Deep Blue Sea Training

B

• B & R rig - A style of standing rigging used on sailboats that lacks a backstay. The mast is said to be supported like a "tripod," with swept-back spreaders and a forestay. Used widely on Hunter brand sailboats, among others. Designed and named by Lars Bergstrom and Sven Ridder and protected by US Patent number 3866558, dated February 18, 1975.
• Back and fill - To use the advantage of the tide being with you when the wind is not.
• Backstays - Long lines or cables, reaching from the stern of the vessel to the mast heads, used to support the mast.
• Baggywrinkle - A soft covering for cables (or any other obstructions) that prevents sail chafing.
• Bailer - A device for removing water that has entered the boat.
• Ballast - Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a vessel to provide stability. (See also in ballast.)
• Ballast tank - A device used on ships and submarines and other submersibles to control buoyancy and stability.
• Balls to four watch - The 0000–0400 watch. (US Navy)
• Bank - A large area of elevated sea floor.
• Banyan - Traditional Royal Navy term for a day or shorter period of rest and relaxation.
• Bar - Large mass of sand or earth, formed by the surge of the sea. They are mostly found at the entrances of great rivers or havens, and often render navigation extremely dangerous, but confer tranquility once inside. See also: touch and go, grounding. Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Crossing the bar" is an allegory for death.
• Bar pilot - A bar pilot guides ships over the dangerous sandbars at the mouth of rivers and bays.
• Barber hauler - A technique of temporarily rigging sailboat lazy sheet allowing the boat to sail closer to the wind. i.e. Using the lazy jib sheet to pull the jib closer to the mid line, allowing a point of sail that would otherwise not be achievable.
• Barbette - 1. During the second half of the 19th century, a fixed armored enclosure protecting a ship's guns aboard warships without gun turrets, generally taking the form of a ring of armor over which guns mounted on an open-topped rotating turntable could fire. 2. Since the late 19th century, the inside fixed trunk of a warship's turreted gun-mounting, on which the turret revolves, containing the hoists for shells and cordite from the shell-room and magazine.
• Barca-longa - A two- or three-masted lugger used for fishing on the coasts of Spain and Portugal and more widely in the Mediterranean Sea in the late 17th century and 18th century. The British Royal Navy also used them for shore raids and as dispatch boats in the Mediterranean.
• Bareboat charter - An arrangement for the chartering or hiring of a vessel, whereby the vessel's owner provides no crew or provisions as part of the agreement; instead, the people who rent the vessel are responsible for crewing and provisioning her.
• Barge - 1. A towed or self-propelled flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river, canal, and coastal transport of heavy goods. 2. Admiral's barge: A boat at the disposal of an admiral for his or her use as transportation between a larger vessel and the shore or within a harbor.
• Bark - Alternative spelling of barque.
• Barkentine - Alternative spelling of barquentine.
• Barque (also bark) - A sailing vessel of three or more masts, with all masts but the sternmost square-rigged, the sternmost being fore-and-aft-rigged.
• Barquentine (also barkentine) - A sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square-rigged foremast and all other masts fore-and-aft rigged.
• Barrack ship - A ship or craft designed to function as a floating barracks for housing military personnel.
• Barrelman - A sailor that was stationed in the crow's nest.
• Batten - 1. A stiff strip used to support the roach of a sail, enabling increased sail area. 2. Any thin strip of material (wood, plastic etc) which can be used any number of ways.
• Batten down the hatches - To prepare for inclement weather by securing the closed hatch covers with wooden battens so as to prevent water from entering from any angle.
• Battle Stations (also: general quarters, action stations) - 1. An announcement made aboard a naval warship to signal the crew to prepare for battle, imminent damage, or a damage emergency (such as a fire). 2. Specific positions in a naval warship to which one or more crew are assigned when battle stations is called.
• Battlecruiser - A type of large capital ship of the first half of the 20th century, similar in size, appearance, and cost to a battleship and typically armed with the same kind of heavy guns, but much more lightly armored (on the scale of cruiser) and therefore faster than a battleship but more vulnerable to damage.
• Battleship - A type of large, heavily armored warship of the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century armed with heavy-caliber guns, designed to fight other battleships in a line of battle. It was the successor to the ship-of-the-line of the Age of Sail.
• Beaching - Deliberately running a vessel aground to load and unload (as with landing craft), or sometimes to prevent a damaged vessel sinking.
• Beacon - A lighted or unlighted fixed aid to navigation attached directly to the earth's surface. (Lights and daybeacons both constitute beacons.)
• Beakhead - 1. The ram on the prow of a fighting galley of ancient and medieval times. 2. The protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship of the 16th to the 18th century, usually ornate, used as a working platform by sailors handling the sails of the bowsprit. It also housed the crew's heads (toilets).
• Beam - The width of a vessel at the widest point, or a point alongside the ship at the midpoint of its length.
• Beam ends - The sides of a ship. "On her beam ends" may mean the vessel is literally on her side and possibly about to capsize; more often, the phrase means the vessel is listing 45 degrees or more.
• Beam reach - Sailing with the wind coming across the vessel's beam. This is normally the fastest point of sail for a fore-and-aft rigged vessel.
• Beam sea - A sea where waves are moving perpendicular to the direction a ship is moving.
• Beam wind - A wind at right angles to the vessel's course.
• Bear - Large squared off stone used with sand for scraping clean wooden decks.
• Bear away - To steer (a vessel) away from the wind.
