This list of ship directions provides succinct definitions for terms applying to spatial orientation in a marine environment or location on a vessel, such as fore, aft, astern, aboard, or topside.
This list of ship directions provides succinct definitions for terms applying to spatial orientation in a marine environment or location on a vessel, such as fore, aft, astern, aboard, or topside.
A hull is the watertight body of a ship, boat, or flying boat. The hull may open at the top, or it may be fully or partially covered with a deck. Atop the deck may be a deckhouse and other superstructures, such as a funnel, derrick, or mast. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.
A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.
The bilge of a ship or boat is the part of the hull that would rest on the ground if the vessel were unsupported by water. The "turn of the bilge" is the transition from the bottom of a hull to the sides of a hull.
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, bearing a square-rigged sail above.
A tack is a nautical term both for the lower, windward corner of a sail and, separately, for the windward side of a sailing craft (side from which the wind is coming while under way—the starboard or port tack. Generally, a boat is on a starboard tack if the wind is coming over the starboard side of boat with sails on port side. Similarly, a boat is on a port tack if the wind is coming over the port side of boat. However, confusion can result when a boat is on a 'run', with the wind coming directly from astern and the mainsail and jib/genoa are on opposite sides of the vessel. Therefore, the windward side is defined as the side opposite to that on which the mainsail is being carried. On a starboard tack the mainsail is carried on the port side. On a port tack the mainsail is carried on the starboard side. It is the position of the mainsail that determines the tack.
A jibe (US) or gybe (Britain) is a sailing maneuver whereby a sailing vessel reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, which then exerts its force from the opposite side of the vessel. Because the mainsail boom can swing across the cockpit quickly, jibes are potentially dangerous to person and rigging compared to tacking. Therefore, accidental jibes are to be avoided while the proper technique must be applied so as to control the maneuver. For square-rigged ships, this maneuver is called wearing ship.
A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach to downwind. Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually nylon, and are often brightly colored. They may be designed to perform best as either a reaching or a running spinnaker, by the shaping of the panels and seams. They are attached at only three points and said to be flown.
A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary or upper deck is the horizontal structure that forms the "roof" of the hull, strengthening it and serving as the primary working surface. Vessels often have more than one level both within the hull and in the superstructure above the primary deck, similar to the floors of a multi-storey building, that are also referred to as decks, as are certain compartments and decks built over specific areas of the superstructure. Decks for some purposes have specific names.
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 full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mast stepped in three segments: lower, top, and topgallant.
Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft, whose next destination is into the wind, turns its bow toward and through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. Sailing vessels are unable to sail higher than a certain angle towards the wind, so "beating to windward" in a zig-zag fashion with a series of tacking maneuvers, allows a vessel to sail towards a destination that is closer to the wind that the vessel can sail directly.
The beam of a ship is its width at its widest point. The maximum beam (BMAX) is the distance between planes passing through the outer sides of the ship, beam of the hull (BH) only includes permanently fixed parts of the hull, and beam at waterline (BWL) is the maximum width where the hull intersects the surface of the water.
The harbour defence motor launch (HDML) was a 72 ft (22 m) long British-designed motor vessel used for harbour defence during World War II. Nearly 500 were built by numerous Allied countries during the war.
Shell plating is the outer-most structure on the hull of a steel or aluminum ship or boat.
In some boats and ships, a transom is the aft transverse surface of the hull that forms the stern of a vessel. Historically, they are a development from the canoe stern wherein which both bow and stern are pointed.
In shipping, break-bulk, breakbulk, or break bulk cargo, also called general cargo, is goods that are stowed on board ships in individually counted units. Traditionally, the large numbers of items are recorded on distinct bills of lading that list them by different commodities. This is in contrast to cargo stowed in modern intermodal containers as well as bulk cargo, which goes directly, unpackaged and in large quantities, into a ship's hold(s), measured by volume or weight.
A tell-tale, in a nautical or sailing context, is a piece of yarn or fabric attached to a sail, a stay, or any rigging on a sailboat. Typically, a tell-tale is on a port and a starboard stay.
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".
This glossary defines the various types of ships and accessory watercraft that have been used in service of the United States. Such service is mainly defined as military vessels used in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, as well as the defunct, incorporated, or renamed institutions such as the United States Revenue Cutter Service. Service of the United States can also be defined in this context as special government missions in the form of expeditions, such as the Wilkes Expedition or the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition. The scope of the glossary encompasses both the "Old Navy" of the United States, from its beginnings as the "Continental Navy", through the "New Navy" and up to modern day. The watercraft included in the glossary are derived from United States ships with logbooks published by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Wing and wing, Wing on wing, Goosewinging or Goosewinged, is a term used to define, in a fore-and-aft-rigged sailboat, the way to navigate sailing directly downwind, with the mainsail and the foresail extended outwards on opposite sides of the boat, forming a 180º angle, to maximize the projected area of sail exposed to the wind. The jib is held out by the clew with a whisker pole, to allow the capture of the maximum amount of wind on the chosen side, without being covered by the mainsail.