| TERMS | MEANING: |
|---|---|
| SADDLE | A block of wood, or a wooden bracket, fixed to a mast or yard to support another spar attached to it. Thus, the bowsprit of a sailing vessel has a saddle attached to it to support the heel of the jib-boom, and a saddle on each lower yardarm supports the studdingsail boom in square-rigged ships. |
| SAG | (1) The tendency of the hull of a ship to settle amidships when her weight is supported at bow or stern. Thus the hull of a ship in a long sea with her bow and stern taken on the crests of two succeeding waves and the wave hollow amidships undergoes a strain where the weight of the ship has less support from the water amidships than it has at bow and stern. It is the opposite of hogging, which is the tendency of bow and stern to droop when a ship’s hull is supported by a wave amidships and both ends are over the hollows of the waves.
(2) A word also used by seamen to describe a leeward drift. A ship is said to sag away to leeward when she makes excessive leeway. |
| SALINITY | The amount of salt held in suspension in seawater. Salinity varies from ocean to ocean, the salinity of the Atlantic being considerably higher than that of the Indian or Pacific Oceans. Maximum salinity in the Atlantic exists in two belts, of which one runs east and west across the North Atlantic between the latitudes of 20° and 30° N., and the other runs east from the coast of South America between 10° and 20° S. In general, the North Atlantic has a higher salinity than the South Atlantic. In the Indian Ocean, the areas of highest salinity are in the Arabian Sea and along a belt between the west coast of Australia and the east coast of South Africa. The Pacific is the least salty of the three, its only area of high salinity existing in a belt which extends westward from the American coast at the Tropic of Cancer as far as 160° E. longitude, where it turns southward towards the equator. In the South Pacific, the salinity diminishes steadily towards the higher latitudes. |
| SALVAGE | (1) A proportion of the value of ship or cargo paid by the owner or his insurance company to those by whose means they have been saved when in danger. The proportion is based on the labor and danger of saving the ship or cargo and the state of the prevailing weather. No salvage can however be claimed by the crew of a ship for their efforts in saving their own ship or its cargo.
(2) Underwater recovery of a ship and/or her contents. In recent years the great technological revolution in engineering practice has made possible the repair underwater of ships damaged by explosion or other means. A ship’s hull torn open by, for example, the explosion of a mine or torpedo can be patched either by steel plates riveted over the hole or by the construction of a metal blister over the damaged area, either of which will provide a sufficient measure of water tightness for ultimate salvage. Deck openings, such as funnels and hatches, can be effectively sealed by divers working on the submerged hull, and a ship thus patched and sealed can have the water in her pumped out until she obtains sufficient positive buoyancy to bring her automatically to the surface. |
| SAMPAN | The typical small and light boats of oriental waters and rivers. There are two types, the harbour sampan which usually has an awning over the centre and after part and is normally propelled by a single scull over the stern, and the coastal sampan fitted with a single mast and junk-type sail. The origin of the name is said to come from the Chinese san, thin, and pan, board, but some hold it to have a Malayan origin. |
| SAMSON POST | In the old days when anchors were catted before being let go and on weighing, a samson post was a post erected temporarily on deck to take a tackle with a sufficiently long lead for the whole crew to man the fall. When all anchors had to be handled entirely by manpower, a large number of men were required on the tackles used in lifting and stowing. Today a samson post is a small derrick mast in a merchant ship to support the cargo booms. They are usually fitted in pairs and known colloquially as goalposts. |
| SAVE-ALL | A slang name given by seamen to a small additional sail or bonnet which was sometimes set under a studdingsail in a square-rigged ship in very fine weather with the wind abaft the beam. It was also sometimes used to describe the bonnets proper, laced to the courses, and also occasionally called by the slang term ‘puff-ball’. There have been some references to this sail under the name water sail, but this is an obviously wrong use of the term. |
| SCANDALIZE | A method of reducing sail in fore-and-aft rig by hauling up the tack and lowering the peak of a sail. It was used by the older sailing trawlers to reduce speed through the water when operating a trawl. Also the yards in a square-rigged ship are said to be scandalized when they are not set square to the masts after the ship has anchored. Scandalizing the yards of a ship was a sign of mourning for a death on board. |
| SCANT | A term applied to the wind when it heads a square-rigged ship so that she can only just lay her course with the yards braced very sharp up. It is a term very rarely heard today, having largely died out with the passing of the square-rigged ships. |
| SCANTLINGS | Originally the dimensions of a timber after it has been reduced to its standard size. It is now extended to cover the dimensions of all parts which go into the construction of a ship’s hull, including her frames, stringers, girders, plates, etc. Rules governing these sizes, based on long experience and study, are published by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, and most ships of any size built throughout the world are constructed to these Lloyd’s rules. |
| SCARF or SCARPH | The joining of two timbers by bevelling off the edges so that the same thickness is maintained throughout the length of the joint. In the construction of a wooden ship, the stem and sternposts are scarfed to the keel. A scarf which embodies a step in the middle of the joint, so preventing the two parts from drawing apart, is called a lock scarf. It is a joint of great antiquity, having been used by the early Egyptian and Phoenician shipbuilders. |
| SCEND | The quick upward motion when a ship is pitching in a heavy sea. In its old meaning it was the opposite of pitching, the quick roll when a sea knocks a vessel off her course, but this meaning has now died out. Scend of the sea, the surge of the sea as it runs into a harbour. |
| SCOPE | The amount of cable run out when a ship lies to a single anchor. The minimum amount of cable to which a ship should lie is generally taken as three times the depth of water in which she is anchored, but conditions of wind and tide and the nature of the holding ground may call for up to double this amount. The scope of a ship’s cable is approximately the radius of the circle through which she swings under the influence of the tide; approximate only because it is unlikely that her cable lies in a straight line stretched taut between anchor and ship. |
| SCORE | (1) The name given to the groove cut in the shell of a wooden block in which the strop is passed. Blocks are stropped with an eye or hook at the top so that they can be used whenever necessary, and the score prevents the strop from slipping off the shell of the block. Similarly it is the groove cut round the body of a deadeye for the same reason.
(2) The space vacated in a rope when unlaying a strand in the course of making a long splice is also known as a score. |
| SCOTCHMAN | (1) A piece of hide, or a wooden batten, secured to the backstays or shrouds of a sailing vessel so that any running rigging coming into contact with them should not be chafed. The name comes from the scotch, or notch, cut in the hide or batten along which is passed the line securing the Scotchman to the backstays or shrouds so that it does not slip.
(2) A strip of steel plating let into the wooden forecastle deck of a ship in the wake of the anchor cables to protect the wood from damage by the chain links of the cable when the anchor is let go or weighed. |
| SCOW | A large boat, very full in the bilges and with a flat bottom, used as a lighter or as a ferry to transport men a short distance at sea. They were either towed or pulled with oars. The term is used in the U.S.A. today to describe a small flat-bottomed racing yacht fitted with bilge boards or retractable bilge keels. |
| SCUBA | The initial letters of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, and another word widely used for the aqualung apparatus and its derivatives. |
| SCUD | In a sailing ship to run before a gale with reduced canvas, or under bare poles in the case of gales so strong that no sails could be left spread. It is apt to be a dangerous practice, with the risk of the vessel being pooped. |
| SCULL | The name given to a light oar as used in a dinghy, particularly of a size which can be pulled by a single rower with one in each hand. |
| SCUPPER | A word with the same meaning as to scuttle, or deliberately to sink a ship by opening the seacocks in her hull or by blowing a hole in her side below the waterline. It has, presumably, the same general origin as scuttle, which is to make her sink until the sea comes in through her scuppers to finish her off. |
| SCUPPERS | Draining holes cut through the bulwarks of a ship on the waterways to allow any water on deck to drain away down the ship’s side. Scupper shutters are flaps fitted over the outboard side of the scuppers and hinged on the top so that the pressure of water inboard will swing them open while water pressure outside the ship will keep them firmly closed. |
| SCUTTLE | (1) Deliberately to sink a ship by opening her seacocks or by blowing holes in her bottom with explosive charges so that she fills with water. A ship may be scuttled to avoid capture in wartime; it is not unknown for ships to be scuttled by unscrupulous owners to claim the insurance on them. The origin of the word, as in the synonymous verb to scupper, presumably is to make her sink to the level of her scuttles when the sea will pour in through them and finish her off. The most impressive act of mass scuttling occurred on 21 June 1919 when the German High Seas Fleet, interned at Scapa Flow, deliberately scuttled itself rather than face surrender.
