| TERMS | MEANING: |
|---|---|
| CQD | The original wireless distress call made by a ship requiring assistance. It was introduced in January 1904. and stood for CQ. the signal for all stations, and D for distress, but became widely known as “Come Quickly. Danger”. It still remained in operation for a number of years after SOS was agreed internationally as the recognized distress call in 1908. When the White Star liner Titanic sank in 1912 she sent out both CQD and SOS calls. |
| C.S.S. | Confederate States Ship, the prefix used for the warships of the States of the Confederacy (South) during the American Civil War between North and South (1861-5) to distinguish them from the warships of the Union or Federal States (North) which used the prefix U.S.S. |
| CABIN | A room or space in a ship partitioned off by bulkheads to provide a private apartment for officers, passengers, and crew members for sleeping and/or eating. The first cabin as such was probably the carosse. an open space under the poop deck in a galley where the admiral or captain had his bed. In later ships, the same space was enclosed by bulkheads to provide the “great cabin”, which was the admiral’s or captain’s living quarters, often divided into sleeping cabin and day cabin, where he kept his ‘table’, served by his private cook and servants. Forward of the great cabin, in larger ships, was another cabin known as the coach where in flagships the flagcaptain lived. As sailing ships, particularly warships, grew larger, with additional decks, there were two coaches, upper and lower, to provide additional cabins for officers. From about the early 17th century to mid- 19th century, most officers of ships below the rank of captain were allowed temporary cabins, closed in by canvas screens or removable wooden bulkheads, in which a cot for sleeping and a chest in which clothes were kept occupied most of the available space, quickly dismantled in cases of need, such as battle, fire, etc. The use of iron, and later steel, as the main building material for ships, combined with the 19th century expansion of travel and trade, brought about the construction in ships of permanent cabins for officers, and in passenger ships for some of the higher-paying passengers, although during this period a majority of passengers still travelled in the steerage, a space in which they lived communally throughout the voyage. The continuing growth of travel led inevitably to the provision of cabins for all passengers, except in ships engaged only in short passages of a few hours, such as ferries, and during recent years the practice has been continued to provide cabins for each member of a ship’s crew. |
| CABIN SOLE | A yachting term to describe the floorboards of the cabin accommodation, or cabin deck space. The planks rest on sole bearers which are carried athwartships beneath the floor. |
| CABLE | (1) Basically any very large hemp or wire rope, but normally associated with the anchor of a ship, and thus the means by which the ship is attached to the anchor as it lies on the bottom or is stowed in the hawsepipe or inboard. Originally, all such cables were of hemp, and in the Royal Navy of Bridport hemp only, and an early definition of a cable, c. 1740, was a hemp rope of 20 inches in circumference containing 1,943 yarns, although the term was rapidly revised downwards to include any rope of 10 inches or more in circumference. By 1780 the general rule for the size of an anchor cable was half an inch in circumference for every foot in beam of the ship: thus a ship with a beam of 60 feet had a cable 30 inches in circumference. Such a size of cable was that normally supplied to a first rate ship of war; it was tested to a breaking strain of 65 tons, and weighed 12{ tons per 100 fathoms. Chain cable first made an appearance in about 1800 (Nelson’s attack on the French invasion vessels anchored in Boulogne in 1801 was frustrated by the use of chain cables by the French ships); in its larger sizes the links are studded across the middle to prevent them kinking. The size of chain cable is measured by the circumference of the links. The length of a rope cable is 100 to 115 fathoms, a hawser-laid cable 130 fathoms. Chain cable is measured for length in shackles of 121 fathoms, eight shackles being considered as a cable length.
(2) A measure of distance at sea, 100 fathoms or 200 yards (183 m). |
| CABLE SHIP | A vessel fitted for the laying and repairing of submarine telegraph and telephone cables. One of the earliest and best-known cable ships was the Great Eastern, so used after she had failed as a passenger liner. A distinctive feature of modern cable ships is the large roller built out over the bows of the ship for paying out or underrunning cable. |
| CABLE STOPPERS | Usually known as slips, are used to hold the cable when a ship lies to an anchor, either as a preventer, or stand-by, when the cable is held by the brake of the cableholder, or to hold the cable temporarily so that the inboard part of it can be handled. There are four types of stopper normally used for cable work in large ships, all tested to half the proof load of the cable. |
| CABLE-HOLDERS | Two capstan-like fittings mounted on the forecastle deck of larger ships by which the two bower anchors are weighed or veered. They are set either side of the centreline of the ship in the line of the bower cables, and the chain links of the cables fit into cavities round the drum of the cable-holders so that they are held firmly. When a bower anchor is being weighed, its cable-holder is geared into the capstan engine so that the anchor is hove in mechanically; when the anchor is being let go or veered, the cable-holder is unclutched from the capstan engine and can run freely, its speed being controlled by a friction brake, which is also used to hold the cable when the ship lies to her anchor. In very large ships which carry a sheet anchor in addition to two bower anchors, a third cableholder is not fitted, the sheet anchor cable being brought to the capstan for weighing and veering. In smaller vessels a windlass takes the place of capstan and cable-holders, with gypsies, fitted to take the links of the bower cables, mounted inboard of each warping drum. |
| CABLE-LAID ROPE | A very thick and strong rope used only for the heaviest work on board ship and for the towing cables of tugs. It is made by laying-up (twisting) together three ordinary ropes, which have themselves been made by laying up three strands. Whereas in ordinary rope, known as hawser-laid rope, the three strands are laid up from left to right, in cable-laid rope the three hawsers must be laid up from right to left; otherwise the strands in the hawser would become untwisted and lose much of their strength and durability. If three hawser-laid ropes of 1 20 fathoms in length each are laid up in this way, they will make a cable-laid rope of 100 fathoms. Cable-laid rope is sometimes known as cablet, and also as water-laid rope, because it absorbs less water than hawser-laid rope. |
| CABOOSE | A name frequently used to describe the galley, or cook-house, of a small vessel, normally on deck and not between decks, and in shape much resembling a sentry-box. It was originally a wooden box or covering of the galley chimney where it came through the deck, hence probably its association with cooking. The name applied only in the case of smaller merchant ships, such as coasters, fishing vessels, and the like, all larger ships having space for a galley between decks. The term is now largely obsolescent, and began to die out with the introduction of mechanical means of propulsion and the descent, even in the smallest craft, of the cooking arrangements to a position below the upper deck, although in some small craft the word is retained, possibly for sentimental reasons. |
| CABOTAGE | The French name for the coasting trade. Many people believe that it is derived from cabo, Spanish for cape, as coasting ships generally sailed from cape to cape, but a more likely derivation is the French word cabot, a small vessel. |
| CAIQU | From the Turkish kaik. a boat or skiff. (1) In its strict meaning it refers to the light boatspropelled by one or two oars and used in Turkish waters, particularly the Bosporus, but it was also used as a term for the Sultan’s ceremonial barge when he went by water to a mosque or to his harem. The word has since been loosely applied to most small rowing boats and skiffs in the Levant.
