| TERMS | MEANING: |
|---|---|
| WAFT, WHEFT, or WEFT | A flag or ensign with its centre or its fly stopped to the ensign staff. It used to be a signal indicating that a man had fallen overboard: when hung on the mainstay it was a signal of distress; and when hoisted at various mastheads had other meanings, such as recalling all boats, etc. When used today it is a request to the customs to come on board and release tobacco sealed under bond for issue to the crew. |
| WAISTER | The term in sailing ship days for a seaman employed in the waist of a ship for working ship, in which station there was no work on a mast or yard and little to do beyond hauling on ropes or swabbing the deck. Hence, the name came to be used to describe an untrained or incompetent seaman or one who was worn out after many years of employment. |
| WALE | An extra thickness of wood bolted to the sides of a ship in positions where protection is needed. A wale running the full length of both sides of a ship just below the gunwale is more often known as a rubbing strake and it protects the hull from being damaged when a ship lies alongside a quay where the rise and fall of the tide may cause her to rub against the piers. It is a similar protection if another vessel bumps her while coming alongside. Sailing men-of-war had a wale fixed between each row of gunports similarly to prevent the port-lids being damaged when going alongside an enemy to carry her by boarding. The wale below the lower gunports was the channel-wale, those between the upper rows of gunports were main-wales. Shorter wales, known as chain-wales, were bolted to the ship’s sides opposite the masts to carry the ends of the shrouds, the object here being to hold the shrouds clear of the gunwale to prevent them rubbing against the ship’s side. |
| WALT | An old term used of a ship when she was emptied of her ballast so that she was not stiff enough in the sea to carry a sail. Such a ship was said to be wait. |
| WARDROBE | The name generally used to denote all the various sails carried on board a racing or cruising yacht. It ranges from the heavy weather sails, such as storm jibs, storm staysails, etc., made of heavy duty canvas, to the light weather sails, such as genoa and yankee jibs, spinnakers, ghosters, etc., usually made of nylon, Terylene, or Dacron. |
| WARDROOM | The name which used to be given to the commissioned officers’ mess in a British warship. The only commissioned officers who did not mess in the wardroom were the captain of the ship, who messed alone in his own apartments, and sub-lieutenants who, though commissioned, messed with midshipmen in the gunroom. Today, in all warships, all officers, whether commissioned or not, mess in the wardroom, with the exception of the captain who still normally messes alone. |
| WARM FRONT | The line, in a typical depression, where the cold air coming in to fill the low pressure area pushes the warm air up in a bulge. The front edge of the bulge, where the warm air has not yet been displaced by the cold, is the warm front. |
| WARM THE BELL | A phrase used in the British Navy to mean doing something unjustifiably or unnecessarily early. On board warships in the days of sail, time was measured by a half-hour sand- glass. Each time the sand ran through, the glass was turned, usually by the midshipman of the watch, and the appropriate number of bells struck. It was supposed, perhaps rightly, that if the glass was warmed the expansion of the neck would allow the sand to run through a little more quickly. Hence the idea that if midshipmen of night watches put the glass under their coats and grasped it tightly, eight bells, and the return to one’s hammock, would come gratifyingly earlier than it should. |
| WARP | (1) A light hawser used in the movement of a ship from one place to another by means of a kedge anchor, a capstan, or of men hauling on it. It is not a tow-rope, which involves the power of another ship.
(2) The ropes or wires attached to a trawl by which it is veered to the sea bottom and later hauled in by the trawler on completion of the fishing operations. (3) The ropes used for securing a ship alongside a quay, jetty, etc., or another ship. (4) A warp of herrings, a packet of four. It is a term mainly confined to the east coasts of Britain which border the North Sea herring fishery. |
| WATCH | (1) The division of the 24 hours of the seaman’s day into periods of duty of 4 hours. “Thus there should be six 4-hour watches in a day but as this would entail ships’ companies organized into two or three watches, keeping the same watches every day, the evening watch from 1600 to 2000 is divided into two 2-hour watches, known as the first and last dog watches. Starting at midnight, the names of the watches are Middle, Morning, Forenoon, Afternoon, First Dog, Last Dog, and First.