(2) A cask is said to be scuttled when its staves are stove in or broken. |
| SEA ANCHOR | Anything that will hold a vessel’s bow to the sea in heavy weather. Oars, barricoes, or loose sails lashed together and veered from the bow on as long a line as possible will act as a satisfactory sea anchor to which a vessel can ride out a storm. Various forms of drogue are often offered as sea anchors, but usually the vessel’s own gear will prove as efficient a sea anchor as any. In very severe gales, such as typhoons, a ship’s anchor lowered to some depth on its cable has often been used to hold the ship’s head to sea. |
| SEA-CONNY or SEACUNNY | Possibly a conjunction of the noun sea and the verb to con, or from the Persian sukkani or Arabic sukkan, both meaning a rudder, a name used as late as the early 19th century for a helmsman or quartermaster in a ship manned by Lascars. |
| SEAM | The narrow gap between the planks forming the sides and decks of vessels constructed of wood which is caulked with oakum and pitch to keep out the water. As wood swells when it is in contact with water, a narrow seam between the planks must be left to accommodate the expansion, and as the planks ‘take up’ when immersed, they compress the oakum and add to the water tightness. |
| SEAMANSHIP | In its widest sense, is the whole art of taking a ship from one place to another at sea. It is an amalgam of all the arts of designing a ship and her motive power, whether sail, steam, or other means, of working her when at sea, and in harbour, and the science of navigation by which the way is found from her point of departure to her point of arrival. It thus embraces every aspect of a ship’s life in port and her progress at sea. |
| SEA-MARK | The seaman’s name for any floating navigational mark, such as a buoy or lightship, as opposed to landmark, which is a prominent mark on shore from which a navigational compass bearing can be obtained or which can be used as a leading mark to indicate a safe channel. Because a sea-mark has to be moored to the seabed and can drag its mooring, good navigators usually treat them with some caution when using them to fix a ship’s position. In olden days, marks set up ashore were known as sea-marks, not land-marks, and in its original charter Trinity House was empowered to set up sea-marks ashore whenever necessary as an aid to navigation. Any person found destroying them was subject to a fine of £100, and if unable to pay, was to be outlawed. |
| SEARCHLIGHT | A high-powered light carried on warships at sea, usually mounted as high up as possible, and so fitted that it can be moved in elevation and azimuth as required, and used at night for illumination and by day or night for visual signaling. The source of the light is normally a carbon arc reflected off a parabolic mirror to give a flat beam. The first operational searchlight, known as Mr. Wilde’s ‘electric light’, was fitted in H.M.S. Comet in 1874. It was of 11.000 candlepower and could illuminate ships at a distance of one mile. It was superseded in 1880 by Gramme’s lights of 20,000 candlepower, and when H.M.S. Northampton gave a night display with her new searchlight at St. Kitts in that year. Admiral McClintock, who flew his flag in her, wrote in his journal: ‘Every animal, human or other, shouted and yelled after its kind. Natives referred to it as the Englishman’s night sun. |
| SEINE | A long shallow net often with a modified cod-end used in fishing for surface fish. Where used for ring netting, there is no cod-end and the seine is laid round a shoal offish and then pursed at the bottom to prevent any fish from escaping below the net. It differs from a drift net in that the fish are caught within the net, and not by their gills in the meshes. In the days of the sailing navies, seine nets were always included among a ship’s equipment as a means of providing additional fresh fish for the crew. |
| SEIZE | The operation of binding with small stuff as for instance, one rope to another, or the end of a rope to its own part to form an eye. There are many varieties of seizing according to the method of binding and the function which is to be served, such as flat or round seizing where the binding twine is passed in continuous turns, racking seizing where each turn is crossed between the two parts being seized, throat seizing where the seizing is passed with the turns crossing each other diagonally, etc. A seizing is always ‘clapped on’. |
| SEIZING | (1) The cord or twine, generally known as small stuff, by which ropes are seized to each other,
(2) The name given to the finished product when the two parts have been seized together. |
| SELVAGEE | An untwisted skein of rope yarn marled together to form a strop. Selvagee strops are used for a variety of purposes on board ship, such as slings for heavy weights required to be hoisted by a purchase or for securing masts and oars in ships’ boats to prevent them rolling about in a seaway, etc. |
| SERVE | Orig. SARVE, to, the operation of winding spun yarn close round a rope which has been wormed and parceled, the serving being wound on with a serving board or mallet to obtain maximum tension, with the turns made against the lay of the rope. The purpose of worming, parceling, and serving a rope is to make it impervious to water and thus to preserve it against rot. The expression was also used in the case of ships which, through age or weakness had their hulls served round with cables to hold them together. |
| SERVING MALLET | A wooden hand mallet used on board ships for passing a serving round a rope. The bottom of the mallet has a semicircular groove which, fits round the rope and the spun yarn with which a serving is made, is led from the rope and a turn with it taken round the handle of the mallet. As the mallet is turned round the rope, the spun yarn renders round the mallet handle, by which means it can be kept taut and the serving applied with the maximum tightness. A board, with a similar groove at the bottom, is sometimes used instead of a mallet. |
| SET | (1) The word used to denote the direction in which a current flows. It is also applied to the direction of the tide, e.g., ‘the tide is setting to the southward’, and also to the distance and direction in which a vessel is moved by the tide in relation to its desired course and distance run.
(2) It is a word also applied to sails in relation to their angle with the wind as, for example, in the set of a jib or the set of a mainsail. |
| SET | A verb which when used in the maritime sense has many meanings. A current or tide sets in the direction in which it flows, a ship sets a course when she is steadied down on it, a sail is set when it is hoisted and sheeted home to the wind. But to set sail, said of a ship when she departs on a voyage regardless of whether she uses sails or not. To set an anchor watch, to detail a member of the crew of a ship to see that she does not drag her anchor when lying at anchor or moored. |
| SETTLE | A term used in connection with a halyard after a sail has been hoisted. To settle a halyard is to ease it away slightly, and the term refers usually to a peak halyard when a gaff sail has been hoisted to an extent when there are wrinkles in the canvas at the throat of the sail. Where these occur, they are the result of the peak of the sail having been hoisted too high, and the halyard is then settled until the wrinkles have disappeared. |
| SEVEN SEAS | A saying which really means all the waters which cover the earth and refers in fact to the seven oceans, the Arctic, Antarctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Indian. |
| SEW | An old maritime word which was used to describe a ship which had run ashore and had to await the next tide before refloating. She was said to be sewed by the difference between the level of the water and the flotation mark on her hull, e.g., she is sewed two feet if the level of the water is two feet below her normal flotation mark. The pronunciation of the word issue. |
| SEXTANT | The modern navigational instrument for the measurement of vertical and horizontal angles at sea. It is an instrument of double reflection by means of two mirrors, and thus although its actual arc subtends an angle of 60° at the centre, it is capable of measuring angles up to 120°. |
| SHACKLE | A U-shaped iron closed with a pin across the jaws and used for securing such things as halyards to sails, other parts of standing or running rigging where required, anchors to their cables, joining lengths of chain cable, etc. |
| SHAKE | (1) The name given to a longitudinal crack in a mast or spar.
