.) She is on the wind when close-hauled.
• Offing - Sea area lying between visible horizon and a line midway between horizon and observer on the shore. To keep an offing is to keep a safe distance away from the coast.
• Offshore waters - That portion of oceans, gulfs, and seas beyond coastal waters extending to a specified distance from the coastline, to a specified depth contour, or covering an area defined by a specific latitude and longitude points
• Out-Haul - A rope used for hauling out the clew of a sail.
• Out-Rigger - A spar rigged out to windward from the tops or cross-trees, to spread the breast-backstays.
• Overhaul - To examine with a view to repairing or refitting. 2. To overtake. 3. To extend a tackle so that distance between blocks is increased.

P

• Pack-Ice - Numbers of large pieces of floating ice that have come together and lie more or less in contact.
• Paddy's Purchase - Seaman's scornful name for any lead of a rope by which effort is lost or wasted. "Paddy's purchase, spunyarn over a nail."
• Painter - Rope at stem of boat for securing it or for towing purposes. 2. Chain by which an Admiralty pattern anchor is secured in place. "Shank Painter."
• Palm - A piece of leather fitted over the hand, with an iron for the head of a needle to press against in sewing canvas. Also, the fluke of an anchor.
• Pancake Ice - Small, circular sheets of newly-formed ice that do not impede navigation.
• Parbuckle - To hoist or lower a spar or cask by single passed around it.
• Parcell - To wind tarred canvas around a rope (called parcelling.)
• Parclose - Limber hole of a ship.
• Parral - The rope by which a yard is confined to the mast at its center.
• Part - To break a rope or chain.
• Parting Strop - Strop inserted between two hawsers, and weaker than the hawsers, so that strop, and not hawsers, will part with any excessive strain. 2. Special strop used for holding cable while parting it.
• Partners - A frame-work of short timber fitted to the hole in a deck to receive the lower end of a mast or pump, etc.
• Paunch Mat - A thick mat, placed at the slings of a yard or elsewhere.
• Pawl - A short bar of iron, which prevents the capstan or windlass from turning back.
• Pay Off - To discharge a crew and close Articles of Agreement of a merchant ship. 2. To terminate commission of H.M.ship. 3. Said of ship's head when it moves away from wind, especially when tacking.
• Pazaree - A rope attached to the clew of the foresail and rove through a block on the swinging boom. Used for guying the clews out when before the wind.
• Peak - The upper outer corner of a sail attached to a gaff.
• Peggy - Merchant Navy nickname for seaman whose turn of duty it is to keep the messing place clean.
• Pendant or Pennant - The long narrow piece of bunting, carried at the mast-head. Broad pennant, is a square piece, carried in the same way, in a a commodore's vessel. Pennant. A rope to which a purchase is hooked. A long strap fitted at one end to a yard or masthead, with a hook or bloch at the other end, for a brace to reeve through, or to hook a tackle to.
• Petty Officer - Rank intermediate between officer and rating, and in charge of ratings. Usually messed apart from ratings, and has special privileges appropriate to his position.
• Piggin - Very small wooden pail having one stave prolonged to form a handle. Used as a bailer in a boat.
• Pillow - A block which supports the inner end of the bowsprit.
• Pin - The axis on which a gheave turns. Also, a short piece of wood or iron to belay ropes to.
• Pinch - To hold a sailboat so close to the wind that sails shiver.
• Pink-Stern - When a vessel has a high, narrow stern, pointed at the end.
• Pinnace - Formerly, small, two-masted sailing vessel sometimes with oars. Now rowing, sailing or mechanically-propelled boat of R.N. Is diagonal built 36ft. in length.
• Pintle - A metal bolt, used for hanging a rudder.
• Pitch - A resin taken from pine, and used for filling up the seams of a vessel.
• Planks - Thick, strong boards, used for covering the sides and decks of vessels.
• Plug - A piece of wood, fitted into a hole in a vessel or boat, so as to let in or keep out water.
• Point - To take the end of a rope and work it over with knittles.
• Pole - Applies to the highest mast of a ship, as sky-sail pole.
• Pool - Enclosed, or nearly enclosed sheet of water. 2. Fluctuating congregation of men from which can be drawn hands required for manning ships, and to which can be added men available for manning.
• Poop - A deck raised over the after part of the spar deck.
• Pooping - Said of a vessel, or of the sea, when following seas sweep inboard from astern.
• Poppets - Perpendicular pieces of timber fixed to the fore-and-aft part of the bilgeways when launching.
• Popple - A short, confused sea.
• Port - The left side of a vessel as you look forward.
• Port Hole - Small aperture, usually circular, in ship's side. Used for lighting, ventilating and other purposes.
• Portoise - The gunwale. The yards are a-portoise when they rest on the gunwale.
• Prayer Book - A small, flat holystane used in narrow places.
• Preventer - An additional rope spar, used as a support.
• Pricker - A small marling spike, used in sail-making, rigging, etc.
• Primage - Money paid by shipper to Master of ship for diligence in care of cargo. Not now paid to Master, but added to freight. Amount was usually about 1% of freight.
• Primary swell direction - Prevailing direction of swell propagation.
• Procuration - The acting of one person on behalf of another. 2. A document authorizing one person to act on behalf of another.
• Propogation - Movement of crest of a progressive wave.
• Protest - Statement under oath, made before a notary public, concerning a actual or anticipated loss, damage or hindrance in the carrying out of a marine adventure.
• Puddening - A quantity of yarns, matting, or oakum, used to prevent chafing.
• Pump-Break - The handle to the pump.
• Punt - Small craft propelled by pushing on a pole whose lower end rests on the bottom of the waterway. 2. To propel a boat by resting end of a pole on bottom of waterway. 3. Copper punt.
• Puoy - Spiked pole used for propelling a barge or boat by resting its outboard end on an unyielding object.
• Purchase - A mechanical power which increases the force applied.
• Purser's Grin - Hypocritical smile, or sneer.

