| TERMS | MEANING: |
|---|---|
| RABBET | From the word rebate, an incision in a piece of timber to receive the ends or sides of planks which are to be secured to it. Thus the keel of a wooden ship is rabbeted to receive the sides of the garboard strakes and the stem and sternpost similarly rabbeted to take the ends of the side strakes. The word is also used as a verb: a strake is rabbeted into a keel or stem and stern post. |
| RACE | (1) The name generally used to describe strong and confused currents produced by the narrowness of channels, an uneven bottom producing over falls, or the crossing of two tides.(2) The contest of skill and seamanship when yachts take part in a race. |
| RACE | The action of a ship’s propeller when the ship pitches to an extent that the propeller is occasionally lifted out of the water. The lack of resistance from the water will cause the engine, and thus the propeller, to race, with a consequent strain on the engine. |
| RACK | The operation of holding two ropes together temporarily with marline or other small stuff to bind them firmly and prevent rendering or slipping. This is done by taking the marline under and over each rope alternately and crossing it between them two or three times, much in the fashion of a series of figures of eight. It is often used to prevent a tackle slipping while the hauling part is being secured if the strain on it is so great that the tackle cannot be held with the hands without overrunning. If a more permanent junction of two ropes is required, this is done by passing a racking seizing round them, as above but with more turns of the marline and the ends of it secured by tucking back under the turns. |
| RADAR | An abbreviation of ‘RAdio Direction And Range’, a method of detecting objects by sending out pulses of radio waves; if these strike anything they are -reflected back and the time taken for these ‘echoes’ to return is measured in a cathode ray tube. As the speed of radio waves is known, this time can be automatically translated into the distance of the object. Direction is given by the direction in which the transmitting aerial points at the time. The information is presented to navigators in plan form on the face of the cathode ray tube. As the transmitting aerial revolves to “scan” all round a ship, so a ‘trace’ revolves in exact synchronism with it on the fluorescent face of the tube, and each echo arriving back from an object brightens the trace at a distance from the centre of the tube corresponding to the distance of the object. Thus a complete picture of all surrounding radio-reflective objects is painted on the screen. The range is conditioned by the height of the aerial, but is seldom less than 25 miles on modern vessels. |
| RADDLE | The name given to describe small stuff (marline. codline, etc.) interwoven to make flat gaskets, or gripes, for securing boats when hoisted on the davits of a vessel. |
| RADIO BEACON | A land-based radio station which transmits medium frequency signals, by means of which the navigator in a ship fitted with a radio direction finder can obtain a radio bearing to give him a position line on his chart. The necessary details relating to radio beacons can be found in the List of Radio Signals, a periodical publication issued by the British Admiralty and in some nautical almanacs. Radio beacons provide a radio aid to a navigator which is particularly valuable to a mariner making a landfall, when navigating coastwise in thick weather, or when landmarks or sea-marks are not available. They are additional to, and in no way part of hyperbolic systems of navigation. |
| RADIO DIRECTION FINDER | A navigational instrument by which a bearing of a radio beacon can be obtained and plotted on a chart. A wireless aerial in the form of a loop is directional, and if it is turned on its axis, there are two points, 180° apart, where the strength of the signal loses volume and fades away. These points are known navigationally as nulls, and they occur when the loop is trained at right angles to the transmitting station. The correct bearing is therefore at right angles to the plane of the loop when the null occurs. |
| RAFFEE | Another name for the sail in a square-rigged ship known as a moonraker, set only in light weather. It comes within the general classification of all such sails as kites. |
| RAFT | (1) A flat, floating framework of spars, planks, or other timber formerly used to carry goods or cargo from the shore to a ship lying off for loading on board. Similarly a temporary platform made on board as a substitute for a boat in cases where a ship was wrecked or otherwise totally disabled, being used for life-saving purposes.(2) Lumber, cut inland and floated down a river to the sea or an estuary, lashed together, is also known as a raft.(3) raft-port, a square port cut through the stern of mast and timber ships under the counter so that timber and plank could be received on board as cargo, the length of the timber making it impossible for it to be received on board in any other way. |
| RAKE | The angle, in relation to the perpendicular, of a ship’s masts and funnels, which can be raked forward or aft. It is a word also sometimes used to describe the degree of overhang of her bow and stern. |
| RAKE | The operation of manoeuvring a warship so that she could fire her broadside guns down the length of an adversary, particularly during the days of sailing navies when a ship’s guns were ranged to fire on the broadside only. Wooden ships of the line were built immensely strong on their sides, with oak or teak planking to a thickness of 15 to 18 inches, and their weakest point was at the stern with its wide galleries and windows. If a warship could so manoeuvre as to cross the stern of an enemy at right angles, she could fire her guns through the stern, creating immense damage and slaughter, with virtually no enemy guns to fire back at her. Almost equally advantageous was to cross her bows at right angles, as this part of the ship of the line was also a weak point defensively. |
| RANDAN | A method of balancing three rowers in a boat so that equal thrust is generated on either side. Stroke and bow row one oar each while the man in the centre rows a pair of oars. |