(2) A small Levantine sailing vessel, usually with a lateen rig, but here again the name has been loosely expanded to include a variety of modern sailing and motorized vessels, used mainly for island trade, as far west as Greece and Corfu. |
| CAISSON | From the French caisson, large chest, pronounced by the cognoscenti cassoon but widely known as cayson, basically an enclosed space below water-level with means of flooding with or pumping out water. (1) A fixed enclosure reaching to the bottom from which the water can be pumped out, or alternatively filled with air under pressure, in order to give access to underwater areas for engineering works, such as the building of piers for bridges, breakwaters, etc.
(2) The gate or movable structure which closes the entrance to a dock or dry-dock. (3) A floating platform or tank which can be submerged by the admission of water, and when in position under a wreck or other obstruction, pumped out in order to use the resulting buoyancy as a lifting force, and in this connection also known as a camel. The use of caissons, or camels, for raising sunken ships is perhaps best exemplified by the raising of the German High Seas fleet which was scuttled in Scapa Flow in June 1919. It is common practice where conditions of depth, tide, position and condition of the wreck, etc., do not allow of other more direct methods of lifting. |
| CAISSON DISEASE | Alternative colloquial name for the bends, properly compression sickness. All three terms refer to the painful condition in which bubbles of nitrogen form in the body tissues when a diver makes a rapid return to normal atmospheric pressure after subjection to greater than normal pressure. Thus workers emerging from a caisson (1), where the air pressure must be kept high to exclude water, must take the same precautionary measures as deep-sea divers returning to the surface. |
| CALASHEE (or COOLASHI) WATCH | A watch on deck in a full-rigged ship in which all hands, including the watch below, must stand by for a call. They were most frequently required when a sailing ship was tacking in narrow waters or in a particularly heavy sea. The word came apparently from the Hindustani khalasi, sailor, as the system on board native ships was to work their watches in this fashion. |
| CALF |
(1) The name by which the young of marine mammalia, such as the whale, are known.
(2) In the Arctic and Antarctic regions, a mass of floe ice which when subjected to pressure breaks off from the main body and rises to the surface is known as a calf and the process is known as calving. (3) The term is also used to describe small islets which lie off larger islands, such as the Calf of Mull, or the Calf of Man. |
| CALIBRE | A term used for the measurement of guns. It is employed in two senses, but its strict meaning is the length of the gun expressed as a multiple of the bore or internal diameter measured at the muzzle; e.g., a 12-inch gun 30 feet long would be a 12-inch gun of 30 calibres. In its second sense the word expresses the bore of the gun, again measured at the muzzle, such as 6-inch calibre, 12-inch calibre, etc. |
| CALL SIGN | A particular group of letters or numbers in the Morse Code used for identification. Radio beacons, used by vessels fitted with radio direction finders for obtaining navigational bearings, have individual call signs, or characteristics, by which they can be immediately identified. |
| CAMBER |
(1) The athwartships curve of a ship’s deck, usually giving a fall towards the sides of a quarter of an inch to each foot.
(2) A small enclosed dock in a dockyard in which timber for masts and yards was kept to weather and pickle in salt water, and used also to provide a shelter for small boats. |
| CAMEL |
(1) Originally a wooden case made in two halves to fit on either side of a ship’s keel. They were filled with water and fitted to the keel by divers, being subsequently pumped out to provide extra buoyancy if a ship had to pass over a shoal. From this was evolved the tank which, sunk by being filled with water, could be placed under a wreck to provide lifting power when the water was pumped out.
(2) A strong wooden stage sometimes used as a fender when a ship lies alongside a wharf. |
| CAMOUFLAGE | A method of disguising the size, outline, course, and speed of a ship in wartime by painting her hull and upperworks in contrasting shapes and colours arranged in irregular patterns. |
| CAN BUOY | A buoy in the form of a truncated cone, normally painted in red or red and white chequers and numbered with an even number, used to indicate the port hand side of a channel when entering with the flood tide. The starboard hand side of the channel is marked with conical buoys. |
| CAN HOOKS | A pair of flat hooks joined by a length of chain or rope and used for hoisting casks by fitting the hooks under the chines, the projecting ends of the staves. |
| CANOE | A small open boat originally by definition used by primitive nations. This description was generally extended to embrace similar craft, in which paddles were the motive force, all over the world as it was opened up by the great geographical discoveries of the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of these craft designated as canoes, particularly among the Pacific islands, were remarkably large vessels in which two banks of paddlers, up to twenty or thirty a side, were used. Today, the term embraces any very light craft propelled by a paddle, and in recent years the number of canoes in use has increased immensely since canoeing has been developed as an inland water sport, the modern canoe being made either of very light wooden construction or of canvas stretched across a light wooden frame. |
| CANT |
(1) A cut made in a whale between the neck and the fins to which the purchase, known as a cant purchase, is secured in order to turn the animal round during the operation of flensing.