(2) The staves of a cask after it has been taken to pieces; thus ‘no great shakes’ means something of little value. (3) The shivers of a sail when a sailing vessel is steered too close to the wind, a meaning which has given rise to the expression ‘a brace of shakes’ as very quickly or immediately, literally the time taken in which a sail shivers twice when too close to the wind. |
| SHANK | That part of an anchor which connects the arms to the anchor ring. |
| SHAPE | A verb frequently used in relation to the course selected by the navigator for a ship to sail; e.g., “a course was shaped to avoid some danger”: “we will shape a course to reach such-and-such a destination”. |
| SHEAR | A ship is subject to the strain of shearing when its bow, mid-ship section, and stern are poised on the crests of succeeding waves, with the portions of the hull between in the hollows between the waves. Shearing is similar to sagging except that three wave crests are involved instead of two. |
| SHEATHING | A covering of thin copper plates secured to the bottom of wooden ships to give protection against the activities of the Teredo navalis, a large wood-boring worm which exists in tropical seas. A mixture of tar and horsehair was laid between the sheathing and the bottom as an additional preservative for the wood. Although junks were seen sheathed in eastern waters in the early part of the 1 7th century, it was not until 100 years later that the practice spread to Europe. It was more or less universal by 1780. In earlier years lead had been used for sheathing: earlier still deals or planks of fir had been used for this purpose. Neither proved satisfactory: the lead setting up a corrosive action with the iron bolts of the planking and also proving difficult to keep secured in position so that it did not peel off in a seaway, and the soft wood planks providing no barrier to the activities of the teredo worm. |
| SHEAVE | The revolving wheel in a block. They are mostly made of lignum vitae or brass, sometimes a combination of the two, in which case the brass forms the bush of the sheave. The older name for a sheave is shiver, and many seamen today spell sheave as shiv, using the same pronunciation. |
| SHEEPSHANK | A hitch made in a rope temporarily to shorten it. It consists of two long bights in the rope and a half hitch over the end of each bight made in the standing part of the rope. A knotted sheepshank is formed by passing the two ends of the rope through the eyes of the bights. |
| SHEER | (1) The upward curve of the deck of a ship towards the bows and stern, with the lowest point of the upper deck level in the waist, reverse sheer, a downward curve of the deck level towards the bows and stern, the highest deck level amidships. Some cruising and ocean racing yachts have been built to this principle chiefly in order to provide more head-room below the deck.
(2) The angle which a ship takes to her cable when lying to an anchor, caused by the effects of wind and/or tide. |
| SHEER DRAUGHT | A drawing made during the design stages of a ship showing her outline in elevation, together with the spacing of her frames. |
| SHEER LEGS or SHEERS | A temporary structure of two or three spars raised at an angle and lashed together at the point of intersection. With the aid of a tackle secured to this point, sheers are used for lifting heavy weights on board ship where derricks are not available. Their main original use was for lifting in and out the lower masts of square-rigged ships. |
| SHEER POLE | A horizontal steel rod fitted at the base of the shrouds supporting a mast. It is attached (seized) to each shroud just above its rigging screw and serves to keep any turns out of the shrouds when they are being set up. |
| SHEER STRAKE | The top strake, or plank, of a wooden vessel next below the gunwale. It runs from stem to stern, level with the upper deck of the vessel. |
| SHEET | A purchase or single line used for trimming a sail to the wind. A square sail set on a yard has two sheets, one to each clew; fore-and-aft sails have only a single sheet to the clew. |
| SHEET ANCHOR | An additional anchor carried in the largest ships for security should the bower anchors fail to hold the ship. Originally two additional anchors were carried, one at either chess tree abaft the fore rigging, one anchor termed the sheet, the other the spare. The present practice in ships of any size is to carry the sheet anchor in its own hawse pipe abaft the starboard bower anchor, complete with its own cable and cable-holder and ready to let go at any moment. The term sheet anchor is also used as a synonym for security generally. |
| SHEET BEND | Also sometimes known as a swab hitch, a hitch used to secure a rope’s end through a small eye, as, for example, in securing a boat’s lazy painter to the eye at the end of a Jacob’s ladder hanging from a lower boom. It is a simple knot in which the end of the rope is threaded through the eye and the end led round the eye and underneath its own standing part so that it is jammed, or nipped, in the eye. The greater the pull on the rope, the tighter the nip. A double sheet bend is a similar knot but with the end of the rope led twice underneath the eye instead of once. A sheet bend is also sometimes used temporarily to join two ropes of approximately the same size, the end of one being passed through a bight in the other, round both parts of the other rope, and back underneath its own part. |
| SHELL | The outer part or body of a block inside which the sheave revolves. The shells of wooden blocks are scored to hold the strop with which they are bound (stropped) and which embrace the eye or hook, at the top or bottom of the block. |
| SHELLBACK | A slang name given to an old sailor, in theory one who has been at sea for so long that there has been time for limpets or barnacles to grow on his back. It was originally employed in a slightly derogatory sense to indicate an old seaman who was old-fashioned and had failed to move with the times, but later became almost a term of affection as indicating an old seaman whose knowledge of seamanship was vast and who had much to teach the youngster in his profession. |
| SHIFT | A term used at sea to denote a change in the direction of the wind. It is less positive than the terms veer and back, which indicate which way the wind is shifting. In a purely naval sense, and used as a verb, it indicates a change of clothing. “Hands to shift into working rig’, an order to change into working clothes. |
| SHIFTING-BOARDS | Longitudinal wooden bulkheads temporarily erected in the holds of ships when a bulk cargo which is liable to shift in heavy seas, such as coal, grain, etc., is taken on board. |
| SHIP | From the Old English scip, the generic name for sea-going vessels, as opposed to boats, originally personified as masculine but by the 16th century almost universally expressed as feminine. In strict maritime usage the word also signifies a particular type of vessel, one with a bowsprit and three masts, each with topmast and top-gallant mast, and square-rigged on all three masts, but this narrow definition did not even in the days of sail, invalidate the generic use of the term to encompass all types of sea-going vessels. |
| SHIP BROKER | An agent who acts for the owners or charterers of a ship in securing cargoes, clearances, and any other business, including insurance, connected with merchant shipping. He also negotiates the sale and purchase of merchant ships. |
| SHIP STABILIZERS | Equipment and/or fittings incorporated in the construction of a ship to dampen down rolling in a seaway in order to provide a steadier and more comfortable passage through the sea. Perhaps the earliest experiments in reducing a tendency to rolling can be found in the three ships designed by Sir William Petty in 1663-4, of which the Experiment, launched on 11 December 1664, was a double-keeled ship. ‘It swims and looks finely, and I believe will do well,’ wrote Samuel Pepys in his Dian’ on the day of the launch. In fact, it didn’t. |
| SHIPSHAPE | A word meaning in good and seamanlike order in reference to the condition of a ship. |
| SHIVER | The word used by some older seamen to mean the sheave of a block. Today, many seamen still write sheave as shiv, using the same pronunciation. |
| SHIVER | The condition of the sails of a vessel when she is brought so close to the wind that it lifts the luffs and makes them shiver. |
| SHOAL | A derivative of the word ‘shallow’, indicating a patch of water in the sea with a depth less than that of the surrounding water. They are the results of banks of sand, mud, or rock on the sea bed and are usually marked, in pilotage waters, by buoys or other sea-marks. |
| SHOE | (1) A pair of triangular wooden boards which were occasionally fixed to the palm of an anchor to increase its holding power on the bottom. An anchor thus treated was said to be shod.