• Bear down or bear away - Turn away from the wind, often with reference to a transit.
• Bear up - Turn into the wind.
• Bearing - The horizontal direction of a line of sight between two objects on the surface of the earth. See also absolute bearing and relative bearing.
• Beat to quarters - Prepare for battle (beat = beat the drum to signal the need for battle preparation)
• Beating or Beat to - Sailing as close as possible towards the wind (perhaps only about 60°) in a zig-zag course to attain an upwind direction to which it is impossible to sail directly.(also tacking)
• Beaufort scale - The scale describing wind force devised by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort in 1808, in which winds are graded by the effect of their force (originally, the amount of sail that a fully rigged frigate could carry).
• Becalm - To cut off the wind from a sailing vessel, either by the proximity of land or by another vessel.
• Becalmed - Unable to move due to lack of wind; said of a sailing vessel.
• Before the mast - Literally, the area of a ship before the foremast (the forecastle). Most often used to refer to men whose living quarters are located here, officers being quartered in the stern-most areas of the ship (near the quarterdeck). Officer-trainees lived between the two ends of the ship and become known as "midshipmen". Crew members who started out as seamen, then became midshipmen, and later, officers, were said to have gone from "one end of the ship to the other". (See also hawsepiper.)
• Belay - 1. To make fast a line around a fitting, usually a cleat or belaying pin. 2. To secure a climbing person in a similar manner. 3. An order to halt a current activity or countermand an order prior to execution.
• Belaying pins - Short movable bars of iron or hard wood to which running rigging may be secured, or belayed.
• Bell - A type of buoy with a large bell and hanging hammers that sound by wave action.
• Below - On or into a lower deck, e.g., The captain has gone below.
• Below decks - In or into any of the spaces below the main deck of a vessel.
• Belt armor - A layer of heavy metal armor plated onto or within the outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers, usually covering the warship from her main deck down to some distance below the waterline. If built within the hull, rather than forming the outer hull, the belt would be installed at an inclined angle to improve the warship's protection from shells striking the hull.
• Bend - 1. A knot used to join two ropes or lines. See also hitch. 2. To attach a rope to an object 3. Fastening a sail to a yard.
• Bermuda rig or Bermudan rig - A triangular mainsail, without any upper spar, which is hoisted up the mast by a single halyard attached to the head of the sail. This configuration, introduced to Europe about 1920, allows the use of a tall mast, enabling sails to be set higher where wind speed is greater.
• Bermuda sloop - A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with Bermuda rig developed in Bermuda in the 17th century. In its purest form, it is single-masted, although Bermuda sloops can have up to three masts, three-masted ships being referred to as schooners. Originally gaff rigged, but evolved to use Bermuda rig. The Bermuda sloop is the basis of nearly all modern sailing yachts.
• Berth (moorings) - A location in a port or harbour used specifically for mooring vessels while not at sea.
• Berth (navigation) - Safety margin of distance to be kept by a vessel from another vessel or from an obstruction, hence the phrase, "to give a wide berth."
• Berth (sleeping) - A bed or sleeping accommodation on a boat or ship.
• Best bower (anchor) - The larger of two anchors carried in the bow; so named as it was the last, best hope.
• Between wind and water - The part of a ship's hull that is sometimes submerged and sometimes brought above water by the rolling of the vessel.
• Bight - 1. Bight, a loop in rope or line – a hitch or knot tied on the bight is one tied in the middle of a rope, without access to the ends. 2. An indentation in a coastline.
• Bilander (also billander or be'landre) - a small European merchant sailing ship with two masts, the mainmast lateen-rigged with a trapezoidal mainsail, and the foremast carrying the conventional square course and square topsail. Used in the Netherlands for coast and canal traffic and occasionally in the North Sea, but more frequently used in the Mediterranean Sea.
• Bilge - 1. The compartment at the bottom of the hull of a ship or boat where water collects and must be pumped out of the vessel. The space between the botton hull planking and the ceiling of the hold. 2. To spring a leak in the bilge. 3. To break open a vessel′s bilge.
• Bilge keels - A pair of keels on either side of the hull, usually slanted outwards. In yachts, they allow the use of a drying mooring, the boat standing upright on the keels (and often a skeg) when the tide is out.
• Bilged on her anchor - A ship that has run upon her own anchor, so the anchor cable runs under the hull.
• Bill - The extremity of the arm of an anchor; the point of or beyond the fluke.
• Bimini top - Open-front canvas top for the cockpit of a boat, usually supported by a metal frame.
• Bimmy - A punitive instrument.
• Binnacle - The stand on which the ship's compass is mounted.
• Binnacle list - A ship's sick list. The list of men unable to report for duty was given to the officer or mate of the watch by the ship's surgeon. The list was kept at the binnacle.
• Bird farm - United States Navy slang for an aircraft carrier.
• Bite - Verb used in reference to a rudder, as in "the rudder begins to bite." When a vessel has steerageway the rudder will act to steer the vessel, i.e. it has enough water flow past it to steer with. Physically this is noticeable with tiller or unassisted wheel steering by the rudder exhibiting resistance to being turned from the straight ahead – this resistance is the rudder "biting" and is how a helmsman first senses that the vessel has acquired steerageway.
• Bitt or bitts - 1. A post or pair mounted on the ship's bow, for fastening ropes or cables. 2. Strong vertical timbers or irons fastened through the deck beams used for securing ropes or hawsers.
