Maritime Terms and Descriptions

Bilge

The rounded portion of a ship's hull, forming a transition between the bottom and the sides. The lowest inner part of a ship's hull.

You never want to get the job of cleaning the bilge. I speak from experience here; it is the awfulest, dirtiest, stinkiest, yukiest (I could go on) job on a boat. Do your best to never be assigned this job!

Jack

Excellent info on the poop deck. One important thing to note is that films that show officers commanding from the poop deck in the heat of battle are generally incorrect. The quaterdeck (when a ship had one) was the officer's zone, with one side of the quaterdeck generally assigned to the Captain and the officers sharing the other side. There is a famous painting of Nelson's death at Trafalgar (I think it might be reproduced in the book I recommended) that shows Nelson, quite properly, dying on the quaterdeck. (It's an amazing painting, by the way, because it shows almost the whole crew completely oblivious to his death; everyone is manning their gun, clearing away shot rigging, the marines are sniping away at the opposing crews. . .).

Just found a nice short thread on the potbs boards about how wind works in the game. Its real basic, no storms it sounds like, at least not to start.

Its a short read,
"The wind changes periodically with a preference for blowing from the eastern half of the compass. So while it can be blowing from any direction it will usually be somewhere between NNE and SSE.

If you try to sail against the wind you will sloooooooooooooowwwww way down. In order to keep from having to deal with the customer service issues of people getting stuck against a lee shore you cannot actually wind up in irons. Even against the wind you can make very slow headway. It will almost always be faster to tack though."


http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35673

Yeah, the "almost" part always makes me wonder.

“Hove to” To move into a certain direction as in the following sentence: Captain Bontecou calls out to his helmsman over the rising wind whistling through the rigging, “Hove to on a starboard tack!”

“Heave to” To move in a certain direction as in the following sentence: Captain deMontfort orders, “Heave to and come alongside the wharf”.

Subtle, but basically the two terms are interchangeable.

Jack

Just a minor correction here. Heave to actually means to stop, or technically, to put the ship in a position where it is no longer making headway (but may still have some leeway). The coast guard, before boarding ships, orders them to heave to.

So noted.

Thanks for the clarification.

Jack

Eye of the wind - direction from which the true wind is blowing.

I was looking through the reference - http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~elfox/terms.html - provided earlier in this thread by Bishop Aidan for a good concept to write about when I came upon the term ‘Eye of the wind’. It is an important sailing concept because it not only indicates wind direction; it provides a constant to use to chart a course to your next waypoint.

If you've looked over the Ship Guide of vessels available to us on the Burning Sea - http://www.burningsea.com/explore/library/ship-guide/ - you’ll notice that one of the stats given for each ship is labeled “Best Point” -think fastest point of sail. (You may want to reference the sails diagram in the first post on the top of page 2 and the compass rose pic a couple of posts below as we work through this next bit.) For a schooner best point is 90 degrees off the eye of the wind and for a 104 gun war ship it is a whopping 135 degrees off the eye of the wind). This is great news if your schooner is making way with the eye of the wind blowing out of the northeast and your destination is either due southeast or northwest. If your destination is on any other heading the implication is that you will be moving through the water at less than the optimum speed of your vessel.

To be honest I find the Ship Guide best point information rather arbitrary. In real sailing there are lots of variables that all come together to determine best point; it is not a simple one number solution. Ah well. Tomorrow we will examine a term seldom seen or heard in modern sailing, lask

Jack

well if we're talking real sailing wouldn't currents be a variable in best point? and as for the burning sea best point, there are alot of weather/environmental variables you have to figure on aswell, or am I thinking of something else? but of course since this is a game and also programming randomized currents would be a nightmare for the programmers, they would have to make it alot easier to sail.

Duncan Moran wrote:

well if we're talking real sailing wouldn't currents be a variable in best point? ... there are alot of weather/environmental variables you have to figure on aswell, ... also programming randomized currents would be a nightmare for the programmers, they would have to make it alot easier to sail.