Q

• Quadeant - An instrument used in navigation.
• Quarter - That part of a vessel between the beam and the stern.
• Quarter-Boat - Boat carried at davits on quarter of ship, and kept ready for immediate use when at sea.
• Quarter-Block - A block fitted under the quarters of a yard on each side of the slings, for the clewlines and sheets to reeve through.
• Quarter-Deck - That part of the upper deck abaft the mainmast.
• Quarter-Master - A petty officer, who attends the helm and binnacle, watches for signals, etc.
• Quarter Spring - Rope led forward, from quarter of a vessel, to prevent her from ranging astern; or to heave her ahead.
• Quay - Artificial erection protruding into the water to facilitate loading and discharge of cargo, landing and embarkation of passengers, repairing or refitting of ships.
• Quick-Work - That part of a vessel side which is above the chainwales and decks.
• Quilting - A coating about a vessel, outside which is above the chainwales and decks.
• Quion - A wooden wedge for the breach of a gun to rest upon.

R

• Rabbet - A grove to receive the edge of a plank in ship building.
• Race - A strong, rippling tide.
• Rack - To seiz two ropes together, with cross-turns. Also, a fair-ledder for running rigging.
• Rack-Block - A course of blocks made from one piece of wood, for fair-leaders.
• Radome - A bun-shaped cover placed over a radar scanner to prevent risk of fouling and to protect it from the weather.
• Rafting - Overlapping of edges of two ice-floes, so that one floe is partly supported by the other.
• Rail - Top of the bulwarks (topsides above the deck).
• Rake - The inclination of a mast from the perpendicular.
• Ramline - A line used in mast-making to get a straight middle line on a spar.
• Range - A range consists of 2 or more fixed aids that are situated some distance apart and at different elevations in order to provide a leading line for navigators.
• Range of Cable - A quantity of cable ready for letting go the anchor or paying out. In pioting, a range consists of two objects in line, used as an aid in steering a course. Range of tide is the amount of its rise and fall.
• Rapidly intensifying - Indicates an expected rapid intensification of a cyclone with surface pressure expected to drop by at least 24 millibar (mb) within 24 hours.
• Ratlines - Lines running across the shrouds, horizontally, and used, in going aloft, as a ladder.
• Rattle-down - Rigging To put ratlines upon rigging. It is still called rattling.
• Razee - A vessel of war which has had one deck cut down.
• Reach - Straight stretch of water between two bends in a river or channel.
• Ready About - The order to stand by to tack ship.
• Rector - Name given to Master of a ship in 11th and 12 centuries.
• Reef - To reduce a sail by tacking in upon iys head, if a square sail, and its foot, if a fore-and-aft sail.
• Reef-Band - A band of stout canvas sewed on the sail across, with points in it, and earrings at each end for reefing.
• Reef-Tackle - A tackle used on a square sail to haul the middle of each leech up toward the yard, so that the sail may be easily reefed. Also, on fore-and-aft vessels, to haul out the foot of the sail.
• Reeve - To pass the of a rope through a block, or an aperture.
• Refit - Removal of worn or damaged gear and fitting of new gear in replacement.
• Relieving Tackl - e A tackle hooked to the tiller, to steer by in case of case of accident to the wheel or tiller-ropes.
• Render - To pass a rope through a place. A rope is said to render or not, as it goes freely.
• Return Port - The proper return port of a discharged seaman.
• Rib-bands - Long, narrow, flexible pieces of timber nailed to the outside of the ribs so as to encompass the vessel lengthwise.
• Ribs - The timber of a vessel.
• Ride at Anchor - To lie at anchor. Also, to bend or bear down by main strength and weight.
• Riders - Interior timbers placed occasionally opposite the ones, to which they are bolted, reaching from the keelson to the beams of the lower deck Also, casks forming the second tier in a vessel's hold.
• Ridge - an elongated area of relatively high pressure that is typically associated with a anticyclonic wind shift.
• Rigging - The general term for all the ropes of a vessel. Also, the common term for the shrouds with their ratlines.
• Right - To right the helm, is to put it amidship.
• Ring - The iron ring at the upper end of an anchor, to which the cable is bent.
• Ring-bolt - An eye-bolt with a ring through the eye.
• Roach - A curve in the foot of a square sail, by which the clews are brought below the middle of the foot. The roach of a fore-and-aft sail is in its forward leech.
• Road or Roadstead - An anchorage at a distance from the shore.
• Rolling Tackle - Tackles used to steady the yards in a heavy sea. Also, used on smoke stacks of steamers to keep them steady.
• Roming - The navigable water to leeward of a vessel.
• Rope - Generally speaking, rope is cordage of greater than one-inch circumference. The term has often been abused, as a piece of rope when put to use on a vessel becomes a line, in most cases. Among the relatively, few ropes, properly speaking, are bolt ropes, foot ropes, bell ropes, bucket ropes, man ropes, yard ropes, back ropes, and top ropes.
• Rope-Yarn - A thread of hemp, or other stuff, of which a rope is made.
• Rough-Three - An unfinished spar.
• Round In - To haul up on a rope.
• Round Up
  1. Slight bend in the keel when the construction of a wooden hull begins, to compensate deformation.
  2. To haul up on a tackle
• Rounding - A service of rope, hove around a spar or larger rope.
• Rowlocks - The receptacles for the oars in rowing.
• Royal - A light sail next above a top-gallant sail.
• Royal Yard - The yard from which the royal is set. The fourth from the deck.
• Rubber - A small instrument used to rub or flatten down the seams of a sail in sailmaking.
• Rudder - That by which a vessel or boat is steered, attached to the stern-post.
• Rules Of The Road - The international regulations for preventing collisions at sea.
• Run - The after part of a vessel's bottom, which rises and narrows in approaching the stern-post. By the run. To let go by the run, is to let go altogether, instead of gradually.
• Rung-Heads - The upper ends of the floor-timbers.
• Runner - A rope to increase the power of a tackle. It is rove through a single block, and a tackle is hooked to each end, or to one end, the other being fast.
• Running Rigging - The ropes that reeve through blocks, and are pulled and hauled, such as braces, halyards, etc.; in contrast to the standing rigging, the ends of which are securely seized, such as stays shrouds, etc.
• Rummage - Originally meant "to stow cargo". Now, means "to search a ship carefully and thoroughly".
• Run Out - To put out a mooring, hawser or line from a ship to a point of attachment outside her.