• Bit heads - The tops of two massive timbers that support the windlass on a sailing barge.
• Bitter end - The last part or loose end of a rope or cable. The anchor cable is tied to the bitts; when the cable is fully paid out, the bitter end has been reached.
• Black gang - The engineering crew of the vessel, i.e., crew members who work in the vessel's engine room, fire room, and boiler room, so called because they would be covered in coal dust during the days of coal-fired steamships.
• Block - A pulley with one or more sheaves (grooves), over which a rope is roved. It can be used to chage the direction of the rope, or in pairs used to form a tackle.
• Blockship - A vessel sunk deliberately to block a waterway to prevent the waterway′s use by an enemy.
• Blue Peter - A blue and white flag (the flag for the letter "P") hoisted at the foretrucks of ships about to sail. Formerly a white ship on a blue ground, but later a white square on a blue ground.
• Board - 1. To step onto, climb onto, or otherwise enter a vessel. 2. The side of a vessel. 3. The distance a sailing vessel runs between tacks when working to windward.
• Boat - 1. A small craft or vessel designed to float on, and provide transport over, or under, water. 2. Naval slang for a submarine of any size.
• Boat-hook - A pole with a hook on the end, used to reach into the water to catch buoys or other floating objects.
• Boatswain or bosun (both /ˈboʊsən/) - A non-commissioned officer responsible for the sails, ropes, rigging and boats on a ship who issues "piped" commands to seamen.
• Boatswain's call, also bosun's call, boatswain's pipe, bosun's pipe, boatswain's whistle, or bosun's whistle - A high-pitched pipe or a non-diaphragm-type whistle used on naval ships by a boatswain, historically to pass commands to the crew but in modern times limited to ceremonial use.
• Boatswain's chair or bosun's chair - A short board or swatch of heavy canvas, secured in a bridle of ropes, used to hoist a man aloft or over the ship's side for painting and similar work. Modern boatswain's chairs incorporate safety harnesses to prevent the occupant from falling.
• Boatswain's pipe - See boatswain's call.
• Boatswain's whistle - See boatswain's call.
• Boatwright - A maker of boats, especially of traditional wooden construction.
• Bob or bobfly - A pennant or flag bearing the owner's colours, mounted on the Topsail trunk.
• Bobstay - A stay which holds the bowsprit downwards, counteracting the effect of the forestay and the lift of sails. Usually made of wire or chain to eliminate stretch.
• Body plan - In shipbuilding, an end elevation showing the contour of the sides of a ship at certain points of her length.
• Boiler room - See fire room.
• Bolt rope - A rope, sewn on to reinforce the edges of a sail.
• Bollard - From "bol" or "bole", the round trunk of a tree. A substantial vertical pillar to which lines may be made fast. Generally on the quayside rather than the ship.
• Bombay runner - Large cockroach.
• Bonded jacky - A type of tobacco or sweet cake.
• Bonnet - A strip of canvas secured to the foot of the course (square sail) to increase sail area in light airs.
• Booby = A type of bird that has little fear and therefore is particularly easy to catch.
• Booby hatch - A sliding hatch or cover.
• Boom (navigational barrier) - A floating barrier to control navigation into and out of rivers and harbours.
• Boom (sailing) - A spar attached to the foot of a fore-and-aft sail.
• Boomer - Slang term in the US Navy for a ballistic missile submarine.
• Boom gallows - A raised crossmember that supports a boom when the sail is lowered (obviates the need for a topping lift).
• Boomie or Booms'l rig - A ketch rigged barge with gaff (instead of spritsail) and boom on main and mizzen.Booms'l rig could also refer to cutter rigged early barges.
• Boom vang or vang - A sail control that lets one apply downward tension on a boom, countering the upward tension provided by the sail. The boom vang adds an element of control to sail shape when the sheet is let out enough that it no longer pulls the boom down. Boom vang tension helps control leech twist, a primary component of sail power.
• Boomkin - See bumpkin.
• Booms - Masts or yards, lying on board in reserve.
• Bore, as in Bore up or Bore away - To assume a position to engage, or disengage, the enemy ship(s).
• Bosun - See boatswain.
• Bosun's call - See boatswain's call.
• Bosun's chair - See boatswain's chair.
• Bosun's pipe - See boatswain's call.
• Bosun's whistle - See boatswain's call.
• Bottlescrew - A device for adjusting tension in stays, shrouds and similar lines.
• Bottom - 1. The underside of a vessel; the portion of a vessel that is always underwater. 2. A ship, most often a cargo ship. 3. A cargo hold.
• Bottomry - Pledging a ship as security in a financial transaction.
• Bow - 1. The front of a vessel. 2. Either side of the front (or bow) of the vessel, i.e., the port bow and starboard bow. Something ahead and to the left of the vessel is "off the port bow", while something ahead and to the right of the vessel is "off the starboard bow." When "bow" is used in this way, the front of the vessel sometimes is called her bows (plural), a collective reference to her port and starboard bows synonymous with bow (singular) as described in Definition (1).
• Bow chaser - See chase gun
• Bowline - 1. A type of knot, producing a strong loop of a fixed size, topologically similar to a sheet bend. Also a rope attached to the side of a sail to pull it towards the bow (for keeping the windward edge of the sail steady). Also a rope attached to the foresail to hold it aback when tacking.
• Bowse - To pull or hoist.