| RANGE | The operation of heaving the anchor cable of ships up from the chain lockers and laying (faking) it out on deck for examination to discover the presence of weak links, if any. It is also done when it is necessary to chip the cable and treat it for rust, operations normally carried out when a ship is in dry-dock and no emergency can arise requiring the sudden use of anchor and cable. In some small vessels which had an awkward run of cable between chain locker and hawsehole, it used occasionally to be necessary to range sufficient cable on deck before anchoring to ensure that the anchor reached the bottom without being brought up by an obstruction, but this was a result of poor ship design and would be a most unlikely occurrence in the present state of the art. Some yachts, however, still range their cable before anchoring if they have no clear run from the cable locker over the foredeck. |
| RAP FULL | The point of sailing where a vessel keeps as close to the wind as she can without any shiver or lift in the luffs of her sails; in other words her sails full without a wrinkle in them. It is another way of saying full and by. |
| RATING | A term used to describe a seaman in a warship, but more accurately the status of seamen, corresponding to rank in the case of officers. Men hold rates according to their abilities, the normal chain of lower deck promotion in the British Navy being ordinary seaman, able seaman, leading seaman, petty officer, chief petty officer, with similar steps in most other navies. The word is the present participle of the verb to rate: seamen are rated to the rate they hold. |
| RAZEE or RASEE | A sailing ship of the line which had her upper works taken off so that she was reduced by one deck; thus a razeed two decker would become a heavy frigate. The word was used both as noun and verb and was taken from the French raser, to cut. |
| REACH | (1) The point of sailing of a vessel which can point her course with the wind reasonably free and her sails full throughout. A broad reach is the same but with the wind abeam or from slightly abaft the beam.
(2) A straight, or nearly straight, stretch of a navigable river or estuary. Thus a vessel coming up the River Thames to the Port of London will, after passing Tilbury, navigate through Long Reach, Erith Reach, Halfway Reach, Barking Reach, Gallion’s Reach. Woolwich Reach, Blackwall Reach, Greenwich Reach, and Limehouse Reach. |
| REACH | The act of sailing a vessel with the sails full and the wind free. A sailing vessel which overtakes another is sometimes said to reach ahead of her. It was also a word used to describe a sailing vessel when she was standing off and on, waiting perhaps to pick up a pilot or for some other purpose. |
| RECEIVER OF WRECK | A port official to whom all objects recovered from the sea or from sunken ships must be delivered for adjudication as to ownership. |
| RECIPROCATING ENGINE | A form of steam engine in which a piston moves back and forth inside a cylinder, transmitting its motion by connecting rod and crank to a driving shaft. Reciprocating engines used at sea to drive a propeller shaft were usually installed so that the pistons moved vertically up and down the cylinders, but in some cases were installed to give a horizontal movement. After the introduction of the turbine the commonest form of ships’ reciprocating engines, which had their cylinders in line above the crankshaft, were called by their crews the ‘up and downers’. |
| RECKONING | The record of courses steered and distances made good through the water since the time at which the ship’s position was fixed by shore or astronomical observations. This record used usually to be kept on a log-slate on which times of altering course and distances made as indicated by the log on each course were chalked up on the slate. At the end of each watch the record was transferred to the log book and the relieving office r-of-the-watch started his watch with a clean slate. By applying an allowance for current and leeway to a dead reckoning position the navigator arrives at an estimated position, this being his best estimation of his ship’s position at any given time until new observations provide a fix. |
| RED DUSTER | The colloquial name for the Red Ensign flown by all British merchant ships. The use of the name dates from the latter part of the 19th century when British merchant tonnage exceeded that of all other maritime nations put together and the Red Ensign was the one most frequently seen in all seas all round the world. |
| RED ENSIGN | The ensign originally used to denote the senior squadron of the English fleet. When the division of the fleet into red, white, and blue squadrons was abolished in 1864, the Red Ensign, informally known as the red duster, became the ensign of the British merchant fleet and is today flown by all British merchant vessels and also by many yachts belonging to yacht clubs which do not have a warrant to fly a Blue Ensign defaced. |
| REEF | (1) The amount of sail taken in by securing one set of reef-points. It is the means of shortening sail to the amount appropriate to an increase in the strength of wind. In square rigged ships, sails up to the topsails normally carried two rows of reef-points, enabling two reefs to be taken in; sails set above them usually had no reef-points as they would normally be furled or sent down in a wind strong enough to require the sails to be reefed. In fore-and-aft rigged ships, gaff or Bermuda sails usually have three sets of reef-points. Triangular sails normally have no reef-points, being reefed either with a patent reefing gear which enables them to be rolled up on the luff or, more usually, by substitution of a smaller sail. In square-rig, the first reef is at the head of the sail and is reefed up to the yard; in fore-and-aft rig the first reef is at the foot of the sail and is reefed down to the boom. Another method of reefing a mainsail set on a boom, almost entirely restricted to yachts, is to roll the sail down by rotating the boom until the sail has been shortened sufficiently for the weather conditions.