S

• Sailing Ice - Small masses of drift ice with waterways in which a vessel can sail.
• Sailor - Man or boy employed in sailing deep-water craft. Word is sometimes loosely used to include men who go to sea. Used officially to denote a seaman serving on deck. At one time was a man with previous sea experience, but who was not rated able seaman.
• Sallying - Rolling a vessel, that is slightly ice-bound, so as to break the surface ice around her. May sometimes be done when a vessel is lightly aground, but not ice-bound.
• Scuttle Butt - Covered cask, having lid in head, in which fresh water for current use was formerly carried.
• Sea Battery - Assault upon a seaman, by Master, while at sea
• Sea Boat
  1. Ship's boat kept ready for immediate lowering while at sea sometimes called "accident boat".
  2. Applied to a ship when assessing her behavior in a seaway.
• Sea Captain - Master of a sea-going vessel. Certificate officer competent and qualified to be master of a sea-going vessel.
• Sea Dog
  1. Old and experienced seaman.
  2. Dog fish.
  3. Elizabethan privateer.
• Seafarer - One who earns his living by service at sea.
• Sea fog - Common advection fog caused by transport of moist air over a cold body of water.
• Sea Lawyer - Nautical name for an argumentative person.
• Seamanlike - In a manner, or fashion, befitting a seaman
• Sea Smoke - Vapour rising like steam or smoke from the sea caused by very cold air blowing over it. Frost-smoke, steam-fog, warm water fog, water smoke.
• Second Greaser - Old nickname for a second mate.
• Seiche - Short period oscillation in level of enclosed, or partly enclosed, area of water when not due to the action of tide-raising forces.
• Sewed - Said of a vessel when water level has fallen from the level at which she would float. Also said of the water that has receded and caused a vessel to take the ground.
• Shallop
  1. Small boat for one or two rowers.
  2. Small fishing vessel with foresail, boom mainsail, and mizen trysail.
  3. A sloop.
• Sheer Draught - The sheer draught is the drawing consisting of three plans, drawn to the same scale, at different angles:
  1. The Sheer Plan, or Elevation - his shows the longitudinal vertical, or broadside view.
  2. The body plan - end-on cross-section view of the hull lines. Seen from the back.
  3. The half-breadth plan - shows the longitudinal view from above, with a series of level lines (or waterlines) spaced at regular intervals between the keel and the deck edge. This is drawn with for half the breadth (width) only as both sides of the ship are assumed to be identical.
• Sheet - Rope or purchase by which clew of a sail is adjusted and controlled when sailing.
• Shelf-Ice - Land ice, either afloat or on ground, that is composed of layers of sow that have become firm but have not turned to glacier ice.
• Shellback - An old and experienced seaman.
• Ship
  1. A sea-going vessel.
  2. Vessel having a certificate of registry. Technically, a sailing vessel having three or more masts with yards crossed on all of them. In Victorian times, any vessel with yards on three masts was termed a "ship" even if other masts were fore and aft rigged. To ship, is to put on or into a vessel; to put any implement or fitting into its appropriate holder.
• Shipmaster - A person in command of a ship. A person certified as competent to command a ship. A master mariner.
• Shipwright - A master craftsman skilled in the construction and repair of ships. In many instances, the person in charge of a ship's construction, including the supervision of carpenters and other personnel, control of expenditures and schedules, and acquisition of materials.
• Ship of the line - (formerly) a warship large enough to fight in the line of battle.
• Shoot Ahead - To move ahead swiftly. To move ahead of another vessel quickly when underway.
• Short Stay - Said of a vessel's anchor, or cable when the amount of cable out is not more than one-and-a-half times the depth of water.
• Shroud - A series of ropes, although sometimes occurring singel, used to steady a mast to the side of a hull. Connected to the head of the mast they form part of the standing rigging of a ship.
• Sighting - Observing with the eye. Applied to document, means examining and signing as evidence of satisfaction as to its authenticity.
• Sighting the Bottom - Drydocking, beaching, or careening a vessel and carefully examining the bottom with a view to ascertaining any damage it may have.
• Signed Under Protest - Words incorporated when signing under duress and not concurring entirely with import of document signed, and after stating grounds of non-concurrence.
• Singling Up - Taking in all ropes not wanted, so that only a minimum number of ropes will require casting off when leaving a berth or buoy.
• Significant wave height - The average height (trough to crest) of the 1/3rd highest waves. An experienced observer will most frequently report the highest 1/3rd of the waves observed.