• Bowsprit - A spar projecting from the bow used as an anchor for the forestay and other rigging. On a barge it may be pivoted so it may be steeved up in harbour.
• Bow thruster - A small propeller or water-jet at the bow, used for manoeuvring larger vessels at slow speed. May be mounted externally, or in a tunnel running through the bow from side to side.
• Boxing the compass - To state all 32 points of the compass, starting at north, proceeding clockwise. Sometimes applied to a wind that is constantly shifting.
• Boy Seaman - a young sailor, still in training
• Brace abox - To bring the foreyards flat aback to stop the ship.
• Brail - To furl or truss a sail by pulling it in towards the mast, or the ropes used to do so. To brail up – to stow the sails.
• Brake - The handle of the pump, by which it is worked.
• Brass monkey or brass monkey weather - Used in the expression "it is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
• Brass pounder - Early 20th-century slang term for a vessel's radio operator, so called because he repeatedly struck a brass key on his transmitter to broadcast in Morse code.
• Break bulk cargo (or breakbulk cargo) - Goods that must be loaded aboard a ship individually, and not in intermodal containers or in bulk, carried by a general cargo ship.
• Breakwater - 1. A structure constructed on a coast as part of a coastal defense system or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift. 2. A structure built on the forecastle of a ship intended to divert water away from the forward superstructure or gun mounts.
• Breeches buoy - A ring lifebuoy fitted with canvas breeches, functionally similar to a zip line, used to transfer people from one ship to another or to rescue people from a wrecked or sinking ship by moving them to another ship or to the shore.
• Bridge - A structure above the weather deck, extending the full width of the vessel, which houses a command centre, itself called by association, the bridge.
• Bridge wing - An open-air extension of the bridge to port or starboard, intended for use in signaling.
• Brig - 1. (historically) A vessel with two square-rigged masts. 2. (in the US) An interior area of the ship used to detain prisoners (possibly prisoners-of-war, in war-time) and stowaways, and to punish delinquent crew members. Usually resembles a prison cell with bars and a locked, hinged door.
• Brig sloop - A type of sloop-of-war introduced in the 1770s which had two square-rigged masts like a brig (in contrast to ship sloops of the time, which had three masts).
• Brigantine (also hermaphrodite brig) - A two-masted vessel, square-rigged on the foremast, but fore-and-aft-rigged on the mainmast.
• Brightwork - Exposed varnished wood or polished metal on a boat.
• Bring to - Cause a ship to be stationary by arranging the sails.
• Broach - When a sailing vessel loses control of its motion and is forced into a sudden sharp turn, often heeling heavily and in smaller vessels sometimes leading to a capsize. The change in direction is called broaching-to. Occurs when too much sail is set for a strong gust of wind, or in circumstances where the sails are unstable.
• Broad - Wide (broad) in appearance from the vantage point of a lookout or other person viewing activity in the vicinity of a ship, e.g., another ship off the starboard bow with her side facing the viewer's ship could be described as "broad on the starboard bow" of the viewer's ship.
• Broadside - 1. One side of a vessel above the waterline. 2. All the guns on one side of a warship or mounted (in rotating turrets or barbettes) so as to be able fire on the same side of a warship. 3. The simultaneous firing of all the guns on one side of a warship or able to fire on the same side of a warship. 4. Weight of broadside, the combined weight of all projectiles a ship can fire in a broadside, or the combined weight of all the shells a group of ships that have formed a line of battle collectively can fire on the same side.
• Brow - See gangplank.
• Buffer - The chief bosun's mate (in the Royal Navy), responsible for discipline.
• Bulbous bow - A protruding bulb at the bow of a ship just below the waterline which modifies the way water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency, and stability.
• Bulk cargo - Commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities.
• Bulk carrier (also bulk freighter or bulker) - A merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo in its cargo holds.
• Bulkhead - An upright wall within the hull of a ship, particularly a watertight, load-bearing wall.
• Bulwark or Bulward (/ˈbʊlək/ in nautical use) - The extension of the ship's side above the level of the weather deck.
• Bull ensign (also "boot ensign" or "George ensign") - The senior ensign (q.v.) of a US Navy command (i.e., a ship, squadron, or shore activity). The bull ensign assumes additional responsibilities beyond those of other ensigns, such as teaching less-experienced ensigns about life at sea, planning and coordinating wardroom social activities, making sure that the officers' mess runs smoothly, and serving as an officer for Navy-related social organizations. The bull ensign also serves as the focal point for the unit's expression of spirit and pride.
• Bumboat - A private boat selling goods.
• Bumpkin or boomkin - 1. A spar, similar to a bowsprit, but which projects from the stern. May be used to attach the backstay or mizzen sheets. 2. An iron bar (projecting out-board from a ship's side) to which the lower and topsail brace blocks are sometimes hooked.
• Bunker - A container for storing coal or fuel oil for a ship's engine.
• Bunker fuel or bunkers - Fuel oil for a ship.
• Bunting tosser - A signalman who prepares and flies flag hoists. Also known in the American Navy as a skivvy waver.
• Buntline - One of the lines tied to the bottom of a square sail and used to haul it up to the yard when furling.
• Buoy - A floating object of defined shape and color, which is anchored at a given position and serves as an aid to navigation.
• Buoyed up - Lifted by a buoy, especially a cable that has been lifted to prevent it from trailing on the bottom.