(2) A group or continuous line of rocks or coral, often, though not necessarily, near enough to the surface of the sea for waves occasionally to break over it but, generally speaking, at a depth shallow enough to present a danger to navigation. |
| REEF | The operation of shortening sail in a vessel by reducing the area exposed to the wind, an operation required when a vessel begins to labor because of the strength of the wind. To double reef, to tie down a second reef in a sail. |
| REEF KNOT | A square knot formed of two half hitches in which the ends always fall in line with the outer parts. It is used when it is required to join two pieces of rope particularly if they are of an equal thickness and, of course, when tying reef-points. It is one of the commonest and most useful knots used at sea. |
| REEF-BAND | A strip of extra canvas tabled on to a sail of a square-rigged sailing vessel along the line of the reef-points to support the strain on the points when the sail is reefed. |
| REEF-CRINGLES | Thimbles spliced into the bolt-rope on the leeches of a square-rig sail at the ends of the reef-bands. When the sail is to be reefed, the cringles are hauled up to the yard and lashed to it. In fore-and-aft rig sails, the reef-cringles, similarly set in the lines of the reef-points, become the new tack and clew of the sail when a reef is tied down. |
| REEF-POINTS | Short lengths of small rope set in the reef-bands of square-rig sails used to tie down a reef. In fore-and-aft rig, the reef-points are usually set direct on to the sail, reef-bands being unusual in these sails. In both cases, the reef-points are secured to the sail by a crows-foot. |
| REEF-TACKLE | A tackle which is hooked into the reef-cringles of a square-rig sail to hoist it up the yard for reefing. |
| REEMING IRON | An iron wedge used by ship wrights, to open up the seams of wooden planked vessels so that they can be caulked with oakum and pitch. They are driven into the seams with a beetle. |
| REEVE | The operation of passing the end of a rope through the throat and thus on to the sheave of a block when forming a tackle, or through an eye, thimble, or cringle. Generally, when the end of a rope is passed through anything, it is said to be rove through it. |
| REFORMADO or REFORMADE | A 16th and 17th century name for a naval officer serving on board a ship without having obtained a commission from the Admiralty or ministry of marine of his country. This was frequently necessary, as in those days disease or battle casualties frequently carried off an officer, a state of affairs on board which required the temporary upgrading of midshipmen or other ratings so that the work and discipline of the ship might be maintained. Though they might act as lieutenants, they had as yet no official commission to do so, and were thus known as reformadoes. |
| REFRACTION | The bending of light rays as they pass from one transparent medium to another of different optical density, an important consideration when using celestial bodies for fixing a ship’s position. Light from an observed celestial body or from the observer’s visible horizon suffers atmospheric refraction, that in the former case being called celestial refraction, and that from the horizon terrestrial refraction. The effect of atmospheric refraction is apparently to elevate celestial objects and the horizon, so that it is necessary to make allowance for this effect when converting observed altitudes to true altitudes. The altitude correction known as mean refraction is defined as the angular measure along an arc of a vertical circle between the true and apparent directions of a celestial body, when atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity are normal. Abnormal refraction gives rise to effects such as looming and mirage. Mean refraction varies from about 33 minutes of arc for objects on the horizon to nothing for objects at the zenith. |
| REGIME | A term used in hydrography to describe the channels and tidal characteristics of a port or estuary. By the building of moles, jetties, and other port installations, the tidal flow, and thus the regime, of a port can be altered; alternatively, these constructions can be sited so as to give the tidal flow an extra scouring effect to deepen normal approach channels, etc., and thus maintain and improve the regime of the port. |
| RELATIVE BEARINGS | The bearings of objects in relation to a ship’s head. They can be expressed in two ways, as bearings on the port or starboard bow, beam, quarter, etc. with the expressions “fine’ or “broad’ to add further definition, or, more accurately, in degrees from ahead on each side of the vessel, with the prefix ‘red’ if on the port side and ‘green’ if on the starboard. When relative bearings are given in this way, the word ‘degrees’ is always omitted. |
