A marine insurance term indicating that the cost of repairs to a vessel is more than the cost of the vessel and cargo.

"Leading" - A line that lead from its point of attachment toward the stern.

The situation of the anchor when it is raised clear of the ground. The same as a-weigh.

Back To Top

To back an anchor is to carry out a smaller one ahead of the one by which the vessel rides, to take off some of the strain.
To back a sail is throw it aback.
To back and fill is alternately to back and fill the sails.

A navigation instrument used to measure the apparent height of a landmark whose actual height is known such as the top of a lighthouse. From this information, the ship's distance from that landmark can be calculated.

To bale a boat is to throw water out of her.
A fitting on the end of a spar to which a line may be led.

"Whoever, on the high seas, or within the United States, willfully and corruptly conspires, combines, and confederates with any other person, such other person being either within or without the United States, to cast away or otherwise destroy any vessel, with intent to injure any person that may have underwritten or may thereafter underwrite any policy insurance thereon or on goods on board thereof, or with intent to injure any person that has lent or advanced, or may lend or advance, any money on such vessel on bottomry or respondentia; or whoever, within the        United States, builds, fits, out, or aids in building or fitting out, any vessel with intent that the same be cast away or destroyed, with the intent herinbefore mentioned, shall be fined not more than ten thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years. (Sec. 296.)"

British maritime writer AC Hardy, Wreck - SOS, 1944, p.33.

"Insurance companies are wise in their generation. They employ technical experts to help them, and he would be a bold or resourceful man who is able to-day to sink his ship without detection."

Strong pieces of timber stretching across the vessel to support the decks.
On the weather or lee beam is in a direction to windward or leeward at right angles with the keel.
On Beam Ends - The situation of a vessel when turned over so that her beams are inclined toward the vertical.

The direction of an object expressed either as a true bearing as shown on the chart or as a bearing relative to the heading of the boat.
The bearings of a vessel is the widest part of her below the plank-shear. That part of her hull which is on the waterline when she is at anchor and in her proper trim.

An object bears so and so when it is in such a direction from the person looking. To bear down upon a vessel is to approach her from the windward.
To bear up is to put the helm up, keep a vessel off from her course, and move her to leeward.
To bear away is the same as to bear up; being applied to the vessel instead of to the tiller.
To bear-a-hand. To make haste.

To make fast.
To bend a sail is to make it fast to the yard. 
To bend a cable is to make it fast to the anchor.
A bend is a knot by which one rope is made fast to another.

The lowest part of the interior hull below the waterline.
Bilge-Ways - Pieces of timber bolted together and placed under the bilge, in launching.
Bilge Water - Water which settles in the bilge.
Bilge - The largest circumference of a cask

Bread intended for naval or military expeditions is now simply flour well kneaded with the least possible quantity of water into flat cakes and slowly baked."

It has been around for a long time - Pliny(c. AD 100) calls it 'panis nauticus' ".

Hard tack was another name for ship's biscuit and became a common term in the 1830s and 1840s.

Good biscuit was supposed to be one third heavier than the flour from which it was made. It was normally kept in cloth bags and rapidly became a home to weevils - no doubt increasing the protein content. It would keep for many years and was a major staple in ships until the advent of shipboard bakeries in the early years of the 20th Century.

A spar used to extend the foot of a fore-and-aft sail or studding-sail.
Boom-irons - Iron rings on the yards, through which the studding-sail booms traverse.
Boom Crutch - Support for the boom holding it up out of the way when the boat is at anchor or moored. Unlike a gallows frame, a crutch is stowed when sailing.
Boom Vang - A system used to hold the boom down when sailing downwind.

A working anchor, the cable of which is bent and reeved through the hawse-hole.
Best Bower - is the larger of the two bowers.

A rope by which a yard is turned about.
To brace a yard is to turn it about horizontally.
To brace up is to lay the yard fore fore-and-aft.
To brace in is to lay it nearer square.
To brace aback. (See ABACK.)
To brace to is to brace the head yards a little aback, in tacking or wearing.

The sudden rise or fall of the deck when not flush.
To break bulk is to begin to unload.
To break ground is to lift the anchor from the bottom.
To break shear is when a vessel at anchor in tending is forced the wrong way by the wind or current so that she does not lie so well for keeping herself clear of her anchor.

Is a 2-Masted vessel with both masts square rigged. On the sternmost mast, the main mast, there is also a gaff sail.

An hermaphrodite brig has a brig's foremast and a schooner's mainmast.

The whole cargo when stowed.
Stowed in Bulk is when goods are stowed loose instead of being stowed in casks or bags. (See BREAK BULK.)

A floating cask or piece of wood attached by a rope to an anchor to show its position. Also, floated over a shoal or other dangerous place as a beacon.
To stream a buoy is to drop it into the water before letting go the anchor.
A buoy is said to watch when it floats upon the surface of the water.

A tackle, rove in a particular manner.
A single Spanish burton has three single blocks or two single blocks and a hook in the bight of one of the running parts.
A double Spanish burton has three double blocks.

Scuttlebutt  - A cask with a hole cut in its bilge and kept on deck to hold water for daily use.

Back To Top

A machine used for lifting vessels over a shoal or bar.

Timbers at the two ends of a vessel raised obliquely from the keel.
Lower Half Cants [reads "cints"] - Those parts of frames situated forward and abaft the square frames or the floor timbers which cross the keel.

The drum-like part of the windlass which is a machine used for winding in rope, cables, or chain connected to an anchor cargo.

To pay a vessel's head off in getting under way; on the tack, she is to sail upon.

A kind of hitch made in a rope.

A light current of air seen on the surface of the water during a calm.

Is the stuff put upon the rigging and spars to prevent their chafing.

Wearing a ship round when taken aback without bracing the head yards.

The lower corner of square sails, and the after corner of a fore-and-aft sail.

To clew up is to haul up the clew of a sail.

A rope that hauls up the clew of a square sail. The clew-garnet is the clewline of a course.

Mast-Coat is a piece of canvass tarred or painted placed round a mast or bowsprit where it enters the deck.

Come home said of an anchor when it is broken from the ground and drags.

To come up a rope or tackle is to slack it off.

Are such as are curved or arched.

Are short timbers put in to strengthen the counter.

To counter-brace yards is to brace the head-yards one way and the after-yards another.

The common term for the sails that hang from a ship's lower yards. The foresail is called the fore course and the mainsail the main course.

Pieces of timber placed across a vessel and nailed to the frames to keep the sides together until the knees are bolted.