(2) The basis of the internal organization of a ship’s company whereby men can obtain regular periods of rest although the work of the ship must go on day and night. The crew is divided either into two watches (port and starboard), with each watch alternating their periods of duty, or into three watches (usually red, white, and blue), so that every man gets two periods of rest to every one period of duty. The periods of duty correspond to the watches into which the seaman’s day is divided. |
| WATCH | A navigational buoy is said to be watching when it is floating in the correct position as marked on a chart, and its light or other signal, if it has one, is in efficient working order. Other buoys are watching when they are carrying out the purpose for which they are intended, e.g., an anchor buoy. |
| WATCH BUOY | A buoy moored in the vicinity of a lightship from which she can check her position to make sure that she has not shifted by dragging. Since the positions of all lightships are marked on charts and are widely used by navigators for fixing the position of their ships by visual bearings, it is of vital importance that the lightship should be exactly in the position indicated on the chart. |
| WATCH-BILL | A nominal list of officers and men on board a ship giving the watches and stations to which each is quartered for all purposes on board. Thus any officer or man, on consulting the list, will know which watch he is in, to which part of the ship he is allocated, his station for abandoning ship, for entering or leaving harbour, and for any other particular purpose on board. |
| WATER SAIL | A small sail spread in square rigged ships in calm weather and a following wind to increase the area of canvas spread to the wind. There were two places where such sails could be spread, below the lower studdingsail or below the boom of the driver. |
| WATERWAY | The outboard planks of a ship’s deck, often hollowed to provide a shallow channel to carry off water on deck through the suppers. Larger ships often have a channel-iron along the outboard sides of the deck to serve the same purpose. |
| WAY | The movement of a ship through the water by means of her own power, or the force of the wind on her sails. |
| WAYS | The parallel platforms of timber which incline gradually towards the water, one on each side of the keel of a ship being built, and down which the cradle in which she is held slides when she is launched. The fixed platforms are known as the ground ways, the sliding part as the sliding or launching ways, and the two together as a slipway. |
| WEAR | The operation of bringing a sailing vessel onto the other tack by bringing the wind around the stern, as opposed to tacking, when the wind is brought round the bow. It has been suggested that the word originated from veer, which has a similar meaning, but the term to wear a ship is the earlier of the two. In the past tense, a ship is wore, not worn. |
| WEAR | A term used afloat in connection with the flying of flags. In nautical parlance a ship flies her national flag or ensign but wears a personal flag, such as an admiral’s flag. In the past tense a flag is worn, not wore as in the preceding entry. |
| WEATHER | In addition to its normal meteorological meaning, weather is also used by seamen as an adjective applied to anything which lies to windward. Thus a ship is said to have the weather gage of another when she lies to windward; a ship under way has a weather side, which is that side which faces the wind; a vessel under sail has weather shrouds on her windward side; a coastline that lies to windward of a ship is a weather shore, weather helm: a ship under sail carries weather helm when the tiller has to be held to windward, or the wheel put down to leeward, to make her keep a steady course. A ship is said to be ‘weatherly’ when she can steer closer to the wind than the average, thus gaining an advantage in manoeuvring or in making a passage when the destination is to windward. |
| WEATHER SHIP | A vessel which occupies a station in the ocean and measures the various weather ingredients, such as barometric pressure, temperature, visibility, rainfall, force and direction of the upper wind, and the wind at sea level, etc., signaling them to a weather centre ashore which plots the information on a weather chart and uses it to predict the weather during the following 24-48 hours. Originally these vessels were small obsolescent warships, such as frigates, sloops, cutters, etc., but today most weather ships are specially built for the purpose. |
| WELL DECK | The two spaces on the main deck of the older type of merchant ship, one between the forecastle and the mid-ships housing which supports the bridge, the other between the latter and the poop deck. Most modern merchant vessels are now built with the bridge right aft and an uninterrupted flush deck from the bridge to the bows of the ship. |
| WEST COUNTRY WHIPPING | A method of whipping the end of a rope by centring the whipping twine around the part of the rope to be whipped and half knotting it with an overhand knot at every half turn so that each consecutive knot is on the opposite side of the rope. The whipping is finished off with a reef knot. |
| WHARF | (1) A projection built of wood or stone constructed along the banks of an anchorage or in a harbour to provide accommodation for ships to lie alongside for the loading or unloading of cargo, embarkation and disembarkation of passengers, etc. The word is virtually synonymous with quay though in general the latter is thought of as being built only in stone.
