A boarding net is a type of rope net used by ships during the Age of Sail to prevent boarding by hostile forces. Designed to hang from a ship's masts and encircle its deck, the boarding net could be deployed during battle or at night when a ship was at anchor in unknown or hostile waters. In the Royal Navy, boarding nets first gained widespread use in the 1790s.
The boarding net was a rope net that could be raised from a ship's masts so that it encircled the vessel's deck. [1] A ship's captain could order the net deployed during battle if it became apparent that enemy naval infantry might attempt to capture his vessel through a boarding action; it might also be raised at night if the vessel was at anchor in unknown or hostile waters. [1] Once deployed, enemy forces would be unable to gain access to the deck without first cutting through the heavy rope netting, a process that would slow them considerably, during which time they would be exposed to attack by the ship's defenders using standoff weapons such as firearms or pikes. [1]
To overcome the boarding net, boarding parties could be equipped with boarding axes – lightweight hand axes designed to cut through rope. [2]
According to the autobiography of George Pegler, while employed aboard the merchantman Blendinghall in the early 19th century he observed that the ship's boarding net was made of "ratlin rope with here and there a small chain running through its entire length, to prevent cutting by the enemy". [3] When a French privateer engaged Blendinghall, the ship's boarding net kept the attackers from successfully gaining access to her deck. [3]
Francis Liardet's 1849 book Professional Recollections on Points of Seamanship suggests that a boarding net could be made more resistant to cutting by first covering it with tar. [4]
In the Royal Navy, boarding nets first gained widespread use in the 1790s, though were typically limited to use on ships of frigate-size and smaller, as ships of the line were unlikely to be targets of boarding in the first place. [5] However, individual examples of naval vessels from the British Isles using boarding nets extend back at least to the Mary Rose in the 16th century. [6] In the case of Mary Rose, the crew became trapped on the deck by the boarding net when she began taking on water, leading to the loss of almost all hands during her sinking. [6] [7]
The SS Beaver , chartered by the Royal Navy to survey the coast of British Columbia, reportedly kept her boarding net deployed at all times "to prevent access by the natives otherwise than by the gangways". [8]
The 1864 capture of the U.S. Navy gunboat USS Water Witch by the Confederate States Marine Corps was accomplished despite Water Witch's boarding net having been deployed, leading to a recommendation from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron that ships be outfitted with wire boarding nets instead of rope ones. [9] [10]
The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight.
A trireme( TRY-reem; derived from Latin: trirēmis "with three banks of oars"; cf. Greek triērēs, literally "three-rower") was an ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans.
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the opponent with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying more of the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time.
Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The Oxford Dictionary states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
USS Redfish (SS/AGSS-395), a Balao-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the redfish. In addition to her naval career, which included sinking the Japanese aircraft carrier Unryū, she made several film appearances in the 1950s.
USS Higgins (DDG-76) is a United States Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Higgins is the 26th ship of her class, and the 15th of the class to be built by Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine. Construction began on 14 November 1996 and she was launched and christened on 4 October 1997. She was commissioned at a ceremony in Port Everglades, Florida on 24 April 1999. She is part of Destroyer Squadron 15 within the Seventh Fleet, and is homeported at United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka in Yokosuka, Japan.
The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, giving necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial or signal lamp. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed.
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".
A turtle ship was a type of Korean warship that was used intermittently by the Joseon Navy from the early 15th century up until the 19th century. Relying on mounted cannons, they were used alongside the panokseon warships in the fight against invading Japanese naval ships. The ship's name derives from its protective shell-like covering. It is by some considered a form of pre-industrial armoured ship and believed to have been covered with metal plating. Contemporary sources do not describe it as metal covered and historians disagree whether it was actually metal-plated or not.
Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for more specialized roles in surface warfare such as naval gunfire support (NGFS) and anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) engagements. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firing weapons and excludes self-propelled projectiles such as torpedoes, rockets, and missiles and those simply dropped overboard such as depth charges and naval mines.