(2) A block of wood with a hole in it which fitted the sharp bill of the anchor flukes to protect the ship’s side when the anchor was being fished. (3) A term occasionally used to describe a false keel. (4) The projection of the keel abaft the stern frame on which the spindle of the rudder rests. (5) A plank on which the heels of the spars forming a sheer-legs are placed. |
| SHOOT | A verb with more than one nautical meaning. A navigator is said to shoot the sun when he takes an altitude of it with a sextant. A sailing vessel shoots, or fore-reaches, when she is luffed into the wind and makes distance to windward. A fisherman, when using a drift net or ring net, shoots his nets when he lays them, but the word does not apply when fishing with a trawl. When a naval gunlayer shoots very wide of his target at sea. He is said to be shooting the compass. |
| SHORE | A stout wooden timber used to back up a bulkhead in a ship when excessive pressure is applied to it from the other side, as with a flooded compartment. The name is also used on occasions to describe a long timber secured to a small vessel’s side to hold her upright when she takes the ground, but this is more often known as a leg. |
| SHORT | An adjective with many uses at sea. An anchor cable hove in short is one on which the anchor is nearly up and down in preparation for the vessel’s weighing it and getting under way. Short allowance, or petty warrant, was a British naval expression to indicate that, because of the victuals on board running short, or because the ship was in dockyard hands when seamen were not expected to need full daily rations, six men were to exist on the scale of victuals for four. An increase in the monthly rate of pay, known as short allowance money, was paid in compensation. A short splice is a means of splicing two ropes together by tucking the strands over and under when the rope is not required to pass through a block. Such a splice increases the circumference of the rope. A short sea is one in which the distance between the wave crests is less than normal. |
| SHORT SPLICE | A method of splicing two ropes together where the joined rope is not required to be rove through a block. The ends of the two ropes are unlayed and then married together with the strands of one rope alternating with the strands of the other. Each strand is then tucked over its adjacent strand and under the next, and the splice is completed when each strand has been tucked twice. If the joined rope is intended for heavy use a third tuck is often made to provide an extra strong join. A short splice increases the diameter of the rope along the length of the splice, which is the reason why it is never employed when the joined rope is required to be used through a block. |
| SHROUD LAID ROPE | The name given to rope laid up with four strands instead of the more usual three. In this case, the strands are laid up round a heart, or central strand, as the four strands would not bind close enough together and without a heart would leave a central hollow. Size for size, shroud-laid rope is not as strong as hawser-laid rope having only three strands. Its advantage, however, is that it is less liable to stretch, and was therefore more suitable for use in the standing rigging in sailing vessels. |
| SICKBAY | A compartment between decks in a large ship, in charge of the ship’s doctor, which is used for the treatment of men sick or hurt, a combination of consulting room, dressing station, and hospital. It is normally fully equipped with the latest hospital equipment and a full supply of medicines and drugs. In smaller ships without a doctor or a sickbay, a medicine chest is usually carried, and men sick or injured have to rely on the skill of the captain, or perhaps some other officer with training in first aid. To diagnose and treat the ailment, often with only the aid of a medical handbook. |
| SIDELIGHTS | The red and green navigation lights which a vessel must display on either side when under way at night as a part of her steaming lights. |
| SIGHT | The term applied to a nautical astronomical altitude observation of sun, moon, or star by means of which a ship’s position line can be worked out and drawn on a chart when out of sight of land. A sight entails the simultaneous measurement of altitude, obtained with a sextant, and of Greenwich Mean Time (G.M.T.), obtained from a chronometer. Many navigators when taking sights observe a rapid succession of altitudes of the observed heavenly body and the corresponding times. Each observation in this case is referred to as a shot. The purpose of this practice is to reduce or eliminate random errors of observation by taking as the sight the altitude and Greenwich Mean Time which correspond to the mean averages of the shots. |
| SIGNAL LETTERS | The four letters assigned to every ship as a means of identification, known for some reason as a ship’s number. They were hoisted using the alphabetical flags of the International Code of Signals so that the ship could be easily identified by another ship or by coastguards, and thus reported to Lloyd’s and/or to her owners. This was the process known as ‘making her number’. The allocation of these distinguishing letters is done on an international scale, each maritime nation being allocated blocks of letters from which they can assign individual groups for each ship registered in their country. In these modern days of wireless signaling, a ship’s signal letters are no longer so necessary when she needs to make her identity known. |
| SILL | Sometimes written as CILL(1) The upper and lower framing, or lining, of a square port cut in a ship’s side.
(2) The step at the bottom of the entrance of a dry -dock and. by extension, the amount of water that a ship can draw if she is to be able to enter the dock over the sill. |
| SIMOON | The name given to the hot wind coming in off the desert, frequently laden with dust, which blows in the Red Sea. It is the Arabian name for the sirocco, a similar hot southerly wind which blows in the Mediterranean. |
| SINNET | Written sometimes as synet. sennet, sennit, or sinnit. a flat woven cordage formed by plaiting an odd number, usually five or seven, rope yarns together to form a decorative pattern. Its original maritime uses were for chafing gear, reef points, gaskets, earings, etc., but as such fancy work fell out of fashion at sea, its later uses were purely decorative. Various forms of sinnet were developed, of which the major ones were square plat, chain, and crown sinnet. The straw hats worn in hot weather by many sailors during the 19th and early 20th centuries were made of the fibres of palm leaves worked up in plat sinnet. |
| SIROCCO | Sometimes spelled as SCIROCCO, the name of a hot southerly wind which blows across the Mediterranean after crossing the Sahara Desert. On occasions it can blow for days or weeks on end, usually during the summer months, bringing sand and acute discomfort with it. It is also often a precursor of a cyclonic storm. |
| SISAL | A fibre used in rope-making obtained from the leaves of Agave sisalana. It is a hard fibre, grown mainly in East Africa, Indonesia, and Cuba. |
| SISTER BLOCK | A block with two sheaves in a single plane, one below the other. They were used for the running rigging of square-rigged ships and were fitted between the first pair of topmast shrouds on each side and secured below the catharpings. The topsail lift was rove through the lower sheave and the reef-tackle pendant through the upper. |
| SKEET or SKEAT | A dipper with a long handle which was used to wet the sides and deck of a wooden ship in very hot weather to prevent the planking splitting or opening up in the heat of the sun. In small sailing vessels the skeet was also used to wet the sails in very light weather so that they might hold whatever breeze there might be. In larger sailing ships the sails were wetted for this purpose with the fire engine. It was a practice much used during the wars of the sailing navies when chasing an enemy ship or in attempting to escape from a ship which was giving chase. |
| SKEG or SKEGG | The short length of keel normally tapered or cut to a step, which used to project aft beyond the sternpost in early sailing vessels. Its purpose was to serve as a protection to the rudder if the ship went aground and started to beat aft. The skeg did not last long as a shipbuilding practice as it was soon discovered that it was liable to snap off if the ship was beating aft when aground, that the cables of other ships were easily trapped between the skeg and the rudder as the ship swung to the tide, and that it held so much dead water between skeg and rudder that ships fitted with them became sluggish under sail. They had gone completely out of shipbuilding fashion by about 1630. With the introduction of steam propulsion, however, the skeg came back as an extension of the deadwood to prevent a ship’s propellers digging into the ground if she went ashore on a bank. In many modern racing yachts a skeg, in conjunction with a separate fin keel, is commonly fitted to protect the rudder. |
| SKIDS or SKID-BOOMS | The name given to the spare spars carried by a large sailing ship, usually stowed in the waist and used as support for securing the ship’s boats when at sea. |
| SKIFF | In its maritime sense, i.e., as a ship’s working boat, a small clinker-built boat pulling one or two pairs of oars and used for small errands around a ship when she is in harbour. It is not to be confused with the light pleasure boats used on inland waters and known generally as skiffs. |
| SKILLY | A poor broth, often served as an evening meal at sea in older days, made with oatmeal mixed with the water in which the salt meat had been boiled. It was often the basic food of naval prisoners-of-war and other prisoners kept in the prison hulks during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. |