Correct on all counts, Duncan. And I know you are right that the programming would be a nightmare. Still, I'm hoping that perhaps later they will add maybe a couple more variables to give value to skill.

Jack

Yeah, personally I'd love to program the weather and currents, but I have a background in chaos theory. Maybe when we get storms and such into the game, it might just be too ambitious for the launch of the game. They probably have the infrastructure built into it already and just need to complete the code. (sorry, I'm an old school code monkey that gets excited by the idea of challenging code )

To lusk away

Saw this term in a book about sea battles in the 1700s, it means to sail with the wind on the quarter. To lusk away is to turn your vessel until the wind is on the quarter. Take a quick look at the wind image on the top of page 2. If the wind is on your quarter you are somewhere between a close haul and a close reach. Bet we don't hear lusk used very often.

Jack

Here's a great word that is often heard in the process of tie up to a pier.

Bollard: A short heavy post on the pier used for fastening docking lines.

You will hear the term still used today when a ship is in the process of tying up to a warf. "Secure the stern line fast to the aft Bollard." (In this context the word "fast" means tight, not quick.)

Jack

Here's a concept one of our merchant traders may find themselves using from time to time.

bottomry: Using the ship as collateral to finance a sea voyage.

Jack

Forecastle (Usually pronounced Foc'sle), a short raised deck at the fore end of the ship; fore of ship under main deck. On smaller vessels it is often used to store sails and anchor line. On larger vessels is contains bunks for the crew.

Jack

Gudgion and Pintal are two great terms with which to amaze your friends while quaffing brews at the Albatross.

Gudgion - a metal socket into which the pintal of a boat's rudder fits.

Pintal - one of several pins or bolts on the forward edge of the rudder frame that fits into a Gudgion strongly fixed to the stern.

As used in a sentence, Let's see...Capitaine Èmile deMontfort calls down to a shipyard dry dock worker from the stern railing of La Francisque, "Easy setting that rudder in place, monsieur, you bend a pintal while it slips into its gudgeon et I'll be steering off course not knowing it. Easy I say!"

Jack

This may be a good time to present a short bit about 'Right of Way'. I can't swear that the convention I am about to relate was in place in 1720, but I can say that if it wasn't it should have been.

The question is; when a ship is coming your way and the risk of collision is getting more probably, what do you? The answer is simple with basically two alternatives.

1. If a vessel is either approaching you from ahead, or is overtaking you from behind you may pass starboard to starboard or larboard to larboard. It doesn't matter as long as you keep safe distance between you and the other vessel.

2. If a vessel is approarching you on your starboard side on a course that will cross your own then that vessel is called the stand-on vessel and should maintain course and speed. Your vessel is called the 'give-way vessel and is required to alter course and speed in order to avoid the stand-on vessel.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, if not please let me know and I'll draw some diagrams to illustrate the concept. I'm sure that the vast majority of people playing PotBS will not know of this basic convention, but perhaps we can help them understand it.

Jack

Between the Devil and the Deep [blue sea] - In wooden ships, the "devil" was the longest seam of the ship. It ran from the bow to the stern. When at sea and the "devil" had to be caulked, the sailor sat in a bo'sun's chair to do so. He was suspended between the "devil" and the sea, the "deep", a very precarious position, especially when the ship was underway.

Devil to Pay - Originally, this expression described one of the unpleasant tasks aboard a wooden ship. The "devil" was the wooden ship's longest seam in the hull. Caulking was done with "pay" or pitch (a kind of tar). The task of "paying the devil" (caulking the longest seam) by squatting in the bilges was despised by every seaman. Today the expression "devil to pay" is used primarily to describe having an unpleasant result from some action that has been taken, as in someone has done something they shouldn't have and, as a result, "there will be the devil to pay."

As a note of clarification to the astute reader who found the apparent disparity. The Devil and the Deep refers to calking done to the exterior seam of the Devil and the "Devil to Pay" refers to calking done to the interior seam of the Devil.

Personally, I don't know which part of the job is worse, except I do know you NEVER want to get stuck in the bilge no matter what the chore.