| RELIEVING TACKLES | (1) Two strong tackles (pron. tayckle) used in sailing men-of war to provide a safeguard against a ship overturning when she was being careened on a beach with little slope down to the water. Guyswere attached to the moving block of the tackle, led under the keel of the ship, and hooked into the sills of the lower gunports on the side of the ship being exposed for cleaning. As the ship was hauled over to expose her bottom, the relieving tackles were eased away, but could be secured immediately to hold her if she showed a tendency to fall right over on her side. They were also used to assist in righting the ship after her bottom had been cleaned and the boot-topping applied.
(2) Purchases rigged on either side of the tiller of a ship to ease the strain in heavy seas when the pressure on the rudder is too great for steering with the wheel alone. They were made unnecessary when steering engines were introduced, in which movement of the steering wheel activates the engine, the tiller being thus put over by the engine and not by the wheel. |
| RENDER | (1) The act of easing away gently, such as by taking one or two turns with a rope or hawser round a bollard or winch and easing it slowly to absorb a heavy pull upon it.
(2) The action of a rope as it passes over the sheave of a block. A seaman talks of a rope rendering through a block, and never passing through it. |
| RENDEZVOUS | (1) A naval recruiting centre in Britain of the 18th and early 19th centuries usually set up in times of war in some tavern near the waterfront of seaport towns with a strong lock-up room, known as a press room, in which to hold the recruits until they could be dispatched to a receiving ship in a home port. It was the centre of the local impressment service administered by a regulating captain whose duty it was to examine the men brought in by the press gangs and to pay the official bounty to those men who could be persuaded to volunteer. Those who did not volunteer nevertheless joined the navy as pressed men. It was colloquially known as a ‘rondy’.
(2) A position at sea where several ships are ordered to join company. |
| RESCUE SHIP | A merchant vessel supplied with special-stores, such as blankets, cots, clothing, medical supplies, etc. which accompanied convoys during the Second World War and were charged with the rescue of survivors of ships that had been torpedoed or sunk by other means. Her position was always in the rear of a convoy. |
| REVENUE CUTTER | A single-masted cutter with fine lines built expressly for the prevention of smuggling and the enforcement of customs regulations. Their greatest period of activity was during the late 18th and early 19th centuries when high import duties made the running of selected dutiable goods a highly profitable business and the lack of adequate coastguard stations presented smugglers with plenty of unguarded coastline to which to run their cargoes. This made it desirable to catch the smugglers at sea and led to the special design of these cutters to provide a margin of speed over the smugglers. They carried up to ten guns, usually ‘long 9’s’, nine-pounder guns with extra-long barrels to provide a greater range. |
| RHUMB LINE | From the old French rumb, a compass point, is a line on the earth’s surface which intersects all meridians at the same angle. Meridians and parallels of latitude are rhumb lines, the angle of intersection being respectively 0° and 90°. Rhumb lines which cut meridians at oblique angles are called loxodromic curves from the Greek ‘loxos’, meaning oblique, and dwmus, meaning running. The radial lines on a compass card are also called rhumbs, and the term ‘sailing on a rhumb’ was often used in the 16th to 19th centuries to indicate a particular compass heading. The extension of the radial line of the compass card through the fore-and-aft line of ship ahead clearly will cut all the meridians the ship crosses at a constant angle, this being equivalent to the course angle. It is easy to see. Therefore, that a line of constant course is a rhumb line. On a plane surface, this would be the shortest distance between two points, and over relatively short distances where the curvature of the earth is negligible, it can be considered so, and a rhumb is thus used for plotting a ship’s course. Over longer distances at sea, and especially ocean passages, great circle sailing provides a more direct course, but even so, the inconvenience of having to change course continually when following the path of a great circle between the points of departure and destination of a voyage makes rhumb-line sailing the popular method of navigation. In other words, navigators are content in general to sacrifice distance for convenience. |