• Sixteen Bells - Eight double strokes on ship's bell; customarily struck at midnight when new year commences. Eight bells are for 24 hours of passing year, eight bells for 00 hours of New Year.
• Slob - Loose and broken ice in bays, or along exposed edges of floes.
• Slop Chest - Chest, or compartment, in which is stowed clothing for issue to crew.
• Slop Room - Compartment in which clothing for issue to crew is stowed.
• Smelling the Ground - Said of a vessel when her keel is close to the bottom and all but touching it.
• Snorter
  1. Alternative name for "Snotter".
  2. A very high wind.
• Snub - To stop suddenly a rope or cable that is running.
• Snubber Line - Rope used for checking a vessel's way when warping her into a dock or basin.
• Soft Tack - Fresh bread.
• Son of a Gun - Seaman who was born aboard a warship. As this was once considered to be one of the essentials of the perfect seaman it has long been a complimentary term.
• Soogee Moogee/Sujee-mujee - Cleansing powder used for cleaning wood and paintwork.
• Spanking - Applied to a wind, or movement of a vessel, to denote brisk and lively.
• Spile Hole - Small hole bored in cask or barrel to allow air to enter when emptying.
• Spindrift - Finely-divided water swept from crest of waves by strong winds.
• Splice Main Brace - To issue an extra ration of rum. The main brace, often a tapered rope, was spliced only in the most exceptional circumstances.
• Spooning - Running directly before wind and sea.
• Spray - Water blown, or thrown, into the air in particles.
• Spring
  1. Rope from after part of a vessel led outside and forward to a point of attachment outside vessel. By heaving on it ship can be moved ahead. Sometimes led to anchor cable, for casting ship's head.
  2. Tendency of a vessel's head to come nearer to wind.
  3. The opening of a seam.
  4. Partial fracture in a mast or spar.
• Spume - Froth of foam of the sea.
• Squall - A sudden wind increase characterized by a duration of minutes and followed by a sudden decrease in winds.
• Staith - Elevated structure from which coal and other cargoes can be loaded into a vessel. Name is also given to a landing-place, or loading-place.
• Stanch - Said of a vessel that is firm, strong, and unlikely to develop leaks.
• Stanchion - Upright post to support the bullwark or railing.
• Stave off - To bear off with a staff, boathook, long spar, etc.
• Stationary front - A front that has not moved appreciably from its previous analyzed position.
• Stay - A large rope used to support a mast, and leading from its head down to some other mast or spar, or to some part of the ship.
• Stemming
  1. Maintaining position over the ground when underway in a river or tidal stream.
  2. Reporting a vessel's arrival in dock to the dock authority, or Customs.
• Stempost - A vertical or upward curving timber or assembly of timbers, scarfed to the keel or central plank at its lower end, into which the two sides of the bow were joined
• Sternpost - A vertical or upward curving timber or assembly of timbers stepped into, or scarfed to, the after end of the keel or heel.
• Stern Sheets - That space, in a boat, abaft after thwart; or between after thwart and backboard.
• Stock - A wooden, stone, or metal crosspiece near the top of and perpendicular to the shank; it was designed to cant one of the arms so that its fluke dug into the bottom
• Stocks - Blocks to carry the keel when a ship is build.
• Storis - Large drift ice, more than two years old, that passes down the south-east coast of Greenland.
• Storm Bound - Confined to an anchorage or haven through being unable to proceed because of stormy weather.
• Stow - To pack compactly and safely.
• Storm - Refers to a extratropical low or a area of sustained winds (one minute) in excess of 48 knots (55 mph).
• Stretch Off - the Land Old sailing ship term for taking "forty winks".
• Strake - Full row of planks.
• Suck the Monkey - Originally, to suck rum from a coconut -- into which it had been (illicitly) inserted, the end of the nut resembling a monkey's face. Later, illicitly to suck spirit from a cask, usually through a straw.
• Sujee;Suji-muji - (spelling various) Soap or cleaning-powder mixed with fresh water. To wash paint with sujee.
• Sun over Foreyard - Nautical equivalent to "Time we had a drink."
• Swab - Seaman's mop for drying decks. Made of old rope unlaid and seized on the bight; about four feet in length. Sometimes made smaller and seized to a wooden handle for putting highly-alkaline solutions on deck for cleansing purposes.
• Swallow the Anchor - To leave the sea and settle ashore.
• Sweat Up - To haul on a rope to hoist the last possible inch or so.
• Swell
  1. Succession of long and unbroken waves that are not due to meteorological conditions in the vicinity. Generally due to wind at a distance from the position.
  2. Wind waves that have moved out of their fetch or wind generation area. Waves generated by swell exhibit a regular and longer period than wind waves.