| SKILLYGALEE or SKILLYGOLEE | An oat meal drink sweetened with sugar, which was often issued to seamen in British warships in place of cocoa up to the end of the Napoleonic War (1803-15). Later it was also a drink issued to stokers working in great heat in the stokeholds of British steam warships in the later 19th century. It was thought to protect them from stomach cramp. |
| SKIPJACK | A work-boat of the east coast of the U.S.A. Sloop-rigged with a jib-headed mainsail and a foresail set on a bowsprit. They were hard-chined boats with a large wooden centre board. A feature of the rig was the mast raked some 25° aft to enable cargo to be hoisted on board by means of the main halyards. Skipjacks were introduced in Chesapeake Bay in about 1860 and largely superseded the sharpie. |
| SKIPPER | The captain or master of a ship, but particularly applicable to smaller vessels, whether merchant, fishing, or yacht, etc. The word was introduced in Britain in the late 14th century, probably from the Dutch schipper, captain, itself based on ‘schip’, ship. |
| SKIPPER’S DAUGHTERS | A colloquial name for high waves when they break at sea with a white crest. |
| SKIRT | An additional strip of material sewn on to the foot of a racing yacht’s spinnaker and/or large genoa jib to increase their pulling power. Their form and function is similar to that of the older bonnet, except that the skirt is a permanent addition and the bonnet was only temporary, being laced and not sewn. |
| SKYLIGHT | A glazed window frame, usually in pairs, set at an angle in the deck of a ship to give light and ventilation to a compartment below. The glass is usually protected with brass rods. Only smaller vessels use skylights. |
| SKYSAIL | The name of the sail set next above the royal in a square-rigged ship, the sixth sail in ascending order from the deck, its two tacks secured to the ends of the yard on which the royal is set. Like the royal, it is a light-weather sail, set only when the wind is steady and favourable. |
| SKYSCRAPER | The name given to a small triangular sail set above the skysail in square rigged ships in very fine weather in order to get the utmost advantage of every breath of wind. If it were square it would be called a moonsail. |
| SLAB LINE | A small rope attached by two spans, or a bridle, to the foot of the main or fore course of a square-rigged ship and rove through a block on the lower yard. Its purpose was to truss up the foot of the sail to allow the helmsman an uninterrupted view forward when navigating in waters congested with other shipping. |
| SLACK WATER | The periods in the tidal curve at the change of the tide when little or no stream runs. When a tide flows, its maximum rate of flow occurs during the two hours of mid-flow; as it approaches high water the rate of flow slackens until there is virtually no appreciable movement. The same pattern occurs on the ebb. The period of slack water is perhaps some 20 minutes or so each side of high and low water. During this period, at both high and low waters, the wind frequently drops or changes direction, and it is noticeable that bird life in and around estuaries becomes quiet. |
| SLATCH | The slack parts of any rope or cable lying outside a ship, such as an anchor cable lying on the bottom in a loose bight, or the lee running rigging slacked away too much, so that it hangs loose. Slatch of the cable is roused-in; slatch of the rigging is hauled up. |
| SLINGS | In general, the ropes or chains attached to any heavy article to hoist it. Boat slings are made of strong rope or wire with hooks and thimbles in the ends to hook into the stem, keel, and stern bolts so that boats may be hoisted into or out of a ship, butt slings are used for hoisting casks, formed by passing a strop round the two ends of a cask and bringing the bight through the end of the strop, yard slings are the ropes or chains which support a yard on the mast. |
| SLIP HOOK | A hinged hook of which the tongue is held in place by a link which, when knocked off, allows the hook to open. Small slip hooks are used to secure the gripes of lifeboats when hoisted at a ship’s davits so that they can be quickly released when required. Large slip hooks, known as Blake slips or Blake stoppers, are used to hold the chain cables before anchoring and to secure them when the anchors are weighed. |
| SLIPPERY HITCH | A bend or hitch used on board ship to attach a rope to a ring or spar so that, by a pull on the rope, the hitch comes free. This is achieved by passing a bight of the rope under the other part so that when the strain is taken the bight is jammed. A pull on the end of the bight will clear it and the bend is then dissolved. Hitches most often used in slippery form are sheet bends, clove hitches, and bowlines. |
| SLIPWAY | A sloping foreshore in front of a shipyard on which ships are built. It is fitted with keel blocks and launching ways and lined with cranes for handling shipbuilding material. A patent slipway is an inclined plane on the shore extending into the water, usually graveled or made of concrete, and fitted with rails up which a small vessel, secured in a cradle, can be hauled for cleaning or repair. |
| SMITING LINE | A small rope made fast to the underside of the mizen yardarm at its lower end during the period when the normal rig of sailing ships was a lateen mizen. When the mizen sail was furled, or farthelled, this rope was led along the yard to the mizen peak with the sail and then down to the poop. The sail being stopped to the yard with rope yarns, with the smiting line inside them, it could be set, or loosed, without striking down the yard simply by pulling on the smiting line and thus breaking the ropeyarns. ‘Smite the mizen’, the order to haul down on the smiting line. |
| SMUGGLE | The operation of bringing goods into a country clandestinely to avoid the payment of duty. Smuggling has a very old history, largely connected with the sea as one of the main highways of trade between countries. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1801 and 1803-15), when Britain was largely cut off from trade with much of Europe, smuggling, particularly in French brandies and lace, became almost an industry and the British government was forced to maintain a large fleet of fast sailing cutters in the Channel, known as the preventive service, to attempt to cut off the smugglers before they could reach the shore to land their cargoes. |
| SNATCH BLOCK | A block with a single sheave which has a hinged opening above the sheave to allow the bight of a rope to be dropped in, thus saving the necessity of reeving the whole length of the rope through the block. It is also sometimes known as a notch-block. |
| SNUB | The action of bringing a ship to a stop suddenly by letting go and anchor with too much way on the ship. It is also the word used to describe the action of a ship when she pitches while at anchor and the cable tautens to such an extent that it holds the bows down at the top of the pitch. It is apt to occur when there is insufficient scope to the cable, and is easily corrected by veering some more. A hawser is also said to be snubbed when it is checked suddenly while running out by taking a quick turn round a pair of bollards. |
| SOLDIER’S WIND | A name given to the wind when it blows on the beam of a vessel under sail and therefore calls for no tacking or trimming of the sails. It is one which will take a sailing vessel there and back again without requiring much nautical ability. |
| SOLE | In some ships, and especially in yachts, the name given to the decks of the cabin and forecastle. It is also a name given to the bottom lining of the bilge-ways and of the rudder to bring it down to the level of the false keel. |
| SOLE-PIECES | A name sometimes used to describe the A-brackets which extend from the sternpost of a steam or motor vessel and provide outboard support for the ‘propeller shafts where they extend beyond the hull of the vessel. |
| SOS | The internationally agreed wireless distress call made by a ship requiring assistance. It came into force on 1 July 1908. The three letters were chosen because they were easy to read and make in Morse code (three dots, three dashes, three dots) and it did not stand for “Save Our Souls’, as many people thought. The first occasion on which it was used at sea was in August 1909 when the American steamer Azaoahoe was disabled with a broken propeller shaft. |
| SOUND | The operation of ascertaining the depth of the sea in the vicinity of a ship. Until the wide adoption of echo-sounding in most vessels of any size, the main method of finding the depth of water, for moderate depths up to about 15 fathoms (27-4 m), was the lead and line, the lead being armed with tallow in order to provide information about the nature of the bottom. |
| SOUNDING | The name given to a depth of water obtained by a lead and line, sounding machine, or echo-sounder, or by any other means. The figures on a maritime chart which indicate the depth of water are also known as soundings, and unless stated to the contrary are, in British charts, in fathoms measured below the chart datum. Eventually, all soundings on all charts will be indicated in metres. A ship in such a depth of water that the bottom can be reached with a deep sea lead is said to be in soundings; where the bottom cannot be so reached, she is said to be off, or out of, soundings. As a general rule, the 100-fathom (183 m) line on the chart is taken as the dividing line between in and off soundings. |
| SPALES | The name given to the temporary cross beams fixed to support and hold in position the frames of a wooden vessel while still under construction. They are, of course, finally replaced by the permanent deck beams. |
| SPAN | (1) A rope or wire with each end secured between fixed points, which is used for hooking on the standing block of a tackle where no other convenient point is available.