(2) The name given to those timbers in a ship towards the bow and the stern which are sharply angled (or canted) from the keel. |
| CANVAS | A cloth properly woven from hemp. (The word ‘canvas’ derives from /cannabis, the Greek for hemp.) It is used at sea mainly for sails. awnings, etc. It is numbered according to the thickness and weave, the lowest number being the coarsest and strongest, the highest number being the lightest. It is also a synonym for sails, a ship under sail being said to be under canvas. |
| CAP | The wooden block on the top of a mast through which the mast above is drawn when being stepped or lowered when being struck. It has two holes, one of them square which is fixed firmly to the top of the lower mast, the other circular through which the topmast is hoisted, until its heel is nearly level with the base of the cap. in which position it is then secured with a fid and sometimes also with a parrel lashing, being held upright by shrouds and stays. In ships where topgallant masts were stepped, there were similar caps on the tops of the topmasts. A bowsprit cap serves a similar service for the jib-boom. |
| CAPSIZE | To upset or overturn in connection with a vessel at sea or in harbour. In general the term is normally related to natural causes, such as high winds or heavy seas, but refers also to human error in such cases as faulty stowage of cargo which may cause a ship to become unstable and thus overturn. One of the more notable cases of a ship capsizing through human error was that of H.M.S. Royal George, which was being deliberately heeled over in Portsmouth harbour in 1 782 for repairs to be made to an underwater fitting. The angle of heel became so great that the sea entered through her open gunports and she turned over and sank with a great loss of life. |
| CAPSTAN | A cylindrical barrel fitted in larger ships on the forecastle deck and used for heavy lifting work, particularly when working anchors and cables. It is normally placed on the centreline of the ship and is driven mechanically either by steam or electricity. The barrel is lined vertically with whelps in order to provide a grip for hawsers or cables when they are being hove in, and above the barrel there used to a drumhead with square pigeon holes in which wooden capstan bars, made of ash or hickory, were inserted when it was required to work the capstan by hand. A modern capstan does not normally have a drumhead as present-day machinery is sufficiently reliable to make working a capstan by hand unnecessary. Below the barrel a series of pawls is attached which work over a pawl-ring to prevent the capstan running back under a particularly heavy strain. In ships which are fitted with a capstan, two cable-holders are normally geared into the capstan engine so that the bower anchors can be weighed direct without their cables having to be led to the capstan barrel. Before the days of mechanically driven auxiliary machinery, the capstan was always found on the main deck of the ship and used for heavy lifting work, both for weighing an anchor and swaying up a yard. It was always worked by manpower through the use of capstan bars, connected at the ends with a swifter to provide additional space for men to heave. In particularly heavy work a messenger was rigged in addition to the swifter so that yet more men could be used on the capstan. Smaller ships do not normally have capstans and separate cable-holders although in some smaller warships a combined capstan/cableholder is fitted on the forecastle deck. But in most smaller ships the function of the capstan is taken over by a windlass, the two bower cables being led round gypsies which are attached to the spindle of the windlass. The difference between a capstan and a windlass lies mainly in the fact that the spindle on which the barrel of a capstan is mounted is vertical, while that on which the drums and gypsies of a windlass are mounted is horizontal. |
| CARGO JACK | A large screw jack which was used in the stowage of cargo, especially in the case of cotton and hides which were always jacked into a hold, in order to compress them into the smallest possible space so as to be able to stow the maximum quantity. Charles Dana, in his Two Years Before the Mast, describes the process of jacking hides into a hold. |
| CARGO NET | A large square net made of rope in which to sling cased or packaged cargo into and out of a ship’s hold. While modern methods of loading and unloading ships, such as containerization and drive-on. drive-off facilities, are rapidly making obsolete these older methods of handling cargoes, there are still many smaller merchant ships for which they remain the only means of loading and unloading. |
| CARGO PALLET | A flat wooden tray with a bridle at each end used for hoisting small cargo in and out of the hold of a ship by means of cargo slings. Containerization. a quicker and more efficient means of stowing cargo in a ship, is replacing all these older methods. |
| CARLEY FLOAT | A life-raft capable of supporting a large number of persons—up to fifty in the biggest—both in and out of the water. It is in the form of a large oval ring of canvas painted to make it watertight and stuffed with kapok or granulated cork, with a light wooden grid inside the oval and hand lines on the outer circumference. It was supplied mainly to warships but has now been largely superseded by inflatable rubber life- rafts. |
| CARLINGS or CARLINES | Pieces of squared timber fitted fore and aft between the deck beams of a wooden ship. Their purpose is to provide support for the deck planking: in ships built of steel the usual practice is to lay a steel deck direct on the beams with planking, where necessary, laid on the steel. In yacht and small wooden vessel construction, carlings carry the half-beams in the way of hatches and other deck openings, supporting the coamings of the hatches or the coachroof above them. |
| CARPENTER | A senior rating in ships in charge of all the wood-work on board. In the days of sailing navies the carpenter was a warrant officer responsible for the condition of the hull, masts, spars, and boats of the ship. His duty in and after battle was to plug all shotholes with wooden plugs carried on board for the purpose, to fish all masts and yards damaged by shot, and continually to sound the well to ascertain whether the ship was making water. |
| CARPENTER’S STOPPER | A metal stopper designed for holding a wire rope temporarily when it is under strain. It consists of a thick metal box of which the top is hinged and both ends are left open. One side of the box is grooved to take the lay of the wire rope, the other, which is inclined to the lead of the wire, holds a wedgeshaped piece of metal similarly grooved. When using the stopper the wire is laid in the box against the grooved side and the top is closed. The wedge is then inserted and pushed home as far as it will go. As the pull comes on the wire the wedge is drawn down further into the box until it jams the wire. The box itself is fitted with a chain bridle which is shackled to an eyeplate or deckbolt so that it is anchored to the deck while holding the wire. |