• Burden (Early Modern English: Burthen, Middle English: Byrthen) - The Builder's Old Measurement, expressed in "tons bm" or "tons BOM", a volumetric measurement of cubic cargo capacity, not of weight. This is the tonnage of a ship, based on the number of tuns of wine that it could carry in its holds. One 252-gallon tun of wine takes up approximately 100 cubic feet – and, incidentally, weighs 2,240 lbs (1 long ton, or Imperial ton).
• Burgee - A small flag, typically triangular, flown from the masthead of a yacht to indicate yacht-club membership.
• By and large - By means into the wind, while large means with the wind. "By and large" is used to indicate all possible situations "the ship handles well both by and large".
• By the board - Anything that has gone overboard.

C

• Cabin - an enclosed room on a deck or flat.
• Cabin boy - attendant on passengers and crew. often a young man.
• Cable - 1. A large rope. 2. A cable length.
• Cable length - A measure of length or distance. Equivalent to (UK) 1/10 nautical mile, approx. 600 feet; (US) 120 fathoms, 720 feet (219 m); other countries use different values. Sometimes called simply a cable.
• Caboose - a small ship's kitchen, or galley on deck.
• Cabotage - The transport of goods or passengers between two points in the same country, alongside coastal waters, by a vessel or an aircraft registered in another country.
• Camels - Loaded vessels lashed tightly, one on each side of another vessel, and then emptied to provide additional buoyancy that reduces the draught of the ship in the middle.
• Can - 1. A type of navigational buoy often a vertical drum, but if not, always square in silhouette, colored red in IALA region A or green in IALA region B (the Americas, Japan, Korea and the Philippines). In channel marking its use is opposite that of a "nun buoy". 2. A shortened version of tin can.
• Canal boat - A specialized watercraft designed for operation on a canal.
• Canister - a type of antipersonnel cannon load in which lead balls or other loose metallic items were enclosed in a tin or iron shell. On firing, the shell would disintegrate, releasing the smaller metal objects with a shotgun-like effect.
• Canoe stern - A design for the stern of a yacht which is pointed, like a bow, rather than squared off as a transom.
• Cape Horn fever - The name of the fake illness a malingerer is pretending to suffer from.
• Capital ship - A navy's most important warships, generally possessing the heaviest firepower and armor and traditionally much larger than other naval vessels, but not formally defined. During the Age of Sail, generally understood to be ships-of-the-line; during the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century, understood to be battleships and battlecruisers; and since the 1940s considered to include aircraft carriers. Since the second half of the 20th century, ballistic missile submarines sometimes have been considered capital ships.
• Capsize - When a ship or boat lists too far and rolls over, exposing the keel. On large vessels, this often results in the sinking of the ship. Compare Turtling, infra.
• Capstan - A large winch with a vertical axis. A full-sized human-powered capstan is a waist-high cylindrical machine, operated by a number of hands who each insert a horizontal capstan bar in holes in the capstan and walk in a circle. Used to wind in anchors or other heavy objects; and sometimes to administer flogging over.
• Captain - 1. The person lawfully in command of a vessel. "Captain" is an informal title of respect given to the commander of a naval vessel regardless of his or her formal rank; aboard a merchant ship, the ship's master is her "captain." 2. A naval officer with a rank between commander and commodore. 3. In the US Navy, US Coast Guard, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps, a commissioned officer of a grade superior to a commander and junior to a rear admiral (lower half), equal in grade or rank to a US Army, US Marine Corps, or US Air Force colonel.
• Captain of the Port - 1. In the United Kingdom, a Royal Navy officer, usually a captain, responsible for the day-to-day operation of a naval dockyard. 2. In the United States, a US Coast Guard officer, usually a captain, responsible for enforcement of safety, security, and marine environmental protection regulations in a commercial port.
• Captain's daughter - The cat o' nine tails, which in principle is only used on board on the captain's (or a court martial's) personal orders.
• Car carrier - A cargo ship specially designed or fitted to carry large numbers of automobiles Modern pure car carriers have a fully enclosed, boxlike superstructure that extends along the entire length and across the entire breadth of the ship, enclosing the automobiles. The similar pure car/truck carrier also can accommodate trucks.
• Car float (also railroad car float or rail barge) - An unpowered barge with railroad tracks mounted on its deck, used to move railroad cars across water obstacles.
• Caravel (also caravelle) - A small, highly maneuverable sailing ship with lateen rig used by the Portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean.
• Cardinal - Referring to the four main points of the compass: north, south, east and west. See also bearing.
• Careening - Tilting a ship on its side, usually when beached, to clean or repair the hull below the water line. Also known as to "heave down".
• Cargo ship - Any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another, including general cargo ships (designed to carry break bulk cargo), bulk carriers, container ships, multipurpose vessels, and tankers. Tankers, however, although technically cargo ships, are routinely thought of as constituting a completely separate category.
• Carpenter - 1. In the Age of Sail, a warrant officer responsible for the hull, masts, spars, and boats of a vessel, and whose responsibility was to sound the well to see if the vessel was making water. 2. A senior rating responsible for all the woodwork aboard a vessel.
• Carrack (also nau) - A three- or four-masted sailing ship used by Western Europeans in the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th through the early 17th century.
• Carrier - An aircraft carrier.
• Carronade - A short, smoothbore, cast iron naval cannon, used from the 1770s to the 1850s as a powerful, short-range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon.
• Carvel built - A method of constructing wooden hulls by fixing planks to a frame so that the planks butt up against each other. Cf. "clinker built".