T

• Tally Board - Board, bearing instructions, that comes to a wrecked ship with a life-saving rocket line.
• Tally Book - Book in which is kept a reckoning of items of cargo received or discharged from a hatch or vessel.
• Tanky - Petty officer in R.N. whose duty is to look after fresh-water tanks. At one time these tanks were under the charge of the navigating officer, who shared the nickname.
• Teem - To pour. To empty.
• Tenth Wave - Commonly believed to be higher than preceding nine waves. Although it is true that wind effect causes one wave to override another, and so make a larger wave, it is not established that the eleventh wave will do this; so making a larger tenth wave. In some places the fifth wave is consistently larger.
• Thole, Thole Pin - Metal or wooden peg inserted in gunwale of a boat for oar to heave against when rowing without crutch or rowlock.
• Transom/Transummer - One of the principal transverse timbers of the stern, bolted to the sternpost and giving shape to the stern structure.
• Three Sheets in the Wind - Said of a man under the influence of drink. A ship with three sheets in the wind would "stagger to and fro like a drunken man". Conversely, a drunken man staggers to and fro like a ship with three sheets in the wind.
• Treenail/trunnel - A round or multi-sided piece of hardwood, driven through planks and timbers to connect them. Treenails were employed most frequently in attaching planking to frames, attaching knees to ceiling or beams, and in the scarfing of timbers.
• Ticket - Colloquial name for a "Certificate of Competency". Generally looked upon as a disparaging name but, etymologically speaking, is perfectly appropriate.
• Tom Cox's Traverse - Work done by a man who bustles about doing nothing. Usually amplified by adding "running twice round the scuttle butt and once round the longboat".
• Touch and Go - To touch the ground, with the keel, for a minute or so and then proceed again.
• Trice - To haul up by pulling downwards on a rope that is led through a block or sheave.
• Trick - A spell of duty connected with the navigation of a vessel; more particularly, at the wheel or look-out.
• Tropical cyclone - A non-frontal, warm-core, low pressure system of synoptic scale, developing over tropical or subtropical waters with definite organized convection (thunderstorms) and a well defined surface wind circulation.
• Tropical Depression - A tropical cyclone with one or more closed isobars and a one minute max sustained surface wind of less than 34 knots (39 mph).
• Tropical Storm - A tropical cyclone with closed isobars and a one minute max sustained surface wind of 34 knots (39 mph) to 63 knots (73 mph).
• Trough - [Trof], an elongated area of relatively low pressure that is typically associated with a cyclonic wind shift.
• Trysail-mast - Extra mast fixed to the mizzen mast. A ship with a trysail-mast is called a "snow"
• Turn - Complete encirclement of a cleat, bollard, or pin by a rope.
• Turn up - To fasten a rope securely by taking turns around a cleat or bollard. Under Foot. Said of anchor when it is under ship's forefoot, and cable is nearly up and down.
• Typhoon - Same as a hurricane with exception of geographical area. A tropical cyclone with closed contours, a strong and very pronounced circulation, and one minute maximum sustained surface winds of 64 knots (74 mph) or greater. A system is defined as a typhoon over the North Pacific W of the dateline.