| CARRICK BEND | A round knot used to join two rope hawsers when they are required to go round the barrel of a capstan, the need for such a special knot being that any other, such as a reef knot which is flat, could get jammed between the whelps of the capstan barrel. |
| CARTOGRAPHY | The science and practice of projecting an area of the earth’s surface on to a flat plane, as a sheet of paper. There are a number of methods of projection, all of them with some advantages and some drawbacks. |
| CASCO | The local name given to a flat-bottomed, square-ended boat of the Philippine Islands, used as a lighter for ferrying cargo from ship to shore and vice-versa. |
| CAST | The action of bringing the bows of a sailing ship on to the required tack, just as the anchor is leaving the ground on being weighed. by hauling on the sheet of a headsail so that the wind will force the bows off in the required direction. When there is insufficient wind to cast with a headsail but a tide is running, it is often possible to cast on to the required tack by putting the helm over and letting the force of the tide act on the rudder to turn the bows. |
| CAST OF THE LEAD | The act of heaving the lead and line to ascertain the depth of water. At each cast, the leadsman calls out the depth in fathoms of the water alongside the ship according to the marks or deeps of the line. |
| CAST OFF | The operation of letting go a cable or rope securing a ship to a buoy, wharf. mole, or alongside another ship, so that she may move away and proceed to sea or to another berth in harbour. |
| CASTAWAY | A shipwrecked sailor as compared with one who has been marooned, or deliberately put ashore as the ship sails. In many maritime countries ‘Castaway Clubs’ have been formed for sailors who have been shipwrecked to meet together for social purposes. |
| CAT-BOAT | A type of sailing boat which originated in the middle of the 19th century in the Cape Cod region of America, primarily for fishing in shallow waters but later adopted as a favourite type of sandbagger for racing, as well as for coastal cruising. The cat-boat was very shallow and of great beam (some measured only two beams to the length) with a large weighted centreboard of wood and a barndoor-like rudder. The mast, carrying a gaff and boom sail, was stepped right in the bows, close to the stem. One, the 16-ft Una, was shipped to Cowes in 1852 and gave her name in English waters to this mast-in-bow, one-sail rig. Later some of the racing cat-boats set a foresail in addition on a long bowsprit. |
| CATENARY | The curve of an anchor cable as it lies between the anchor on the sea bottom and the vessel which lies to it. The deeper the curve, the more the catenary. A good catenary is essential for two reasons, the first being that the eventual pull on the anchor is horizontal, which tends to bury the anchor flukes deeper into the ground: the second being that with the elasticity provided by a deep curve in the cable a vessel is prevented from snubbing to her anchor as she rides to a sea. It is for this reason that most anchor cables, except in the very smallest of craft, are made of chain, where the weight of the chain tends to form a natural catenary. |
| CATHARPINGS | Short ropes under the tops at the lower end of the futtock shrouds in square-rigged vessels, used to brace in the shrouds more tightly and thus give space to brace the yards at a sharper angle to the foreand-aft line when a ship sails close-hauled. |
| CLAW RING | A fitting on the main boom of a yacht to take the main sheet where roller reefing is fitted. A short preventer connected to the swivel band on the boom stops the claw ring from sliding too far forward when in use. |
| CLEARANCE | The document giving permission to sail by the custom house in a port to the master of a vessel going foreign. It is given after inspection of the ship’s registry, her crew list, and articles, receipts for port charges, the bill of health, and the manifest. The accuracy of all these papers has to be sworn by the master before clearance can be given. |
| CLEAR-VIEW SCREEN | A circular disc of plate glass, which is revolved at high speed by an electric motor, incorporated in the glass screen of the navigating bridge. The centrifugal motion throws off all rain, sleet, or snow and gives the navigating officer a clear view ahead. |
| CLEAT |
(1) A piece of wood or metal with two arms placed at convenient stations on board ship to which ropes or falls can be made fast by taking two or three turns under and over the arms.
(2) Small wedges of elm or oak fastened to the yards of square-rigged sailing ships to prevent ropes or the earings of the sails from slipping off the yard. |
| CLENCH | The operation of making a permanent join. Thus a clenched shackle, with which the end of a chain cable, for example, is secured to the bottom of the chain locker, has its bolt hammered over so that it cannot be removed, thus closing the shackle permanently. |
| CLEW or CLUE |
(1) In a fore-and-aft sail, the lower aftermost corner: in a square sail, the two lower corners. In cases where fore-and-aft sails are not normally laced to a boom, such as jibs. staysails, etc.. it is the comer of the sail to which the sheet, by which the sail is trimmed, is secured: in fore-and-aft sails which normally are laced to a boom, the clew is usually fitted with an out-haul so that the foot of the sail can be stretched tautly along the boom.
(2) The lanyards and nettles by which a naval hammock is slung from hooks in a deck beam. The hammock clews, one at each end of the hammock, consist of a rope lanyard with a ring spliced into the end from which originally twenty-two nettles were secured into the same number of eyelet holes in each end of the hammock. Later the number of nettles was reduced to eight, though they were doubled through the ring providing in effect sixteen nettles which were secured to sixteen eyelet holes in the two ends of the hammocks. |
| CLEW, or CLUE, CRINGLE | A spectacle iron (i.e., with two or more eyes) stitched into the clews of a square sail so that two or more ropes or tackles may be hooked into the eyes and led in different directions. They are used to give a greater movement to the yards of a squarerigged ship when they are being braced to the wind. |
| CLEW, or CLUE. GARNET | The clew line or tackle of a lower square sail in a full-rigged ship, by means of which the clews are hauled up to the yard and trussed when the sail needs to be furled or goose-winged. In such a situation the sail is said to be clewed (or clued) up. Clew garnets are used only on the courses of squarerigged ships, clew lines being used for all the smaller sails. |
| CLINCH |
(1) A method of fastening or knotting large ropes to heavy objects by a half hitch with the end stopped back on its own part by a seizing. Thus a hemp cable or hawser would be clinched to the ring of a kedge anchor when required for use with, in older days, the inboard end clinched to the mainmast as a stopper. Thus, to run a cable out to the clinch means that there is no more to veer. With the substitution of chain cable for older hemp cables, combined with the use of shackles for joining the cable to the anchor and a Senhouse slip or cable clench to secure the inboard end, clinch-knotting is no longer used in modern ships in anchor work.