(2) The distance between the port and starboard turnbuckles or deadeyes of the chain plates measured over the masthead of a sailing vessel is also known as the span of the rigging. |
| SPANISH WINDLASS | A means of increasing the tautness of a seizing by taking a couple of turns with the seizing round a short bar and then turning the bar with a marline spike, held to it by a bight of the seizing and used as a lever. A Spanish windlass is used where maximum tautness is required, as in seizing together a couple of hawsers or binding a strop tightly round a large block and holding it taut while the neck is seized. |
| SPANKER | An additional sail hoisted on the mizen-mast of sailing ships to take advantage of a following wind, was the name used for the final form of the driver. It was originally regarded as a fair weather sail set in place of the mizen course, but after about 1 840 it became a standard sail set on the mizen taking the place entirely of the mizen course. |
| SPAR | A general term for any wooden support used in the rigging of a ship; it embraces all masts, yards, booms, gaffs, etc. |
| SPAR BUOY | A spar painted in a distinctive colour and moored from the bottom so as to float more or less upright as a navigational mark. |
| SPAR DECK | In its strict maritime meaning a temporary deck laid in any part of a ship, the beams across which it is laid being known as skid beams. But the term was often used to describe the quarterdeck or forecastle deck of a deep-waisted ship, possibly because in sailing ship days spare spars could be lashed to these decks as replacements for those damaged in use rather than in the waist of the ship. In modern usage, the term is sometimes employed to describe the upper deck of a flush-decked ship. |
| SPECTACLE IRON | Two or three thimbles cast in a single mould so that two or three ropes may be hooked into it to lead in different directions. |
| SPEND | A mast or yard, broken during bad weather, is said to be spent. But if broken in battle, it was “shot by the board’, or ‘carried away by the board’ if it was broken by the weight of other masts or yards bringing it down. |
| SPIDER | The name given to a metal outrigger to hold a block clear of a mast or of a ship’s side. |
| SPIDER BAND | A metal band with many eyes welded to it, fitted around the mast of a square rigged ship to which, in the later sailing ships, the futtock shrouds are shackled. It was also known as a futtock band. Also a metal band near the bottom of the mast in a fore-and-aft sailing vessels to which the gooseneck of the main boom is attached and which in gaff-rigged vessels usually carries a number of belaying pins to which the halyards of the sail are belayed. |
| SPILE | The operation of shaping the forward and after timbers of a wooden vessel to take account of any sheer in the design, and similarly the shaping of the ribs of a steel vessel for the same purpose. |
| SPILL | The act of taking the wind out of a sail by bringing the vessel head to wind or by easing away the sheet to an extent where the sail can hold no wind. |
| SPILLING LINES | The name given to ropes rove round the square sails in a square-rigged ship to keep them from blowing away when the tacks are eased off for the sails to be clewed up, and to assist in reefing and furling. They are secured to the after side of the yard and are led under the sail and up to a block on the forward side of the yard through which they are rove. |
| SPITFIRE JIB | A small storm jib made of very heavy canvas, used when the strength of the wind is such that the normal foresails in a small sailing vessel cannot be carried. It is almost entirely applicable to yachts; the larger sailing ships with several jibs being able to reduce their fore canvas in heavy weather by lowering one or more of their jibs. |
| SPLICE | A method of joining two ropes or wires together by unlaying the strands at the two ends and tucking or relaying them according to the nature of the splice required. Ropes and wires are spliced together to join them permanently, but knotted when the join is temporary. Ropes can be joined by a long splice when required to reeve through a block, a short splice, or a cut splice if it is required to incorporate an eye at the point of junction. An eye required at the end of a rope or wire is produced by an eye splice. |
| SPOIL GROUND | An area of the seabed, marked by buoys, on which sewage, spoil from dredging, and other rubbish may be deposited by lighters or hoppers specially equipped for the task, with bottom doors which open to allow the discharge underwater of the spoil they are carrying. |
| SPOKE | In any wheel a rod or bar extending outwards from the hub to support the rim but in a ship’s steering wheel a spoke is the extension beyond the rim which forms a handle by which the wheel is turned to angle the rudder. |
| SPRING | A rope or wire hawser led aft from the bow or forward from the stern of a ship and made fast to a bollard ashore. They are known as a fore spring and a back spring respectively. In addition to preventing a ship from surging backwards or forwards when secured alongside, they enable a ship’s bow or stern to be swung clear when leaving. By going ahead against a fore spring with the helm over, the stern swings outwards while the ship is held from moving ahead by the spring. Similarly, by going astern against a back spring with the helm over, the bow can be swung clear. |
| SPRING | The situation of a plank in the hull structure of a wooden vessel when one of its ends, or butts, breaks loose of the copper nails or treenails which secure it to the timbers of a ship and, because of its shape bent to the curve of the hull, springs outwards and projects beyond the curve of the hull. Such a plank is said to be sprung. Similarly, the verb is used to describe the wooden mast or spar of a vessel when a crack develops by which the fibres are damaged, such a mast or spar then being sprung and needing to be fished, or if very badly sprung, replaced. |
| SPRING A LEAK | To develop a break in the hull of a vessel through which seawater can enter. The term originated from the occasional tendency of the hull planking of a wooden vessel to spring, or to break free of its fastenings to the vessel’s timbers at the butts (ends) of the plank, but now applies to any hole or break in a ship’s hull, however made, by which the sea comes in. |
| SPRING STAYS | The name given to additional mast stays carried on board warships in the days of the sailing navies to replace those shot away in battle. Chain and bar shot were frequently used in action during those days specifically to sever the rigging of enemy ships, making it advisable to carry on board spare rigging of all descriptions. |
| SPRING TIDES | Those tides which rise highest and fall lowest from the mean tide level, as compared with neap tides, which are those which rise lowest and fall highest. Spring tides occur when the pull of the moon and of the sun act in conjunction whether 0° or 180° apart; neaps when they act in opposition, either 90° or 270° apart. These conditions occur twice in each lunar month, so that there are two spring tides and two neap tides every twenty-nine days. |
| SPRIT | A long spar which stretches diagonally across a four-sided fore-and-aft sail to support the peak, as in the typical barge rig. Its heel or inboard end is held in a snotter near the base of the mast. Although reliefs found at Thasos and dating from the 2nd century B.C. show that the sprit was known to the Greeks and Romans for small boats, it was not introduced into western Europe for seagoing ships until the early 15th century, almost certainly by the Dutch, as a rig for smaller, coastal craft, proving much more weatherly than square-rig in the shoal and tidal waters off the Dutch coast. |
| SPRITSAIL | (1) A small square sail set on a yard beneath the bowsprit in square-rigged ships, introduced at the beginning of the 16th century as a balancing sail to the lateen mizen, which was the normal after canvas set in two-and three-masted ships. A spritsail topsail was a similar sail to the spritsail but set on a short mast, known as a spritsail topmast, stepped perpendicularly on the end of the bowsprit above the spritsail and sheeted to the yardarms of the spritsail. It was first introduced about 1600. Both these sails were superseded by the triangular jibs and staysails which were introduced in 1705 and performed the same balancing purpose more simply and efficiently.
(2) A fore-and-aft four-sided sail set on a sprit, as in the typical barge rig. The top of the sprit supports the peak of the sail, the bottom is held close to the mast in a snotter just above deck level at the tack of the sail. This type of spritsail is always loose-footed, i.e., it is not laced to a boom. For a short period a spritsail was set on the mizen of a three-masted square-rigged ship, replacing the lateen sail in about 1550 and itself being replaced by a gaff sail about 100 years later. |
| SPUNYARN | A small line made of two, three, or four yarns, not laid but loosely twisted. It has a variety of uses, on board ship, particularly for such purposes as seizing, serving, etc. It is also used in sailing vessels for stopping sails, enabling them to be hoisted in stops (i.e., lightly secured with turns of spunyarn) and able to be broken out when required by a sharp pull on the sheet. |
| SPURLING GATE | A cast iron fitting in the deck of a ship through which the cable passes on the way down to the chain locker. |
| SPURLING LINE | A line made fast to the rudder-head of a ship and brought up on either side to the position of the steering wheel. It operates the tell-tale by which the angle of the rudder is indicated to the quartermaster at the wheel. |
| SQUALL | A sudden gust of wind of considerable strength. Squalls usually follow the passage of a depression, when the barometer begins to rise from its lowest point. This is because the barometer gradient is almost always steeper in the wake of a depression than ahead of its centre. |
| SQUARE | The position of the yards when a square-rigged ship is at anchor and set up in harbour trim. The yards are square by the braces when they are at right-angles to the fore and-aft line of the ship. They are square by the lifts when they are horizontal. |
| STAGHORN | A metal bollard with horizontal arms forming the shape of a cross, fitted in big ships as a means of belaying larger hawsers. |
| STANCHIONS | The upright supports set along the side of the upper deck of a ship which carry the guardrail or, in the case of smaller vessels, the wires which act as a guardrail. Longer stanchions are additionally used in large ships as the means of spreading an awning over the deck in hot weather, and are also occasionally fitted to support a light deck above. |
| STANDING LUG | A sailing rig in which the forward end of the yard carrying a lugsail lies close along the mast so that the sail does not have to be lowered and dipped round the mast when the vessel goes about. It includes the Gunter rig. |
| STANDING PART | That part of the rope used in a purchase of which the end is secured to the eye of the block which does not move, known as the standing block. The part of the rope which is between the standing and the moving blocks is the running part, and the remainder, as it comes out of the purchase, is the hauling part. The whole of the rope is known as the fall. |
| STARBOARD | The right-hand side of a vessel as seen from aft. It is generally accepted to be a corruption of steer-board, the board or oar which projected into the sea from the starboard quarter of old vessels and by which they were steered before the invention of the hanging rudder. At night, a vessel under way at sea indicates her starboard side by carrying a green light on that side, visible from right ahead to two points abaft the beam. |
| STARBOARD GYBE | A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel is sometimes said to be on the starboard gybe instead of on the starboard tack, when the wind comes from abaft the beam on the starboard side. |
| STARBOARD TACK | The situation of a sailing vessel with her sails trimmed for a wind which comes over the starboard side of the vessel. Although the verb ‘to tack’ postulates a vessel sailing close-hauled, a vessel on any point of sailing is on the starboard tack if the wind comes over her starboard side. |
| STARBUCK | The name of the chief mate of the whaler Pequod in Herman Melville’s great tale of the sea Moby Dick, first published in 1851. |
| STARGAZER | The name given to a small supplementary sail occasionally set in a square rigged ship in very light weather to get the utmost out of a breeze. It was set above the moonsail, which was set above the skysail. |
| START | (1) The operation of easing away, as the sheet of a sail, or a hawser, by rendering it round a bollard. A cask is started when it is topped or opened, a plank in the side of a wooden ship has started when it works loose.