U

• Unbend - To cast off or to untie.
• Under Way - Not attached to the shore or the ground in any manner. Usually, but not necessarily, moving through or making way through the water.
• Union - The upper inner corner of an ensign. The rest of the flag is called the fly.
• Unmoor - To cast off hawsers by which a vessel is attached to a buoy or wharf. To weigh one anchor when riding to two anchors. To remove a mooring swivel when moored to two cables.
• Unship - To remove from a ship. To remove an item from its place.
• Up and Down - Said of cable when it extends vertically and taut from anchor to hawsepipe.

V

• Van - The leading ship, or ships, in a fleet or squadron.
• Vane - A fly at the mast-head, revolving on a spindle, to show the direction of the wind.
• Vang - A rope leading from the peak of the gaff of a fore-and-aft sail to the rail on each side, used for steadying the gaff.
• Veer - The wind when it changes. Also, to slack a cable and let it run out.
• Venture - An enterprise in which there is a risk of loss.
• Vessel - Defined by Merchant Shipping Act as "any ship or boat, or other description of vessel, used in navigation".
• Vigia - Uncharted navigational danger that has been reported but has not been verified by survey.
• Viol - A larger messenger sometimes used in weighing an anchor by a capstan. Also, the block through which the messenger passes.
• Vise - Endorsement on a document as evidence that it has been sighted, examined, and found correct by a proper authority.