(2) A term used in hydrography to describe an underwater scar or rocky accretion, or even a sandbank, where the tides will throw up an over-fall or race. |
| WHEELHOUSE | The deckhouse of a vessel within which the steering-wheel is fitted. In most large ships it forms part of the bridge, in smaller vessels without a bridge, such as fishing trawlers and drifters, it is a separate compartment raised above deck level to provide all-round visibility to the helmsman. |
| WHELPS | The name given to the projections which stand out from the barrel of a capstan or winch to provide extra bite for a rope under strain than if the barrel were left smooth. They form an integral part of the barrel and project for a distance of about 1 or H inches. |
| WHERRY | (1) A decked sailing vessel of very shallow draught used for the transport of small quantities of freight on the Norfolk Broads in England. They have a considerable beam in relation to their length and are fitted with a single mast carrying a large loose-footed (i.e., without a boom) gaff mainsail and no headsails. The mast is normally stepped with its heel on deck and supported in a lutchet, similar to a tabernacle, so that it can be lowered to the deck when passing under bridges, etc.
(2) An open boat of the 17th and 18th centuries used for the carriage of passengers on the tidal reaches of the River Thames in England. They were propelled by oars, and varied in size from about 14 feet with a single rower, to about 25 feet with four rowers. |
| WHIP | The name given to a single rope rove through a single block and used for hoisting articles. Where greater power is required, another single block can be introduced to make a double whip, or another single whip can be applied to the fall of the first to form what is known as a whip-upon-whip. |
| WHIP | The operation of binding twine or yarn around the strands at the end of a rope or wire rope to prevent them from unlaying or fraying. The final result is known as a whipping, of which the common whipping, sailmaker’s whipping, and West Country whipping are in the most general use at sea. |
| WHISTLE | The older name for the boatswain’s pipe. It was originally the badge of the English Lord High Admiral which he wore, heavily jewelled and suspended on a long gold or silver chain round his neck, in battle (as a sign of recognition) and on ceremonial occasions. When Lord Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral of England, was engaged against the French in Brest roads in 1513, he wore a golden whistle on a chain of gold nobles. He led a boarding party to try to capture a French galley but unfortunately his own ship drifted away as soon as he had sprung aboard the enemy and cut him off from his supporters. When he saw he was facing death he took off his chain and whistle and flung them into the sea in order that the insignia of a Lord High Admiral should not fall into the hands of an enemy. |
| WINCH | A small horizontal capstan, driven by either steam or electricity, around the drum of which the hauling part of a purchase is passed to provide power for hoisting, etc. In many yachts, smaller winches, turned by hand with a ratchet and pawl arrangement, are provided for halyards, sheets, and runners, etc. |
| WIND | An old nautical term to describe the act of piping a call on a boatswain’s whistle. When the whistle was the badge of office of the British Lord High Admiral, the action of blowing a call was known as winding a call, and the word remained in use until the 18th century, although the equivalent expression, to pipe a call, was also widely used at this period and eventually took the place entirely of the older word. |
| WIND NAVIGATION | The means by which the early Mediterranean sailors found their way across the sea from port to port in the days before the introduction of the magnetic compass. Certainly by the time of Homer, around 900 B.C., the Greek mariners used four winds which blew from the four quarters as their primary means of navigation. These winds were named Boreas, the wind from the north. Euros, the wind from the east, Notos, the wind from the south, and Zephuros, the wind from the west. Later, with increasingly long voyages across the Mediterranean being undertaken, four more winds, roughly bisecting the angles between the original four, were added, with one of the first four being moved to a new direction. The eight winds were now Boreas (north), Kaikias (northeast), Apeliotes (east). Euros (south-east), Notos (south), Lips (south-west), Zephuros (west), and Skiros (north-west). |
| WINDJAMMER | A non-nautical name by which square-rigged sailing ships are frequently known. |