The Captain class was the designation given to 78 frigates of the Royal Navy, constructed in the United States, launched in 1942–1943 and delivered to the United Kingdom under the provisions of the Lend-Lease agreement. They were drawn from two classes of the American destroyer escort classification: 32 of the GMT (Evarts) Type and 46 of the TE (Buckley) Type. Upon reaching the UK the ships were substantially modified by the Royal Navy, making them distinct from the US Navy destroyer escort ships.
Sailing ship tactics were the naval tactics employed by sailing ships in contrast to galley tactics employed by oared vessels. This article focuses on the period from c. 1500 to the mid-19th century, when sailing warships were replaced with steam-powered ironclads.
ICGV Ægir is a former offshore patrol vessel of the Icelandic Coast Guard. Built by Aalborg Værft, in Denmark, she is the lead ship of the Ægir class and has one sister ship of an improved design, ICGV Týr. The ship entered service in 1968 and participated in the two last Cod Wars against the United Kingdom. Ægir primarily conducts patrols, search and rescue, fishery inspections, general law enforcement and counter-terrorism operations in the Icelandic exclusive economic zone. In 2020, the patrol vessel was taken out of service and sold two years later.
Naval artillery in the Age of Sail encompasses the period of roughly 1571–1862: when large, sail-powered wooden naval warships dominated the high seas, mounting a large variety of types and sizes of cannon as their main armament. By modern standards, these cannon were extremely inefficient, difficult to load, and short ranged. These characteristics, along with the handling and seamanship of the ships that mounted them, defined the environment in which the naval tactics in the Age of Sail developed.
The Type 22 missile boat is a ship class in the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. The first boat was launched in April 2004 by the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard at Shanghai. The boats incorporate stealth features and are based on Australian-designed wave-piercing catamaran hulls that are more stable than other fast missile craft in high sea conditions. 82 of these missile boats are currently in service with three flotillas having been produced over a span of seven years, operating in squadrons of eight vessels each.
Naval boarding action is an offensive tactic used in naval warfare to come up against an enemy marine vessel and attack by inserting combatants aboard that vessel. The goal of boarding is to invade and overrun the enemy personnel on board in order to capture, sabotage or destroy the enemy vessel. While boarding attacks were originally carried out by ordinary sailors who are proficient in hand-to-hand combat, larger warships often deploy specially trained and equipped regular troops such as marines and special forces as boarders. Boarding and close quarters combat had been a primary means to conclude a naval battle since antiquity, until the early modern period when heavy naval guns gained tactical primacy at sea.
The United States Navy occupational rating of boatswain's mate is a designation given by the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) to enlisted members who were rated or "striking" for the rating as a deck seaman. The colloquial form of address for a boatswain's mate is "Boats".
Private purchase naval weapons are maritime weapons that were used aboard ships other than those in regular navies. They were stocked on private vessels for either an offensive or defensive purpose that did not fall under any actual branch of any naval department. Thus, they do not bear standard government issue marks of their host country despite their use aboard said ships of that country. These weapons were important to maritime history because they equipped privateers, pirate vessels and merchant galleys as a means of defense. They were used just as their naval cousins in both attacking and defending during hostile boarding. Private purchase boarding axes were both used as a weapon and a tool for fires aboard ship. Other than their lack of government issue markings, they served the same purpose. Private ship owners lacked the resources of nations to supply their needs, so sometimes even rough blacksmith-made items of primitive manufacture were used.
A ship's boat is a utility boat carried by a larger vessel. Ship's boats have always provided transport between the shore and other ships. Other work done by such boats has varied over time, as technology has changed. In the age of sail, especially for warships, an important role was the collection of drinking water. The use of radio, followed by telex, e-mail, etc. has reduced and then replaced the need for written communications to be delivered. A large enough boat may be needed to carry an anchor to some distance away from the ship, so as to kedge out of a harbour or away from a hazard – and also to recover such an anchor afterwards. Warships have always used their boats as an extension to their military role. This includes the provision of a means of escape for the crews of fireships, the landing of troops, or the "cutting out" raids that were used by the Royal Navy, especially during the Napoleonic Wars. All these requirements competed with the need to be able to stow the boats on board in a way that did not interfere with the normal operation of the ship.
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".