(2) The simple method of fastening the hull planking of small craft to the frames or timbers by turning over, or clinching, the ends of the copper nails in place of riveting them. |
| CLINKER , or CLINCH , BUILT | A method of boat building in which the lower edge of each side plank overlaps the upper edge of the one below it. It is a method normally used only in small boat building as in larger vessels the added wetted surface produced by the overlapping planks would cause additional skin friction as the vessel progresses through the water. In the U.S.A.. this method of building is known as lapstrake. |
| CLIPHOOKS | Two hooks of similar shape facing in opposite directions and attached to the same thimble. They have a flat inner side so that they can lie together to form an eye and are much used in small tackles where an ordinary hook might jump out. |
| CLOTHING | The name by which the various pieces of rigging which hold a bowsprit in position are known. The comparable name in the case of masts is apparel. |
| CLOTHS | The strips of canvas or other cloth which are seamed together to form a sail. They are normally the width of the bolt from which they are cut in order that they may be seamed along the selvedges, which are considerably stronger than a cut edge. |
| CLOVE HITCH | A bend formed by two half hitches, the second reversed so that the standing part is between the hitches, used at sea for making a line fast to a spar or a smaller line fast to a larger rope. It is also used when securing the painter of a dinghy to a bollard. It will not slip because the second half hitch rides over the standing part of the rope. |
| CLUMP BLOCK | A large single block with a wide swallow, used for a variety of daily purposes on board ships. They are made with a thicker case than the usual run of blocks carried in a ship so as to provide added strength to the purchases in which they are used. |
| COAK | Originally a wooden dowel, but the meaning has been extended to describe the small brass bearing in the centre of the sheave of a block to keep it from splitting and to prevent wear by the pin on which it turns. Coaks, or dowels, used often to be fitted into the upper face of the wooden knees to engage in corresponding holes in the beams of ships to prevent them slipping. A spar is coaked when it has been broken and the two pieces joined together by making a hollow in one broken end and a projection in the other which fits it exactly. In a properly coaked spar the friction between the two butt ends prevents the two parts of the spar from drawing apart. |
| COAMING | The name given to the raised lip, usually about six to nine inches high, with which openings in the upper deck, such as hatchways leading to the deck below, are framed to prevent any water on deck from running down the opening into the space below. They also serve as a framework for the cargo hatches of merchant vessels, though in this case somewhat higher, to which the strongbacks and hatch covers can be fitted and battened down and to which the tarpaulin covers can be secured. In yachts, coamings are the vertical sides of the coach-roof or hatches above the deck. |
| COBLE |
(1) A flat-bottomed, carvel-built fishing boat used in coastal waters, particularly on the north-east coast of England, with a mast and lug-sail, and occasionally a jib on a temporary bowsprit, and fitted for rowing with three pairs of oars. A feature of the coble is the rudder which extends four feet or more below the keel. The forefoot is also made slightly deeper than the keel, partly to balance the rudder and partly to give a better grip to windward. The particular design allows the boat to be launched from a beach with her bows to seaward, the deep forefoot helping to keep the coble straight and steady. The rudder is shipped when sufficient depth of water is reached. On landing on a beach the bows are still kept to seaward, the coble being kept bows on to the waves as it is backed in with the oars or brought in with the waves. It was in a coble that Grace Darling and her father rowed out to the rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire when she went aground off the Outer Fame Island light in 1838 during a storm.
(2) A short, flat-bottomed boat propelled only by oars and used in salmon fishing and netting in the mouths of rivers and estuaries. |
| COCK | The maritime term for what is called a tap on shore. Many of the essential pipes used in a ship or boat have their outlet to the sea, and it is necessary to fit a cock at the outboard end to prevent seawater coming in and flooding through the pipe. |
| COCKBILL or A COCKBILL |
(1) The situa tion of the anchor, in the days when ships carried anchors with stocks, when it has been lifted clear of its anchor bed. its cable bent on, and hangs ‘up and down’ at the cathead ready for letting go. Similarly, when brought to the cathead after weighing in preparation for being secured on the anchor bed, it hangs a-cockbill.
(2) The yards of a square-rigged sailing ship are a-cockbill when they are trimmed by topping them up with one lift so that they lie at an angle to the deck. Yards a-cockbill used to be a sign of mourning for the death of a member of the crew. |
| COCKPIT |
(1) The well of a yacht or small sailing vessel where the steering wheel or tiller is located. It normally gives access to the saloon, but in some modern yachts a separate central cockpit is incorporated where the steering wheel and navigational instruments are situated.
(2) In the old sailing navies the space near the after hatchway and below the lower gundeck allotted originally to the senior midshipmen of the ship and later to the surgeon and his mates for their messes. In action it became the operating theatre to which men who had been wounded were carried for the treatment of their wounds. During the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 it was to the cockpit of H.M.S. Victory that Lord Nelson was carried after he had been wounded on deck, and where he died. |
| COD |
(1) One of the best known and, in fishery terms, most important fish of the sea, Gadus morrhua, generally prevalent in the North Atlantic and its adjacent seas and particularly around Iceland and the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
(2) The narrow pocket, also known as the cod-end. at the end of a trawl in which the fish caught up in the trawl are collected. When the trawl is hauled in the cod-end is hoisted up on deck and the end opened so that the fish fall on to the deck. (3) The centre of a deep bay, a meaning which has now very largely fallen into disuse. |
| COD-BANGER | A name in use during the mid-19th century to describe a vessel used in fishing for cod. It applied particularly to those vessels which used lines, as opposed to trawls, for catching the fish. |
| CODLINE | Small line laid up with eighteen threads. It was originally the line used in fishing for cod. but has also a variety of uses on board ship for purposes where small rope would be too large and clumsy. |
| COFFERDAM |
(1) A temporary structure in the form of an enclosed dam which can be erected on the seabed or the bed of a river and pumped dry to enable men to work within it below water level without having to wear diving suits. They are used largely in harbour works and for the construction of the piers of bridges.