(2) An irregular punishment which was widespread on board ships of the British Navy during the days of sail in which the master-at-arms and boatswain’s mates of a ship were allowed to hit, or start, the seamen with canes or rope-ends to get them moving at their work. It was made illegal by Admiralty order in 1809, but some captains (fortunately very few) allowed the custom to continue in their ships and it was not until some years later that it was completely eradicated. |
| STATION BILL | A list showing the stations of all members of the crew of a ship for all evolutions required, such as entering or leaving harbour, fire drill, boat drill, and in warships, action stations. The station bill must by law be posted in various parts of the ship so that it can be seen by all on board. |
| STAVE OFF | The operation of holding off a boat or small vessel with a spar to prevent her coming alongside too heavily, or of holding off another vessel when she is approaching so as to risk a collision. |
| STAVES | The component parts of a cask after it has been knocked down. They are the curved wooden parts which form the barrel rabbeted at both ends to take the bottom and the top. |
| STAY | A part of the standing rigging of a sailing vessel which supports a mast in the fore-and-aft line, forestays supporting it from forward and backstays from aft. They take their names from the masts they support, as forestay fore topmast stay, fore topgallant-mast stay, etc. |
| STAY | A term used in connection with the position of a ship in relation to her anchor and cable. A cable is said to be at short stay when it is taut and leads down to the anchor at a steep angle; it is at long stay when it is taut and leads out to the anchor well away from the ship’s bows, entering the water at an acute angle. |
| STAY | The operation of bringing the head of a sailing vessel up to the wind in order to tack, or go about. It is a term used also to describe the inclination of a mast in relation to the perpendicular: a mast is stayed forward or raked aft according to whether it inclines forward or aft. |
| STAYBAND | A metal ring fitted near the top of a mast, with projecting lugs to which are secured the shrouds and stays supporting the mast. It is the modern equivalent of the hounds, which used to provide the support on which the top of the shrouds rested. |
| STAYS | The moment when, during the operation of tacking, a sailing vessel is head to wind. If she hangs there, with her head not paying off on the opposite tack, she is said to be ‘in stays’. If her head fails to pay off on the opposite tack but falls back on the original tack, she is said to have ‘missed stays’. |
| STAYSAIL | A triangular fore-and-aft sail which is set by being hanked to a stay. They are set both in square-rigged and fore-and-aft rigged ships, and take their names from the stay on which they are set, as fore staysail, fore topmast staysail, etc. |
| STEAMING LIGHTS | The compulsory white navigation lights carried on the masts of all vessels under way at sea by night by which their presence, and an indication of their course, is made known to other vessels in the vicinity. |
| STEER | To direct a vessel by means of a steering oar, or by a tiller or steering-wheel connected to a rudder, so that she proceeds in the desired direction. Up to about the end of the first millennium A.D. all steering was achieved by means of the steering oar usually projecting from the starboard quarter of the vessel. It was a short step, taken in about the late 12thorearly 13th century, to replace the steering oar with a rudder hung on the sternpost of the ship and worked by a tiller attached to the rudder-head. This was very efficient until ships grew in size to the extent where the tiller had to be a relatively long spar in order to provide sufficient leverage to counteract the pressure of the water on the rudder when it was put over. In a gale of wind it could require several men to control the tiller of a large ship, even with the aid of relieving tackles. The introduction of the steering-wheel in the late 17th century replaced the long tiller in larger ships and made easier the manual task of controlling the rudder, to steer small, to keep a ship on her desired course with only small movements of the tiller or wheel, to steer large, the opposite of to steer small, or in the case of a sailing vessel, to steer her so that she has the wind free. |
| STEERAGE | A large space below deck, usually above the propellers, which in some merchant ships was used for crew accommodation and in passenger ships during the 19th and early 20th centuries was reserved for those passengers who could not pay for a private cabin. The sides were lined with wooden bunks, and often with one or more tiers of bunks running longitudinally in the space between the sides. In those days passengers were expected to bring their own bedclothes and also their own food, a large stove being erected on deck at which they could cook it. In the days of sailing ships carrying passengers the steerage was that part of the ship next below the quarterdeck and immediately before the bulkhead of the great cabin. |
| STEERAGE WAY | A vessel has steerage way when she has sufficient headway for her rudder to grip the water so that she will answer her helm. A sailing vessel becalmed, or a steamship broken down, loses steerage way when it becomes impossible to hold her on course. |
| STEERING OAR | The forerunner of the vertical rudder hung on the sternpost. Originally a single oar projecting over the quarter of the boat. |
| STEEVE | The angle of the bowsprit in relation to the horizontal. A high-steeved bowsprit, or one with a high steeve, is a bowsprit well cocked-up towards the vertical. In ancient single-masted sailing ships the bowsprit was always very high steeved and in fact became the forerunner of the foremast when the two- and three-masted rig was adopted for ships. |
| STEM | The foremost timber or steel member forming the bow of a vessel joined at the bottom to the keel either by scarfing (wood) or riveting (steel). In wooden vessels all the timber strakes are rabbeted to the stem, in steel ships the fore plates are riveted to it. |
| STEP | A square framework of timber or steel built up and fixed to the keelson of a ship to take the heel of a mast. Masts are normally squared off at the heel, to fit securely into the square step so that they cannot twist or revolve. In some smaller craft, masts are stepped on the deck and not taken down through the deck to the keelson, and in such cases the deck is normally strengthened with an additional deck beam to provide extra support. |
| STEP A MAST | The operation of erecting a mast by fitting the heel into the step on the keelson of a vessel and setting up all its standing rigging. |
| STERN | The after end of a vessel, generally accepted as that part of the vessel built around the sternpost, from the counter up to the taffrail. |
| STERN LIGHT | A navigation light carried by ships, also known as an overtaking light. |
| STERNBOARD | A manoeuvre by a ship when she wishes to turn in narrow waters where there is insufficient room for her to turn normally while going ahead. If she goes astern with reversed helm, her bows will continue to swing in the required direction of her original turn. It is the equivalent of backing and filling until the vessel is heading on her new course. It was also a manoeuvre, though usually involuntary, in sailing ships when they were taken aback while tacking. |
| STERNSHEETS | That part of an open boat between the stern and the after thwart, usually fitted with seats to accommodate passengers. It is occasionally written as stem-sheets but the single word is the more correct usage. No doubt it was so named because the sheet was handled from this position when the boat was under sail. |
| STERNWALK | A roofed platform built around the stern of some large ships, particularly warships, up to about 1914, when they were largely discarded. They connected with the main cabin and were fitted so that the admiral or captain could take the air without having to come on deck. They were the more modern version of the gallery of the older sailing ships. |
| STERNWAY | The movement of a ship when she is going backwards in relation to the ground. In its most usual form the term is used to mean motion backwards through the water, either by the use of engines running astern or, in the case of a sailing vessel, by laying a sail aback. But a ship lying stopped in the water and carried backwards by an adverse tide is also said to be carrying sternway even though she may not be making any movement through the water. |
| STERN-WHEELER | A steam vessel propelled by a single paddle-wheel mounted in the stern of the vessel and normally extending over the whole breadth of the stern. It was the initial form of the adaptation of steam power to the propulsion of ships on inland waters, but was quickly overtaken by the fitting of twin paddle-wheels, one on each side of the ship. The stern-wheeler was, however, retained for many years for work in rivers where its advantage over the propeller was that it could operate in waters so shoal that, with a sternwheel, only an inch or two of water below the keel was no bar to progression. Stern-wheelers were used extensively for police work in the Chinese rivers, in the form of river gunboats, for some of the big excursion steamers on the Mississippi River in the U.S.A., and for freight and passenger services on rivers in India, Iraq, Australia, and the U.S.A. where shoals and rapids have to be negotiated. |