• Cat - 1. To prepare an anchor, after raising it by lifting it with a tackle to the cat head, prior to securing (fishing) it alongside for sea. (An anchor raised to the cat head is said to be catted.) 2. The cat o' nine tails (see below). 3. A cat-rigged boat or catboat.
• Cat o' nine tails - A short nine-tailed whip kept by the bosun's mate to flog sailors (and soldiers in the Army). When not in use, the cat was kept in a baize bag, this is a possible origin for the term "cat out of the bag," though livestock trade was more likely where this phrase came from. "Not enough room to swing a cat" also derives from this.
• Catamaran - A vessel with two hulls.
• Catboat - A cat-rigged vessel with a single mast mounted close to the bow, and only one sail, usually on a gaff.
• Catharpin - A short rope or iron clamp used to brace in the shrouds toward the masts so as to give a freer sweep to the yards.
• Cathead - A beam extending out from the hull used to support an anchor when raised in order to secure or 'fish' it.
• Cats paws - Light variable winds on calm waters producing scattered areas of small waves.
• Ceiling - 1. A lining applied to the interior of a hull for both aesthetic reasons and to bar or insulate the ship's cargo from the cold hull surface. Often made of thin strips of wood, attached horizontally with a small gap between to allow air flow to the interior hull surface. 2. The inside planking forming the floor of a barges hold; at the lining was carried up to the inwale.
• Center of effort (or centre of effort) - The point of origin of net aerodynamic force on sails, roughly located in the geometric center of a sail, but the actual position of the center of effort will vary with sail plan, sail trim or airfoil profile, boat trim, and point of sail. Also known as center (or centre) of pressure.
• Center of lateral resistance (or centre of lateral resistance) - The point of origin of net hydrodynamic resistance on the submerged structure of a boat, especially a sailboat. This is the pivot point about which the boat turns when unbalanced external forces are applied, similar to the center of gravity. On a balanced sailboat the center of effort should align vertically with the center of lateral resistance. If this is not the case the boat will be unbalanced and exhibit either lee helm or weather helm and will be difficult to control.
• Centerline (or centerline) - An imaginary line down the center of a vessel lengthwise. Any structure or anything mounted or carried on a vessel that straddles this line and is equidistant from either side of the vessel is on the centerline (or centreline).
• Centreboard (or centerboard) - A board or plate lowered through the hull of a dinghy on the centreline to resist leeway.
• Chafing - Wear on line or sail caused by constant rubbing against another surface.
• Chafing gear - Material applied to a line or spar to prevent or reduce chafing. See Baggywrinkle.
• Chain locker - A space in the forward part of the ship, typically beneath the bow in front of the foremost collision bulkhead, that contains the anchor chain when the anchor is secured for sea.
• Chain-shot - Cannon balls linked with chain used to damage rigging and masts.
• Chain-wale or channel - A broad, thick plank that projects horizontally from each of a ship's sides abreast a mast, distinguished as the fore, main, or mizzen channel accordingly, serving to extend the base for the shrouds, which supports the mast.
• Chains - Small platforms built into the sides of a ship to spread the shrouds to a more advantageous angle. Also used as a platform for manual depth sounding.
• Charley Noble - The metal stovepipe chimney from a cook shack on the deck of a ship or from a stove in a galley.
• Charthouse - A compartment, especially in the Royal Navy, from which the ship was navigated.
• Chase gun, chase piece, or chaser - A cannon pointing forward or aft, often of longer range than other guns. Those on the bow (bow chaser) were used to fire upon a ship ahead, while those on the rear (stern chaser) were used to ward off pursuing vessels. Unlike guns pointing to the side, chasers could be brought to bear in a chase without slowing.
• Cheeks - 1. Wooden blocks at the side of a spar. 2. The sides of a block or gun-carriage.
• Chine - 1. An angle in the hull. 2. A line formed where the sides of a boat meet the bottom. Soft chine is when the two sides join at a shallow angle, and hard chine is when they join at a steep angle.
• Chock - Hole or ring attached to the hull to guide a line via that point. An opening in a ships bulwark normally oval in shape designed to allow mooring lines to be fastened to cleats or bits mounted to the ship's deck.
• Chock-a-block - Rigging blocks that are so tight against one another that they cannot be further tightened.
• Chronometer - A timekeeper accurate enough to be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation.
• Citadel - A fortified safe room on a vessel to take shelter in the event of pirate attack. Previously, a fortified room to protect ammunition and machinery from damage.
• Civil Red Ensign - The British Naval Ensign or Flag of the British Merchant Navy, a red flag with the Union Flag in the upper left corner. Colloquially called the "red duster".
• Class - 1. A group of naval ships of the same or similar design. 2. A standard of construction for merchant vessels, including standards for specific types or specialized capabilities of some types of merchant vessels. A ship meeting the standard is in class, one not meeting them is out of class.
• Clean bill of health - A certificate issued by a port indicating that the ship carries no infectious diseases. Also called a pratique.
• Clean slate - At the helm, the watch keeper would record details of speed, distances, headings, etc. on a slate. At the beginning of a new watch the slate would be wiped clean.
• Clear - To perform customs and immigration legalities prior to leaving port.
• Cleat - A stationary device used to secure a rope aboard a vessel.
• Clench - A method of fixing together two pieces of wood, usually overlapping planks, by driving a nail through both planks as well as a washer-like rove. The nail is then burred or riveted over to complete the fastening.