W

• Waist - That part of the upper deck between the quarter-deck and forecastle.
• Wake - The water immediately astern of a moving vessel. It is disturbed by vessel's motion through it and by the subsequent filling up of the cavity made. "Warming the Bell": Striking "eight bells' a little before time at the end of a watch.
• Wales - Strong planks in a vessel's sides, running her entire length fore-and-aft.
• Wall - A knot put on the end of a rope.
• Wall-sided - A vessel is wall-sided when her sides run up perpendicularly from the bends. The opposite to tumbling home or flaring out.
• Ward-Room - The room in a vessel of war in which the commissinoned officers live.
• Ware or Wear - To turn a vessel around, so that, from having the wind on one side, the wind will be on the other side, carrying her stern around by the wind. In tacking, the same result is produced by carrying a vessel's head around by the wind.
• Warm front - The leading edge of a relatively warmer surface air mass which separates two distinctly different air masses. The gradients of temperature and moisture are maximized in the frontal zone. Ahead of a typical warm front in the northern hemisphere, winds are from the southeast and behind the front winds will shift to the southwest.
• Warp
  1. The longitudinal threads in canvas and other textiles.
  2. Hawser used when warping. Originally, was a rope smaller than a cable.
  3. The line by which a boat rides to a sea anchor.
  4. Mooring ropes.
• Wash
  1. Broken water at bow of a vessel making way.
  2. Disturbed water made by a propeller or paddle wheel.
  3. Blade of an oar.
• Wash-Board - Light pieces of board placed above the gunwale of a boat.
• Washing Down - Said of a vessel when she is shipping water on deck and it is running off through scuppers and freeing ports.
• Watch - A division of time on board ship. There are seven watches in a day reckoning from 12 M. round through the 24 hours, five of them being of four hours each, and the two others, called dog watches, of two hours each, viz., from 4 to 6, and from 6 to 8 P.M. Also, a certain portion of shp's company, appointed to stand a given length of time. In the merchant service all hands are divided into two watches, port and starboard, with a mate to command each. A buoy is said to watch when it floats on the surface.
• Watch-And-Watch - The arrangement by which the watches are alternated every other four hours. In distinction from keeping all hands during one or more watches.
• Watch Bell - Bell used for striking the half hours of each watch.
• Watch Ho! Watch! - The cry of the man that heaves the deep-sea-lead.
• Watch-Tackle - A small luff purchase with a short fall, the double block having a tail to it and the single one a hook. Used about deck.
• Water Breaker - Small cask used for carrying drinking water in a boat.
• Water Sail - A save-all, set under the swinging-boom.
• Water-Ways - Long pieces of timber, running for-and-aft on both sides, connecting the deck with the vessel's sides. The scuppers run through them to let the water off.
• Waveson - Goods floating on surface of sea after a wreck.
• Way - Vessel's inertia of motion through the water.
• "Way Enough" - Order given to a boat's crew when going alongside under oars. Denotes that boat has sufficient way, and that oars are to be placed inside the boat.
• Wear - To bring a vessel on the other tack by swinging her around before the wind.
• Weather - In the direction from which the wind blows.
• Weather-Bitt - To take an additional turn with a cable round the windlass-end.
• Weather Board - Windward side of a vessel.
• Weather Roll - The roll which a ship makes to windward.
• Weigh - To lift up, as, to weigh an anchor or a mast.