| RIBBAND | In naval architecture the long flexible lengths of fir fixed temporarily to the outsides of the ribs of a wooden vessel and to the stem and sternpost to hold the timbers together in frame, until the deck beams and stringers are fitted. It is also a term used in connection with wooden boat construction, for which see ribband carvel. |
| RIBBAND CARVEL | Sometimes colloquially termed ribbon carvel, a form of construction of a lightweight wooden vessel, such as an upriver racing yacht, in which, in place of the more usual athwartship frames, timbers, or ribs, a number of stringers, splines, or ribbands are laid fore and aft from stem to stern at approximately even spacing, covering the inside seams of the fore-and-aft laid carvel planking. |
| RIBS | Another name for the frames or timbers of a ship as they rise from the keel to form the shape of the hull. |
| RIBS OF A PARREL | An old form of a parrel in square-rigged ships, in which the wooden ribs forming it were separated by bullseyes. |
| RICKERS | The name used to describe the short, light spars supplied for the masts of small ships’ boats, boat-hook staves, bearing-off spars, etc. |
| RIDGE ROPE | The name given to the jackstay on which an awning over the deck of a ship is spread. |
| RIDING LIGHT | A navigational light displayed by a ship at night when she is lying to her anchor. |
| RIGGING | The term which embraces all ropes, wires, or chains used in ships and smaller vessels to support the masts and yards and for hoisting, lowering, or trimming sails to the wind. All rigging used in the support of masts and yards, and a bowsprit when fitted, is known as standing rigging. |
| RINGTAIL | (1) An extension fitted to the leech of a fore-and-aft mainsail to provide a greater area of canvas to spread before a following wind. In earlier days it was rectangular and was attached to the leech of the spanker and extended by a ringtail boom attached to the main boom. Later it became triangular, with the peak secured to the end of the gaff and the foot forming an extension of the mainsail.
(2) A small triangular sail set on a short mast stepped on the stern of a vessel and extended by a small boom overhanging the stern, used only in light and favourable winds. Ringtails are today used in yachts making single-handed voyages to form a self-steering device. |
| RISING | A narrow strake secured to the inside of the frames of a small rowing boat to support the thwarts. Risings are often used for this purpose in place of knees in the smaller rowing boats. |
| ROACH | The curve in the side or foot of a sail. Square sails have a hollow roach in their foot to keep them clear of the mast stays when the yards on which they are set are braced up, and this is known as a foot roach. When sails are roached on their sides, as in the leech of a gaff mainsail, they are known as leech roaches. |
| ROBANDS | Orig. ROPE-BANDS, small, sometimes plaited, lines rove through the eyelet holes in a sail with a running eye by which the head of the sail is brought to be laced to a yard or jackstay after the earings have been secured. They have reference only to the sails of square rigged ships. |
| ROCKET | A pyrotechnic device used at sea mainly as a signal of distress, but with other meanings when used for naval purposes, such as the executive order to start a particular manoeuvre, etc. Rockets have also been used as recognition signals (see, e.g., titanic) between vessels of the same shipping line, but this practice has been discouraged as leading to confusion in the meaning of rocket signals at sea, which remain basically signals of distress calling for assistance. Proposals have been made for an international code of rocket signals based on the colour of the rocket fired, such as, for example, red for distress, white to indicate position, blue to call for a pilot, and so on, but as yet no international agreement has been negotiated on this subject. |
| RODING | The old name for the anchor warp or cable of a coasting schooner. The term is said to be derived from roadstead, the place where such craft normally anchored. |
| ROGUE KNOT | The seaman’s name for a reef knot tied ‘upside down’, the two short ends appearing on opposite sides of the knot after tying instead of on the same side. It is the knot which ashore would be called a ‘granny’ and is very apt to slip when it takes a strain. |
| ROGUE’S YARN | A coloured yarn of jute laid up in a strand of rope to identify the materials from which it is made. Commercially made manila rope is marked with a black rogue’s yarn, naval manila rope with red in each of two strands. Commercial sisal rope has a red rogue’s yarn, naval sisal has yellow in each of two strands. Commercial hemp has no rogue’s yarn, naval hemp has red in all three strands. Coir rope is marked with a yellow rogue’s yarn in one strand only. Originally, rogue’s yarns were used only in naval rope and indicated from their colour the ropeyard in which they were made. They were introduced to stop thieving by making the rope easily recognizable, as in the days of sailing navies naval rope was considered far superior to all other and there was a great temptation to smuggle it out of the dockyards and sell it to owners or captains of merchant vessels. |