• Clew - The lower corners of square sails or the corner of a triangular sail at the end of the boom.
• Clew-lines - Used to truss up the clews, the lower corners of square sails. Used to reduce and stow a barge's topsail.
• Clinker built - A method of constructing hulls that involves overlapping planks, and/or plates, much like Viking longships, resulting in speed and flexibility in small boat hulls. Cf. "carvel built".
• Clipper - A very fast sailing ship of the 19th century that had three or more masts, a square rig, a long, low hull, and a sharply raked stem.
• Close aboard - Near a ship.
• Close-hauled - Of a vessel beating as close to the wind direction as possible.
• Clove hitch - A bend used to attach a rope to a post or bollard. Also used to finish tying off the foresail.
• Club hauling - The ship drops one of its anchors at high speed to turn abruptly. This was sometimes used as a means to get a good firing angle on a pursuing vessel.
• Coal hulk - A hulk used to store coal.
• Coal trimmer, or Trimmer - person responsible for ensuring that a coal-fired vessel remains in 'trim' (evenly balanced) as coal is consumed on a voyage.
• Coaming - The raised edge of a hatch, cockpit or skylight to help keep out water.
• Coaster (or coastal trading vessel) - A shallow-hulled ship used for trade between locations on the same island or continent.
• Cockbill - Used of spars, to stow by swinging askew.
• Cockpit - The seating area (not to be confused with Deck). The area towards the stern of a small decked vessel that houses the rudder controls.
• Cog - A type of sailing ship with a single mast and square-rigged single sail first developed in the 10th century and widely used, particularly in the Baltic Sea region, in seagoing trade from the 12th through the 14th century.
• Collier - A bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially such a ship in naval use to supply coal to coal-fired warships.
• Comber - A long, curving wave breaking on the shore.
• Come about - 1. To tack. 2. To change tack. 3. To manoeuver the bow of a sailing vessel across the wind so that the wind changes from one side of the vessel to the other. 4. To position a vessel with respect to the wind after tacking.
• Come to - To stop a sailing vessel, especially by turning into the wind.
• Commission - To formally place (a naval vessel) into active service, after which the vessel is said to be in commission. Sometimes used less formally to mean placing a commercial ship into service.
• Commodore - 1. Commodore (rank), a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Often equivalent to the rank of "flotilla admiral" or sometimes "counter admiral" in non-English-speaking navies. 2. Convoy Commodore, a civilian put in charge of the good order of the merchant ships in British convoys during World War II, but with no authority over naval ships escorting the convoy. 3. Commodore (yacht club), an officer of a yacht club. 4. Commodore (Sea Scouts), a position in the Boy Scouts of America's Sea Scout program.
• Communication tube, speaking tube, or voice tube - An air-filled tube, usually armored, allowing speech between the conning tower with the below-decks control spaces in a warship.
• Companionway - A raised and windowed hatchway in the ship's deck, with a ladder leading below and the hooded entrance-hatch to the main cabins.
• Compass - Navigational instrument showing the direction of the vessel in relation to the Earth's geographical poles or magnetic poles. Commonly consists of a magnet aligned with the Earth's magnetic field, but other technologies have also been developed, such as the gyrocompass.
• Complement - The number of persons in a ship's crew, including officers.
• Comprise - To include or contain: As applied to a naval task force, the listing of all assigned units for a single transient purpose (mission). "The Task Force comprises Ship A, Ship B, and Ship C." 'Comprise' means exhaustive inclusion – there aren't any other parts to the task force, and each ship has a permanent squadron existence, independent of the task force.
• Conn - (Also written con, conne, conde, cunde, or cun) To direct a ship or submarine from a position of command. While performing this duty, an officer is said to have the conn.
• Conning officer - An officer on a naval vessel responsible for instructing the helmsman on the course to steer. While performing this duty, the officer is said to have the conn.
• Conning tower - 1. The armoured control tower of an iron or steel warship built between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries from which the ship was navigated in battle. 2. A tower-like structure on the dorsal (topside) surface of a submarine, serving in submarines built before the mid-20th century as a connecting structure between the bridge and pressure hull and housing instruments and controls from which the periscopes were used to direct the submarine and launch torpedo attacks. Since the mid-20th century, it has been replaced by the sail (United States usage) or fin (European and British Commonwealth usage), a structure similar in appearance which no longer plays a function in directing the submarine.
• Consort - Unpowered Great Lakes vessels, usually a fully loaded schooner, barge, or steamer barge, towed by a larger steamer that would often tow more than one barge. The consort system was used in the Great Lakes from the 1860s to around 1920.
• Constant bearing, decreasing range (CBDR) - When two boats are approaching each other from any angle and this angle remains the same over time (constant bearing) they are on a collision course. Because of the implication of disaster (ships might collide) it has come to mean a problem or an obstacle which is heading your way. Often used in the sense of a warning, as in "watch out for this problem you might not see coming."
• Container ship - A cargo ship that carries all of her cargo in truck-size intermodal containers.
• Convoy - A group of ships traveling together for mutual support and protection.
• Corinthian - An amateur yachter.
• Corrector - A device to correct the ship's compass, for example counteracting errors due to the magnetic effects of a steel hull.
• Corsair - 1. A French privateer, especially from the port of St-Malo. 2. Any privateer or pirate. 3. A ship used by privateers or pirates, especially of French nationality. 4. Corsair, a class of 16-foot (4.9-meter) three-handed sailing dinghy.