(2) Heavy transverse bulkheads in large merchant vessels, particularly tankers, built as a safety measure between the holds or oil tanks. They consist of a double bulkhead with a narrow space between them, the space frequently being used for the carriage of oil fuel or water ballast. |
| COG |
(1) A merchant ship of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, clinker built with a rounded bow and stern, fore and after castles, and very broad in the beam. It was particularly a North European ship, used widely in the Baltic, North Sea, and on the Atlantic coast of France and Spain. Though normally used for trade purposes, it was also occasionally used as a ship of war. At the battle of Sluys (1340) Edward III led the English fleet in the cog Thomas against the French fleet off the Flemish coast. The round ship of medieval times was virtually a cog.
(2) A type of small sailing craft used for local commerce on the rivers Humber and Ouse in northeast England. |
| COIL | The normal method for the stowage of rope on board ship, laid up in circular turns known as fakes. The direction in which the coils are laid up depends on the lay of the rope; if it is laid-up right-handed the rope is coiled clockwise from left to right, if laid-up left-handed, it is coiled anti-clockwise from right to left. The reason for this is that the correct direction of coiling keeps the lay of the rope tight. Hemp rope is always coiled clockwise since it is always laid up right-handed. A range of fakes in the same plane is known as a tier, and a complete coil of rope consists of several tiers each consisting of several fakes. Wire rope is almost invariably coiled on a drum, though still consisting of fakes and tiers, as if not coiled on a drum it will not hold its shape as will rope made from fibres. |
| COIR | Rope made from the husks of the coconut, light enough to float but with only about onequarter the strength of manila rope. It has many uses, particularly when bringing assistance to a ship in distress at sea when coir rope can be floated down across her bows enabling her to haul in a heavier cable for towing purposes. In a small sailing vessel running before a following wind and sea, a coir rope towed astern steadies the vessel down and allows the seas to pass under her. |
| COLD FRONT | The line in a typical depression where the cold air coming in to fill the low pressure area meets with warm air and pushes it up in a wave-shaped bulge. This line is known as a cold front, and always follows a warm front, which is the line in front of the bulge where the warm air has not yet been overtaken by the cold. As a cold front always travels faster than a warm front, it eventually catches it up and pushes underneath the warm air to fill up the depression, a process known as occlusion. |
| COLLAR |
(1) A name given originally to the lower end of the principal stays of a mast in a square-rigged ship, but later to the rope, with a deadeye in its end, to which the stay was secured at its lower end. Thus, the collar of the forestay was the short length of rope attached to the stem of the ship to which the stay was set up and secured.
(2) The eye in the upper end of a stay or in the bight of the shrouds which is threaded over the masthead before being set up taut to hold the mast secure. (3) The neck of a ring bolt. |
| COLLISION BULKHEAD | An extra stout watertight transverse bulkhead built in the fore part of a ship to prevent the flow of water aft if the bow of the ship is damaged in a collision. |
| COLLISION MAT | A large square of very stout canvas roped and fitted with hogging lines at each corner to allow it to be drawn under the hull of a ship. The canvas is thrummed with small stuff or oakum to act as a sealing agent. When drawn over a damaged part of the hull, the pressure of the seawater forces it tight against the ship’s side and limits the inflow to little more than a trickle. The mat was invented in the mid- 1 9th century by Rear Admiral the Hon. A. A. L. P. Cochrane of the British Navy. |
| COME HOME | An anchor is said to come home, or be coming home, when its flukes are not holding in the ground and it drags. |
| COMMANDER |
(1) The naval rank next below that of captain; in a large warship he is the executive officer and second in command. In the various branches of naval service (engineering, supply, medicine, etc.) the head of each branch on board a large ship would usually be of commander’s rank. In smaller warships, such as frigates. submarines, etc., the commanding officer would normally be of commander’s or lieutenant-commander’s rank. Originally, in the British Navy, promotion to commander meant promotion to the command of a ship smaller than a “post” ship.i.e,.. not a rated ship. The officer thus promoted had the title of captain but not the actual full rank, only achieving this when he was posted to a rated ship. In some European navies this nomenclature is still retained for the equivalent rank of commander, e.g.. the French capitaine de fregate, the German fregattenkapitan. etc. For a table of equivalent ranks,
(2) The name given to a large wooden-headed mallet used for heavy work on board ship. |
| COMMON WHIPPING | A whipping widely used to prevent the strands at the end of a rope from unlaying or fraying. The end of the whipping twine is laid along the rope towards its end and a number of turns of the twine passed round the rope against its lay. each turn being hauled taut. At about half the length of the required whipping, the other end of the twine is laid along the rope in the opposite direction and the whipping continued with the bight of the twine, taking the bight over the end of the rope with each turn. When the bight becomes too small to pass over the end of the rope, the second end of the twine is hauled through the turns until the whole whipping is taut. The two ends are then cut off. |
| COMPANION | In the days of sail the framing and sash lights on the quarterdeck and of the coach through which daylight entered to the cabins below. More recently it is the covering over an upper deck hatchway which leads to the companion-way, or staircase, to the deck below. The word is also loosely used today in place of companion-way and is generally understood to mean the stairs themselves. |
| COMPANION LADDER | The ladders leading down from the quarterdeck to the upper deck, one on each side of the ship, in the sailing warships and merchant vessels which had a raised quarterdeck. |
| COMPARTMENTS |
(1) The spaces between the transverse bulkheads of a ship. Some of the seagoing junks met with in the China Sea during early voyages in the 16th and 17th centuries were found to be divided by watertight bulkheads, but the first wooden ships to be fitted with transverse bulkheads in the western hemisphere were the Erebus and Terror, which sailed in 1835 with Commander Edward Belcher for an Arctic exploration. H.M.S. Terror, holed aft by the ice, was saved by her after bulkhead, reaching home with her after section completely full of water. With the introduction of iron, and later steel, as the material used for shipbuilding, transverse bulkheads, and thus division into watertight compartments, became the normal practice in ship construction.