• Well Found - Said of a vessel that is adequately fitted, stored, and furnished.
• Wetted Surface - The whole of the external surface of a vessel's outer plating that is in contact with the water in which she is floating.
• Wharfinger - One who owns or manages a wharf.
• Wheel - The instrument attached to the rudder by which a vessel is steered.
• Where Away? - Esquire addressed to a look-out man, demanding precise direction of an object he has sighted and reported.
• Whip - A purchase formed by a rope rove through a single block. To whip, is to hoist by a whip. Also to secure the end of a rope from fragging by seizing the twine. Whip-upon-whip. One whip applied to the fall of another.
• Whiskers - The cross-trees to a bowsprit.
• Whistling for Wind - Based on a very old tradition that whistling at sea will cause a wind to rise.
• Whistling Psalms to the Taffrail - Nautical phrase that means giving good advice that will not be taken.
• White Horses - Fast-running waves with white foam crests.
• Wholesome - Said of craft that behaves well in bad weather.
• Winch - A purchase formed by a horizontal spindle or shaft with a wheel or crank at the end.
• Wind Dog - An incomplete rainbow, or part of a rainbow. It is supposed to indicate approach of a storm.
• Winding - Turning a vessel end for end between buoys, or along-side a wharf or pier.
• Windlass - The machine used to weigh the anchor.
• Wind-Rode - The situation of a vessel at anchor when she swings and rides by the force of the wind, instead of by the tide or current.
• Windward - The direction from hich the wind blows, as distinguished from leeward. The weather side of ship is the windward side.
• Wing - That part of the hold or betweendecks which is next the side.
• Wingers - Casks stowed in the wings of a vessel.
• Wing-And-Wing - The situation of a fore-and-aft vessel when she is going dead before the wind with her foresail on one side and her mainsail on the other.
• Withe or Wythe - An iron band fitted on the end of a boom or mast, with a ring or eye to it, through which another boomor mast or rigging is made fast.
• Without Prejudice - Words used when a statement, comment, or action is not to be taken as implying agreement or disagreement, or affecting in any way a matter in dispute, or under consideration.
• Woold - To wind a piece of rope around a spar.
• Work - A vessel works when otherwise rigid members of the construction loosen up. She works to windward when gaining ground against the wing by successive tacks.
• Work Up - To draw the yarns from old rigging and make them into spunyarn, foxes, sennit, etc. Also, a phrase for keeping a crew constantly at work upon the needless matters, and in all weathers, and beyond their usual hours, for punnishment.
• Worm - To fill up between the lays of a rope with small stuff would around spirally. Stuff so wound round is called worming.
• Wrack
  1. To destroy by wave action.
  2. Seaweed thrown ashore by sea.
• Wring - To bend or strain a mast by setting the rigging up too taut.
• Wring-Bolts - Bolts that secure the planks to the timbers.
• Wring-Staves - Strong pieces of plank used with the wring-bolts.
  

XYZ

• Yacht - A vessel of pleasure or state.
• Yard-Arm
  1. That part of yard that lies between the lift and the outboard end of the yard.
  2. The extremities of a yard.
• Yard - A long piece of timper, tapering slightly toward the ends, and hung by the centre to a mast, to spread the square sails upon.
• Yaw - To lurch, or swing, to either side of an intended course.
• Yawl - A vessel with two masts, the small one aft, stepped abaft the rudder post.
• Yellow Fla - g See letter Q.
• Yoke - A piece of wood placed across the head of a boat's rudder with a rope attached to each end, by which the boat is steered.