• Corvette - 1. A flush-decked sailing warship of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries having a single tier of guns, ranked next below a frigate. Called in the US Navy a sloop-of-war. 2. A lightly armed and armored warship of the 20th and 21st centuries, smaller than a frigate, capable of trans-oceanic duty.
• Cottonclad - A steam-powered wooden warship protected from enemy fire by bales of cotton lining its sides, most commonly associated with some of the warships employed by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861–1865).
• Counter - The part of the stern above the waterline that extends beyond the rudder stock culminating in a small transom. A long counter increases the waterline length when the boat is heeled, so increasing hull speed.
• Counterflood - To deliberately flood compartments on the opposite side from already flooded ones. Usually done to reduce a list.
• Course - The direction in which a vessel is being steered, usually given in degrees.
• Courses - the lowest square sail on each mast – The mainsail, foresail, and the mizzen on a four masted ship (the after most mast usually sets a gaff driver or spanker instead of a square sail).
• Cowl - 1. A ship's ventilator with a bell-shaped top which can be swivelled to catch the wind and force it below. 2. A vertical projection of a ship's funnel which directs the smoke away from the bridge.
• Coxswain or cockswain /ˈkɒksən/ - The helmsman or crew member in command of a boat.
• Crab - A winch used for raising the leeboard which has a barrel fir pulling in the staysail sheets.
• Crance/Crans/Cranze iron - A fitting, mounted at the end of a bowsprit to which stays are attached.
• Crane vessel or crane ship - A ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads.
• Crazy Ivan - US Navy slang for a maneuver in which a submerged Soviet or Russian submarine suddenly turns 180 degrees or through 360 degrees to detect submarines following it.
• Crew - 1. On warships and merchant ships, those members of a ship's company who are not officers 2. On leisure vessels with no formal chain of command, those persons who are not the skipper or passengers.
• Crew management - Otherwise known as crewing, are the services rendered by specialised shipping companies to manage the human resources and manning of all types of vessels, including recruitment, deployment to vessel, scheduling, training, as well as the ongoing management and administrative duties of seafarers, such as payroll, travel arrangements, insurance and health schemes, overall career development, as well as their day-to-day welfare.
• Cringle - A rope loop, usually at the corners of a sail, for fixing the sail to a spar. They are often reinforced with a metal eye.
• Cro'jack or crossjack - a square yard used to spread the foot of a topsail where no course is set, e.g. on the foremast of a topsail schooner or above the driver on the mizzen mast of a ship rigged vessel.
• Crosstrees - two horizontal struts at the upper ends of the topmasts of sailboats, used to anchor the shrouds from the topgallant mast. Lateral spraders for the topmast shrouds (standing back stays).
• Crow's nest - Specifically a masthead constructed with sides and sometimes a roof to shelter the lookouts from the weather, generally by whaling vessels, this has become a generic term for what is properly called masthead.
• Cruise ship - A passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way. Transportation is not the prime purpose, as cruise ships operate mostly on routes that return passengers to their originating port. A cruise ship contrasts with a passenger liner, which is a passenger ship that provides a scheduled service between published ports primarily as a mode of transportation. Large, prestigious passenger ships used for either purpose sometimes are called ocean liners.
• Cruiser - 1. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, a classification for a wide variety of gun- and sometimes torpedo-armed warships, usually but not always armored, intended for independent scouting, raiding, or commerce protection; some were designed also to provide direct support to a battlefleet. Cruisers carried out functions performed previously by the cruising ships (sailing frigates and sloops) of the Age of Sail. 2. From the early 20th century to the mid-20th century, a type of armored warship with varying armament and of various sizes, but always smaller than a battleship and larger than a destroyer, capable of both direct support of a battle fleet and independent operations, armed with guns and sometimes torpedoes. 3. After the mid-20th century, various types of warships of intermediate size armed with guided missiles and sometimes guns, intended for air defense of aircraft carriers and associated task forces or for anti-ship missile attack against such forces; virtually indistinguishable from large destroyers since the late 20th century.
• Crutches - Metal Y shaped pins to hold oars whilst rowing.
• Cuddy - A small cabin in a boat; a cabin, for the use of the captain, in the after part of a sailing ship under the poop deck.
• Cunningham - A line invented by Briggs Cunningham, used to control the shape of a sail.
• Cut splice - A join between two lines, similar to an eye-splice, where each rope end is joined to the other a short distance along, making an opening which closes under tension.
• Cut and run - When wanting to make a quick escape, a ship might cut lashings to sails or cables for anchors, causing damage to the rigging, or losing an anchor, but shortening the time needed to make ready by bypassing the proper procedures.
• Cut of his jib - The "cut" of a sail refers to its shape. Since this would vary between ships, it could be used both to identify a familiar vessel at a distance, and to judge the possible sailing qualities of an unknown one. Also used figuratively of people.
• Cutter - 1. A small single-masted boat, fore-and-aft rigged, with two or more headsails and often a bowsprit. The mast is set farther back than on a sloop. 2. A small boat serving a larger vessel, used to ferry passengers or light stores between larger vessels and the shore. 3. In the 20th and 21st centuries, a small- or medium-sized vessel whose occupants exercise official authority, such as harbor pilots' cutters, US Coast Guard Cutters, and UK Border Agency cutters.
• Cutwater - The forward curve of the stem of a ship.