(2) An old name for those areas of sea contained between the headlands of a nation’s coastline and claimed as territorial waters although lying beyond the strict threemile limit. |
| COMPASS | The instrument by which a ship may be steered on a pre-selected course and by which bearings of visible objects may be taken to fix a ship’s position on a chart. There are two types of compass in use at sea, the magnetic compass, of which the north mark points to the magnetic north pole, and the gyroscopic, or gyro, compass, of which the north mark points to the true north pole. |
| COMPASS ERROR | The combination of variation and deviation, is the horizontal angle between the direction indicated by the north point of a magnetic compass card and the true north. It is named east or west according to whether the compass points to the right or to the left of the true direction. It must be applied to all true courses taken from a chart in order to ascertain the corresponding compass courses. Likewise it must be applied to compass bearings in order to find the corresponding true bearings for laying down on a navigational chart. |
| COMPASS TIMBER | The name given to shipbuilding timber which has been steamed and curved to take up the desired shape when building the hull of a wooden ship. |
| COMPOSITE BUILT | A ship which is planked with wood on an iron or steel frame. A great many of the clipper ships of the mid- 19th century were composite built, as also were many yachts up to about the beginning of the 20th century. |
| CONICAL BUOY | A buoy in the shape of a cone used to mark the starboard hand side of a channel when entering with the flood tide. They are generally painted black or some other solid colour and are usually marked with odd numbers. The port hand side of a channel is indicated with can buoys, marked with even numbers. |
| CONTAINER SHIP | A cargo vessel specially designed and built for the carriage of cargo prepacked in containers. With a standardized size of container, holding 18 tons of cargo, holds and deck spaces can be designed exactly to accommodate containers, leading to greater ease and efficiency in stowage and the eradication of much of the danger of the cargo shifting during heavy weather at sea. Nevertheless, the modern practice of carrying additional containers stowed on deck, sometimes as many as three deep, does introduce an element of danger by the reduction of the metacentric height of the vessel below the safety level, particularly during the course of a voyage when the consumption of fuel may, in itself, cause the metacentric height to diminish. |
| CONTINUOUS VOYAGE | The legal doctrine in which the cargo of a ship may be condemned in prize even though it is consigned to a neutral port provided that it can be shown that the ultimate onward destination of the cargo is a belligerent. It is a doctrine which applies only after a declaration of blockade by a belligerent in time of war. |
| CONTLINE | The modern name for the spiral grooves between the strands of a rope after it has been laid up. It is, perhaps, a less suggestive and more refined name for these grooves than the original term cunting. |
| CONTRABAND | Goods which have been prohibited from entering a belligerent state by the declaration of a blockade. Contraband is of two kinds, absolute contraband, which includes munitions, weapons, and other commodities which can be directly attributable to the prosecution of war, and conditional contraband, declared by the blockader, which is ancillary to the prosecution of war. Thus imports of food by a belligerent can be claimed by a blockader as conditional contraband since no army or navy can fight without it, irrespective of what effect the lack of such imports may have on a civilian population. |
| CONTROLLER | The Third Sea Lord who sits on the British Admiralty Board and is responsible for the design and building of naval ships. His full title is Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, but he is normally known only as the Controller. |
| CORD | Small laid-up rope of an inch or less in circumference, more often referred to in ships as ‘line’. It is about half-way between twine and rope, and is used on board for a variety of purposes where rope would be too large and clumsy. It is also widely described as codline. |
| CORIOLIS FORCE | The name given, in commemoration of the 19th century French mathematician Gustave Coriolis, to an inertial force generated in a rotating frame and acting on the basic Newtonian laws of motion of bodies. The Coriolis force has a significant effect in meteorology and oceanography, since the earth is a rotating frame of reference, and surface motions over the earth are therefore subject to accelerations from the force. It affects the prevailing winds and the rotation of storms and, in the sea itself, the rotation of whirlpools. In counterclockwise rotation, the Coriolis force acts to the right of the direction of body motion, in clockwise rotation, to the left. |
| COT | The wooden bed frame, enclosed in canvas and slung by its four corners from deck beams, in which officers of ships used to sleep before the introduction of permanent bunks in cabins. They were about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 foot deep, with a mattress laid in the bottom. |
| COUNTER | The arch forming the overhanging stern of a vessel above the waterline, its top, or crown, being formed by the aftermost deck beams and its lower ends terminating in the wing transoms and buttocks. The term is also loosely used to indicate the small area of deck abaft the sternpost or rudder-head. Most large ships today are built without a counter, the after end terminating in a transom or a rounded or cruiser stern, but tugs are always built with a pronounced counter, mainly to keep their towing hawsers, when they fall into the water, clear of the propellers. Most yachts, too. are built with counter sterns, particularly racing yachts where the counter is often pronounced, with a long overhang, counter stern, the overhang of the stern abaft the rudder used in the sense of describing a type of stern, sawn-off counter, as above, but with the aftermost part terminating abruptly in a vertical end instead of being carried on in the normal line of the hull form. |
| COUNTER BRACE | The operation of bracing the head yards one way and the afteryards the other when going about, or lying to the wind, in a square-rigged ship. The counter brace is the lee brace of the fore topsail yard at the time of going about. When the fore topsail begins to shake as the ship is brought up into the wind, the lee brace is hauled in hard to flatten the sail against the lee side of the topmast to force the ship’s head across the wind. Counter bracing was also the old term used in a square-rigged ship to make her lie-to in a wind by taking the way off her, in order to lower a boat, to speak to another vessel, or for any purpose which required the ship to be stopped. The modern term for bringing a ship to a stop is to heave-to. |
| COUNTER CURRENT | That part of the water which is diverted from the main stream of a current by an obstruction or by the formation of the land and which as a result flows in the opposite direction. It is also the term given to the reverse movement of water caused by many of the big ocean currents, such as the Humboldt, Gulf Stream, etc., which have their own counter currents just outside the limits of their main stream where the water flows in the opposite direction as a compensatory movement. |
| COURSE | The horizontal angle contained between the direction of north or south and that of the fore-and-aft line of a vessel extended ahead. The angles between true, magnetic, and compass norths and souths and the path of a vessel are known respectively as true course, magnetic course, and compass course. The angular difference between the true and magnetic course is known as variation, and that between magnetic and compass course as deviation. The combination of variation and deviation is the compass error. The course of a ship is usually today denoted in three-figure notation from 000° to 359°; 000° corresponding to due north; 090° to due east; 180° to due south; and 270° to due west. These are true courses, read from a gyroscopic compass which is not subject to variation or deviation, and is now the usual compass fitted in all ships of any size. In older days, when the magnetic compass was the normal compass used in ships, the points of the compass were invariably used in specifying a ship’s course. |
| COXSWAIN, orig. COCKSWAIN (pron. coxun) |
(1) The helmsman of a ship’s boat and the senior member of its crew who has permanent charge of it. Originally all boats carried on board a ship were known as cockboats, or ‘cocks’, which gives the origin of the term.