| ROLLING HITCH | A hitch used on board ship for bending a rope to a spar. The end of the rope is passed round the spar and then passed a second time round so that it rides over the standing part; it is then carried across and up through the bight. A rolling hitch properly tied will never slip. |
| ROUND | A verb, used in conjunction with an adverb, with a variety of maritime meanings. To round down a tackle is to overhaul it; to round up a tackle is to haul in on it before taking the strain. To round in is to haul in quickly, as on a weather brace in a square-rigged sailing ship; to round to is to bring a sailing vessel up to the wind. |
| ROUND HOUSE | A name given to square or rectangular cabins built on the quarterdeck of large passenger ships and East Indiamen in the 18th and 19th centuries, the poop deck often forming the roof. These cabins were called round because one could walk round them; they corresponded closely to what was called the coach in a warship. In some merchant ships, a round house for accommodation was placed on the upper deck abaft the mainmast. In the late 1 8th and early 19th centuries round houses (Still Square) were built in ships of the British Navy as lavatories for men confined in the sickbay. |
| ROUND OF A ROPE | The length of a single strand when it makes one complete turn round the circumference of the rope. |
| ROUND SEIZING | A seizing used to lash two ropes together with a series of turns of small stuff with the end passing round the turns to finish it off. Two parts of the same rope can be secured by a round seizing to form an eye. |
| ROUND SHIP | The generic name for the medieval ship, at least up to the 15th century, with the exception of the galley and the long ship. The average proportion of length to beam was two, or two and a half, to one and they were normally single-masted with a single square sail hoisted on a yard. Within the generic term were sub-divisions, such as cog, dromon, etc. all of them basically of the typical round ship design. They were the standard ship for almost all sea purposes, being used as warships, as transports, and as cargo-carrying vessels. |
| ROUSE OUT | The maritime term for turning out the hands on board ship in the morning, or calling the watch for duty on deck. |
| ROUSE-IN | To haul in any slack cable, or slatch, which may lie on the bottom when a vessel lies to a single anchor. The reason for rousing-in such slack cable is that otherwise it might foul the anchor by becoming twisted round the shank or stock as the ship swings to wind or tide. |
| ROVER | Another name occasionally used to describe a pirate or freebooter. It comes from the Dutch word for pirate, zee-rover, literally sea-robber. |
| ROWLOCK | A shaped space cut in a boat’s gunwale to take the oars. When the boat is being used under sail, or secured alongside, the rowlocks are closed with shutters. The term is often used, though wrongly, to describe the metal crutches used for oars in smaller rowing boats. |
| ROYAL | The name of the sail set next above the topgallant-sail in a square-rigged ship, the fourth sail in ascending order from the deck, except where two topsails, upper and lower, are set, in which case it is the fifth sail in ascending order. The two clews are secured to the ends of the topgallant-yard. It is a light-weather sail, set only when the wind is steady and favourable, and was originally known as the topgallant-royal. |
| RUBBER | A tool used by sailmakers to flatten the seams of a sail after the canvas has been sewn. |
| RUBBING STRAKE | A piece of half-rounded timber or rubber running the length of a small vessel or dinghy from bow to stern on either side just below the gunwale to act as a permanent fender and protect the side of the vessel when coming or lying alongside another vessel or mole, etc. |
| RUDDER | The most efficient means of imparting direction to a ship or vessel under way. The rudder was the logical development of the older steering oar and began to replace it in ships in the mid- 13th century. Some of the seals of the Hanseatic League ports of this period show local cogs with stern rudders, the earliest known record of this development. |
| RUN | The shape of the after part of the underbody of a ship in relation to the resistance it engenders as she goes through the water. A clean run, an underbody shape at the after end of the hull of a ship which slips easily through the water without creating excessive turbulence. It could be said to be the complement of entry, which describes the shape of the forward end of a ship’s underbody. |