| TERMS | MEANING: |
|---|---|
| NAKED | The term used to describe the bottom of a sailing warship after the copper sheathing had been removed, either by the action of rough seas or in dock for examination or replacements. Copper sheathing was used to cover the bottoms of warships both to prevent damage by the teredo worm and to discourage the excessive growth of weed and barnacles. |
| NANCY DAWSON | The tune to which, by tradition, the daily issue of grog was distributed in the British Navy. It was a popular song among seamen during the 18th century and may perhaps have become associated with the daily grog issues, as one of the effects of the spirit upon many men was to encourage them to burst into song. This pleasant little naval tradition died during the 19th century. |
| NAUTICAL MILE | The unit of distance used at sea, and differing considerably from the standard mile of 1,760 yards used on shore. A nautical mile is the distance on the earth’s surface subtended by one minute of latitude at the earth’s centre. If the earth were a perfect sphere, one nautical mile would be equivalent to an arc length of one minute at all places and in all directions, but the earth is not exactly spherical, being an oblate spheroid flatter at the poles, with its axis of rotation having the least diameter. |
| NAUTOPHONE | An electrically operated sound signal of high pitch used in fog, fitted on buoys and unmanned lightships. |
| NAVAL ARCHITECT | A person qualified to design ships, within whose brief comes responsibility for the strength and stability of the vessel, her internal and external fittings, and her suitability for the purpose for which she is designed. For a fuller description of the art, |
| NAVAL HOODS or WHOODS | Large pieces of thick timber which were used in the days of sailing navies to encircle the hawseholes in order to take the wear caused by the heavy hemp cables when a ship rode to her anchors. |
| NAVE LINE or NAVEL LINE | A rope or small tackle in square-rigged ships leading from the main and foremast heads and secured to the parrels or trusses of the yards. Its purpose is to hold the parrels up while the yards are swayed up, and exactly level with the yards so that they can be fully braced. |
| NAVEL PIPE | The name of the pipe which leads from the forecastle deck, or in the case of earlier warships when the capstan was situated between decks, from the main deck, to the chain or cable lockers below and through which the cable passed. The origin of the term, it would appear, was anatomical, coming from the similarity of feeding the cable through a pipe into the chain locker with a mother feeding an unborn baby through the umbilical cord (not unlike a navel pipe) into its stomach. |
| NAVIGATION | From the Latin navis, a ship, and ago, to drive, the art of conducting a vessel from one place on the earth’s surface to another by sea safely, expeditiously, and efficiently. |
| NEPTUNE | A Roman god of unknown origin but thought to have been associated with Salacia, the goddess of salt water. He was later, in 399 B.C., identified with the Greek god of the sea Poseidon. It had been the god Fortunus to whom sacrifices were made in Rome in honour of naval victories, but the Emperor Augustus’s right-hand man, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, changed that by dedicating a temple in the Campus Martius to Neptune in honour of the naval victory of Actium. |
| NEPTUNE’S SHEEP | Another name for waves at sea breaking into foam, so frequently known as white horses. |
| NET | Lines rigged from the mast to the forestay of a racing yacht when running before the wind with a spinnaker set. Their purpose is to prevent the spinnaker wrapping itself round the forestay if “ft should collapse as a result of a lack of wind or an unexpected back draught. |
| NETTINGS | (1) Spaces around the upper deck, forecastle. Poop, and the break of the quarterdeck in sailing warships in which the hammocks in which the crew slept were stowed in the daytime. They served several purposes, one, that exposure to fresh air limited the number of lice they might contain; two, they served as a defence in battle against enemy musket-fire; three, they acted as liferafts in case of shipwreck: a properly lashed hammock would support a man in the water for six hours before it became waterlogged and sank.
(2) A net formed of small ropes seized together with yarns and spread across the waist of a ship in hot weather. Sails were laid on them to form an awning to provide protection from the sun. They were also used in some merchant ships as a defence against boarders, since merchant vessels usually lay lower in the water than warships and boarders would have to drop down on to the deck. It proved, however, more dangerous than defensive, as boarders soon learnt the trick of cutting the netting down and enveloping the men beneath it. Splinter netting, a stout rope netting rigged in battle in the days of sailing navies between the mainmast and mizen-mast at a height of about 1 2 feet above the quarterdeck. Its purpose was to prevent those engaged there being injured if masts or spars were shot away during the action. It also served to break the fall of men in the tops or on the yards if they fell as a result of the enemy’s gunfire. |
| NETTLE | Sometimes written as KNITTLE,(1) Small line often used for seizing rope to form an eye or to bind the tucks of an eye splice, or in other similar places where a seizing may be required.
(2) The small line used in the clews of hammocks, doubled round a ring and secured with a half hitch in the eyelet holes at the head and foot of a hammock. |
| NIP | (1) The name given by seamen to a short turn or twist in a rope or hawser.
(2) That part of a rope bound by a seizing around a thimble or round the tucks of an eye splice. Nip in the hawse, a twist in a ship’s cable when lying to an anchor, which can usually be cured by veering a few feet more cable to an order to ‘freshen the nip’. |
| NORMAN | (1) A short wooden bar which was thrust into one of the holes of a windlass or capstan and used to veer a rope or to secure the anchor cable if there was very little strain on it,
(2) A preventer pin through the head of the rudder to secure it against loss, (3) A metal pin placed in the bitt crosspiece to prevent the cable falling off was also called a norman. |
| NOTICES TO MARINERS | A periodical publication of the British Hydrographic Department of the Navy containing details of all alterations to British Admiralty charts required to keep them permanently up to date. They were first issued in 1834. Previously, beginning in 1832, these corrections were published in the Nautical Magazine, a somewhat haphazard means of promulgation which was unlikely to reach all users of British Admiralty charts. Such details as changes in the characteristics of navigational lights, positions of buoys, new work on ports and harbours, positions of wrecks, etc., are invariably included in Notices to Mariners. A feature of the modern issues of this publication is the reproduction of areas of the chart affected, showing the needed correction, on gummed paper which can be stuck directly on to the chart, saving much labour in making corrections. Similar publications are issued by other national authorities who produce navigational charts. |
| NUMBER | The somewhat odd designation of a group of four letters assigned to every merchant ship for identification purposes. A ship makes her ‘number’ by hoisting the alphabetical flags in the International Code of Signals which represent the four letters which have been assigned to her. The allocation of these distinguishing letters is done on an international scale, every maritime nation being given groups of letters from which they assign individual distinguishing letters for every ship registered in their country. |
| NUT | The ball on the end of the stock of an Admiralty pattern anchor. Its purpose is to prevent the stock from penetrating the ground, thus forcing it to lie flat on the bottom so that the flukes, at right angles to the stock, are driven into the ground to provide good holding. |