(2) The senior petty officer on board small naval craft such as destroyers, submarines, etc. As these craft were originally known in navies as boats rather than ships (torpedo boat, submarine boat, etc.), the term was applied to the senior petty officer on board in the same way as it would be to the senior rating of a ship’s boat. |
| CQR | A type of anchor introduced for small vessels and yachts shortly before the Second World War. The fluke is roughly in the form of two plough shares set back to back and is held to the shank by a pin about which it can pivot to some extent. The CQR anchor has no stock, but when it reaches the bottom, any pull on it automatically turns it over so that the point of the fluke digs into the ground. It has considerably greater holding power than a fisherman’s anchor of comparable weight and, having no stock, cannot be fouled by the anchor cable. The CQR is not suitable as an anchor for large vessels because of the difficulty of stowing it on board, but it has proved admirably efficient for small craft, such as yachts, and is deservedly popular. It was designed by Sir Geoffrey Taylor who originally proposed to name it the ‘Secure’ anchor, but decided that the letters CQR, which give approximately the same sound, would be better remembered. In the U.S.A. it is usually known as a plow anchor. |
| CRAB | A capstan but without a drumhead, and in which the bars are inserted right through the top of the barrel instead of into pigeon-holes in the upper perimeter (drumhead) as in a capstan proper; the holes for the bars in a crab being in different planes. It was used for any heavy lifting work on board in exactly the same way as a capstan but sometimes extemporized for use in positions where the fall of the purchase used for lifting a weight could not be led to an existing winch or capstan. With the wide extension of auxiliary power in ships, the need for these handworked appliances no longer exists in larger vessels except, perhaps, in very awkward positions where a powered pull cannot be obtained. |
| CRADLE |
(1) The timber frame which is constructed round the hull of a ship while she is on the launching ways in the course of being built. When launched, the cradle slides down the ways with the ship.
(2) In general, any device which supports another when at rest, such as cargo booms, ship’s boats, etc., which may have cradles for their permanent stowage on board. |
| CRANE LINES |
(1) Small ropes which were set up to keep the lee backstays from chafing against the yards of a square-rigged ship when running with a quartering wind.
(2) The lines which were rove from the spritsail topmast to the centre of the forestay to steady the former, acting somewhat in the manner of a backstay. With the spritsail topmast set up on the bowsprit, there was no way of staying it except by such temporary means. |
| CRANK | A sailing ship which either by her construction or the stowage of her ballast or cargo heels too far to the wind, or one which through lack of ballast or cargo cannot carry sail without the danger of overturning, is said to be crank. Ships which are built excessively deep in relation to their breadth are notoriously crank. ‘Crank by the ground’, a ship whose floor is so narrow that she cannot be put ashore for cleaning or repair without danger of overturning unless supported by legs. |
| CROSS LASHING | A method of lashing with a rope in which the consecutive turns, instead of lying close up against each other in the same direction, are crossed diagonally. This type of lashing, by binding in upon itself with each turn, is less liable to give or render. |
| CROSS SEA | A sea running in a contrary direction to the wind. During a gale in which the direction of the wind changes rapidly, such as during a cyclonic storm, the direction of the sea, whipped up by the wind, lasts for some hours after the wind has changed, throwing up a confused and irregular wave pattern which can be dangerous for ships caught in such a gale. |
| CROWD | To carry excessive sail particularly in square-rigged ships, or to approach too closely another ship which has the right of way. |
| CROW’S FOOT | The name given to the method of attaching reef points to a sail. The points are cut to the required length and each end whipped. A crow’s foot is then formed in the middle by twisting against the lay so that the individual strands are separated, pulling each one out and letting it twist up on itself. The crow’s foot is then sewn to the starboard side of the sail (if possible on a seam) after the reef point has been drawn through the sail. |
| CROW’S NEST | A small shelter on the foremast for the masthead lookout, originally made from a cask. It was used extensively in whalers to watch for the blow of a whale, and for navigation in ice-bound waters to distinguish the channels. |
| CUTCH | A preservative dressing used to prolong the life of canvas sails. It consists of broken up gum catechu boiled in fresh water in the proportion of 5 lb of gum to eight gallons of water. |
| CUTWATER | The forward curve of the stem of a ship. It was also sometimes known as the knee of the head or beakhead. |