| WINDLASS | Originally a small capstan-like fitting, but on a horizontal shaft, in the fore part of a small vessel by which she rode to her anchor. It was also used sometimes for weighing an anchor if this could be done without recourse to the capstan. Like the old-time capstan, windlasses were fitted with bars to be worked by manpower, and had a pawl and ratchet gear to provide rotary motion to the spindle on which the windlass was mounted from an up and down motion of the bars. |
| WINDLASS BITTS | The projecting timbers which were fitted to support the ends of the shaft of the old-fashioned windlass. They were also sometimes known as carrick bitts or carrick heads. |
| WIND-RODE | A vessel is said to be wind-rode when she is riding head to wind in spite of the influence of a tidal current which may be running across the wind or even dead to windward. |
| WIND ROSE or WIND STAR | The compass of ancient seafarers before the introduction of the magnetic needle. Usually associated with the Phoenicians, the rose had eight points named for the prevailing winds which blew from the various countries round the Mediterranean. These were, in the Italian version of the wind-rose, Tramontana (north), Greco (north-east), Levante (east). Sirocco (south-east), Mezzodi (south), Garbino (south-west), Ponente (west), and Maestro (northwest). It is to be assumed that mariners of those early ships were able to recognize these winds either by their characteristics of temperature, moisture content, etc., or else by association with sun, moon, or stars, otherwise it would be hardly possible to use a wind-rose for purposes of navigation with any degree of certitude. |
| WINDSAIL | A canvas funnel, the upper end of which is guyed to face the wind, used to ventilate a ship by deflecting the wind below decks, the funnel being led below through a hatchway. |
| WINDWARD | The weather side, or that from which the wind blows. It is the opposite side to leeward. |
| WISHBONE | A divided spar whose two arms are pivoted together at the fore end and arched on either side in a roughly parabolic curve. The wishbone spar extends the clew of the sail which is hoisted between the two arms, and the curves in the arms allow the sail to take up its natural flow without girt or chafe. A wishbone can only be used in two-masted sailing vessels, such as a schooner or a ketch, as it is set on the forward mast and sheeted to the top of the after mast. It came briefly into fashion during the period 1920-40 but is very rarely seen today. |
| WORM | The operation of passing a small rope spirally between the lays of a hemp cable, and similarly to pass codline between the lays of a rope, as a preparation for parcelling and serving. Rope is wormed, parcelled, and served to protect it against the wet, which is liable to rot it. |
| WRECK | The hull of a ship which has become a total loss through stress of weather, stranding, collision, or any other cause, whether it lies on the bottom of the sea or on the shore. In maritime law, a vessel which is driven ashore is not a wreck if any man or domestic animal escapes death in her and is still alive on board when she strands. Where this occurs, her cargo is restored to the owners of it subject to the adequate recompense of those who may have salvaged it. |
| WRECK BUOY | A buoy, painted green with the letter W painted prominently on it in white, which is laid to mark the position of a wrecked ship and as a warning to navigators to keep clear. If the buoy is can shaped, it indicates that it is to be left to port when proceeding with the main flood stream, if conical to be left to starboard, and if spherical it may be left on either hand. If lit, it shows a green flashing light, one flash indicating that it may be left on either hand, two flashes on the port hand, or three flashes on the starboard hand. |
| WRECK VESSEL | A dumb vessel (i.e., without means of self-propulsion) painted green, with the word ‘WRECK’ in white letters painted on each side, which is moored head and stern to mark the position of a wreck which may be a danger to navigation. It carries by day two green balls below one yardarm if it is to be left on the port hand when proceeding with the main flood stream, three green balls if to be left on the starboard hand, and two green balls below each yardarm if it may be passed on either side. At night the balls are replaced by green lights. In a fog a bell is sounded every 30 seconds, two strokes if to be passed on the port hand, three if on the starboard hand, and four if it may be passed on either side. |