| STEVEDORE | A docker who is employed in the working of cargo in the holds of a merchant ship when she is being loaded or unloaded in port. |
| STIFF | An adjective which, when applied to a ship, indicates that she returns quickly to the vertical when rolling in a heavy seaway and, when applied to a vessel under sail, is one that stands up well to her canvas. This is a function of the metacentric height which has been built into the ship. It is an adjective which is also applied to the strength of the wind, a stiff breeze being one in which a sailing ship is just able to carry her full canvas; a little more and she would require to tie down a reef. |
| STIRRUPS | The name given to the short ropes which hang from the yards of square-rigged sailing ships and support at intervals the footropes on which the top-men stand when working on the sails aloft. The footropes themselves are known as horses, hence the name stirrups. |
| STOAK | The maritime equivalent of to choke in the sense of stopping the flow of water. Thus if dirt or a spillage of cargo gets into the limber holes leading to the bilge well so that the bilge water cannot run down to the well, they are said to be stoaked; the inlet of a pump is stoaked if it will not suck. |
| STOPPER | The name given to a short length of rope secured at one end to hold temporarily parts of the running rigging of sailing ships with a stopper hitch while the fall is being belayed. A stopper hitch is a rolling hitch in which the second turn rides over the first. A chain stopper is a metal grab designed to hold a ship’s anchor cable. |
| STOPPER KNOT | A name generally used for any knot in which the strands are tucked back, such as in a Turk’s head or Matthew Walker knot, to form a knob at the end of the rope as a stop where, for example, the rope is threaded through an eye or a ringbolt, perhaps for use as a hand rope. Strictly speaking, a stopper knot is another name for a single or double wall knot. |
| STOWAWAY | A person who hides himself on board a ship just before she sails in order to obtain a free passage to the ship’s destination, to escape from a country by stealth, or to get to sea unobserved. |
| STRAKE | The name given to each line of planking in a wooden vessel, or plating in a vessel built of steel, which runs the length of the ship’s hull. The hull form therefore consists of rows of strakes from the keel up to the top edge of the vessel’s hull. |
| STRAND | A number of ropeyarns twisted together, ready to be laid up into a rope with other strands. Almost all rope used at sea is three stranded, though where particular strength is required, four-stranded rope is occasionally used. A rope is said to be stranded when one of its strands is broken by too great a strain or worn too thin by chafing. |
| STRAND | A ship is stranded when she is driven ashore, or on to a shoal, by force of weather. |
| STRAY LINE | The name given to the length of line between the log and the zero mark on the log-line when measuring the speed of a vessel through the water before the days of more efficient mechanical means of measurement. This length of line was necessary so that the log could drift well astern and beyond the reach of any eddies caused by the motion of the ship before turning the sand-glass and beginning the actual measurement of the vessel’s speed, thus achieving a more -accurate assessment of speed. The glass was turned at the moment the zero mark passed, and the speed was indicated by the number of knots in the line which ran out while the glass emptied itself. |
| STREAM ANCHOR | An anchor carried as a spare in some of the larger ships, normally about one-third the weight of the bower anchors and sheet anchor, but larger than the kedge. In many of the larger ships the stream anchor became a stern anchor with its own hawse pipe in the stern of the ship. It had no permanent cable but, if necessary to use it, one of the ship’s wire hawsers was shackled on as a cable. It was weighed by bringing the wire hawser to the after capstan. |
| STREAM THE BUOY | To let the anchor buoy fall into the sea from the after part of the ship before an anchor is let go. The reason for letting the buoy go from aft is to prevent the buoy-rope being fouled by the anchor or cable as it runs out. Patent logs, fog-buoys, and sea anchors are, like anchor buoys, said to be streamed when they are run out. |
| STRETCHER | (1) A piece of wood fixed athwartships in the bottom of a pulling boat against which the rowers may brace their feet,
(2) A short length of wood, notched at both ends, for spreading the clews of a hammock when sleeping in it. |
| STROP | A rope spliced into a circle for use around the shell of a block so as to form an eye at the bottom, or to form a sling for heavy articles which need to be hoisted with the aid of a purchase, or parbuckled to lift them up a slope. Strops are also frequently used to double round a rope or hawser to form an eye into which a tackle can be hooked in order to give a greater purchase. |
| SUBMARINE | A vessel designed to operate below the surface of the sea. From the earliest time the cloak of invisibility acquired by a vessel able to navigate below the surface of the sea has acted as a spur to inventors, but there are few records of their achievements before the 16th century. |
| SUPERCARGO | An abbreviation of Cargo Superintendent, a representative of the ship’s owner on board a merchant ship who looked after all commercial business in connection with the ship and her cargo during a voyage. In these modern days of high-speed wireless communication, with owners being in more or less permanent touch with their ship, the official, and the term, are almost entirely obsolete. |
| SUPERSTRUCTURE | The constructions on board a ship which are above the level of the upper deck. It, would include the whole of the bridge structure and the deckhouses. |
| SURF BOAT | A large open craft used mainly on beaches in Africa and India for landing passengers and goods where there is no deep water port and where the depth of water offshore is such that ships must lie a long way out. These craft are propelled by paddles and controlled by a steering oar over the stern, as the normal surf on African and Indian beaches is too heavy for craft under oars. But with the steady growth of ocean trade and the consequent dredging of new ports to handle it, the need for surf boats is rapidly dying out even where they were most used. |
| SURGE | The operation of stopping the pull on a line or hawser when it is being brought in round a capstan or winch by walking back on the hauling part so that the capstan or winch still revolves with the line or hawser rendering round it without coming in. It is a means of regulating the rate of pull with a capstan or winch turning at a constant speed. The word is also occasionally used as a noun to indicate the tapered part of the whelps of a capstan where the messenger was served when an anchor was weighed by hand. A more common use of the word as a noun is to describe a scend or exceptional run of the sea into a harbour. |
| SWALLOW | The name given to the space between the two sides of the shell of a block in which the sheave is fitted. |
| SWALLOW THE ANCHOR | A maritime term to indicate giving up, or retiring from, a life at sea and settling down to live ashore. |
| SWAY | The operation of hoisting the topmasts and yards of a square-rigged sailing ship. They are swayed up by means of the jeers. It is also the term used for taking the strain on a mast rope and lifting it sufficiently for the fid to be removed before the mast is struck down or housed. |
| SWAY AWAY ON ALL TOPROPES | A nautical expression indicating that a man will go to great lengths to get something done. |
| SWEEP | A long, heavy oar carried in sailing vessels for use when the wind failed. In the days of sailing navies they were carried in the smallest class of frigates and in all vessels below that rating; and until the general use of auxiliary engines, smacks, barges, and sailing yachts used to carry at least one sweep on board. |
| SWELL | A condition of the sea resulting from storms or high winds. It is the vertical movement of surface water in the form of waves or undulations retaining the motion imparted to it by the wind for a period after the wind has dropped, eventually dying out as the resistance of the surrounding water takes effect and slows the motion down. The length of a swell is proportional to the fetch. |
| SYNOPTIC CHART | A weather map on which the isobars derived from a large number of weather station reports are drawn to provide a full picture of the position, shape, size, and depth of the various weather systems in the area covered by the chart. These charts are normally kept up to date in meteorological offices round the world and, by a comparison with previous charts of the same area, meteorologists can see the directions in which movements are taking place and thus predict the weather patterns in the immediate and near future. The distance apart of the isobars gives a basis for the prediction of wind strengths; the closer they are together, the stronger the wind is likely to be. Weather forecasts broadcast from meteorological offices are based on the information obtained from synoptic charts. |