A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats. [1]
A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats. [1]
The term is probably related to bole , meaning a tree trunk. [2] [3] [4] The earliest citation given by the Oxford English Dictionary (referring to a maritime bollard) dates from 1844, [2] although an account describing bollards as "huge posts" in a shipyard is also known from 1817. [5]
In maritime contexts, a bollard is either a wooden or iron post found as a deck-fitting on a ship or boat, and used to secure ropes for towing, mooring and other purposes; or its counterpart on land, a short wooden, iron, or stone post on a quayside to which craft can be moored. The Sailor's Word-Book of 1867 defines a bollard in a more specific context as "a thick piece of wood on the head of a whale-boat, round which the harpooner gives the line a turn, in order to veer it steadily, and check the animal's velocity". [2] [6] Bollards on ships, when arranged in pairs, may also be referred to as "bitts". [7] [8]
A conventional measure of the pulling or towing power of a watercraft, defined as the force exerted on a shore-mounted bollard through a tow-line by a vessel under full power, is known as bollard pull.
although the machinery was in every respect most powerful, and more than sufficient to effect the purpose, yet the ground (newly made) in which the bollards (huge posts) were fixed, was shaken by the tremendous strain, and during the operation it was much feared that it would give way before the ship could be got up.
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