Jack

Bells – The practice of using bells stems from the days of the sailing ships. Sailors couldn't afford to have their own time pieces and relied on the ship's bells to tell time. The ship's boy kept time by using a half-hour glass. Each time the sand ran out, he would turn the glass over and ring the appropriate number of bells.

Each watch is four hours in length. One bell is struck after the first half-hour has passed, two bells after one hour has passed, three bells after an hour and a half, four bells after two hours, and so forth up to eight bells are struck at the completion of the four hours. Completing a watch with no incidents to report was "Eight bells and all is well."

Jack

Watches - Traditionally, a 24-hour day is divided into seven watches.

These are:
Mid-watch; Midnight to 4 a.m. [0000-0400],
Morning watch; 4 to 8 a.m. [0400-0800],
Forenoon watch; 8 a.m. to noon [0800-1200],
Afternoon watch; noon to 4 p.m. [1200-1600],
First dog watch; 4 to 6 p.m. [1600-1800]
Second dog watch; 6 to 8 p.m. [1800-2000],
Evening watch; 8 p.m. to midnight [2000-2400],

As described above Bells are rung on the half hour throught the day and are marked by the striking the bell an appropriate number of times.
For those closely following this, I've a question. "How many bells are rung at 1830 hours during the Second Dog Watch?"

Jack

I think maybe 1. (assuming 1800 was 8 and not 1; otherwise 2.. but I'm pretty sure one is the answer).

You are correct, Benoit!
Watch Schedules and Ship's Bells

The bell was rung every half hour of the 4 hour watch. A 24 hour day was divided into six 4 hour watches, except the dog watch (16:00 - 20:00 hours) which was almost always divided into two 2 hour watches to allow for the taking of the evening meal. Hence, in practice the watch was divided into seven segments.

As we said in the previous post, the bells were struck for every half-hour of each watch, with a maximum of eight bells. For instance, during the Middle Watch you would hear the the following:
00:30 1 bell
01:00 2 bells
01:30 2 bells, pause, 1 bell
02:00 2 bells, pause, 2 bells
02:30 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 1 bell
03:00 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells
03:30 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 1 bell
04:00 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells, pause, 2 bells
At eight bells your watch was over! All other 4 hour watches followed this same procedure except the Dog Watches.

At the end of the First Dog Watch, only four bells were struck, and the Second Dog Watch bells were struck like this: 6:30 PM, one bell; 7 PM two bells; 7:30 PM, three bells; and at 8 PM, eight bells.

So, as a crew member what is the number of bells to be struck to announce dinner at 18:00 hrs? What is the number of bells to be struck if dinner is served at 20:00 hrs?

Jack

Port holes - The word "port hole" originated during the reign of Henry VI of England (1485). King Henry insisted on mounting guns too large for his ship and the traditional methods of securing these weapons on the forecastle and aftcastle could not be used.

A French shipbuilder named James Baker was commissioned to solve the problem. He put small doors in the side of the ship and mounted the cannon inside the ship. These doors protected the cannon from weather and were opened when the cannon were to be used. The French word for "door" is "porte" which was later Anglicized to "port" and later went on to mean any opening in the ship's side, whether for cannon or not.

Jack

Chewing the Fat - "God made the vittles but the devil made the cook," was a popular saying used by seafaring men in the 18th century when salted beef was staple diet aboard ship. This tough cured beef, suitable only for long voyages when nothing else was cheap or would keep as well (remember, there was no refrigeration), required prolonged chewing to make it edible. Men often chewed one chunk for hours, just as it were chewing gum and referred to this practice as "chewing the fat."

Jack

Crow's Nest - In the early years of navigation the raven, or crow, was an essential part of the Vikings' navigation equipment. These land-lubbing birds were carried on aboard to help the ship's navigator determine where the closest land lay when weather prevented sighting the shore. In cases of poor visibility, a crow was released and the navigator plotted a course corresponding to the bird's flight path because the crow invariably headed towards land. The Norsemen carried the birds in a cage secured to the top of the mast. Later on, as ships grew and the lookout stood his watch in a tub located high on the main mast, the name "crow's nest" was given to this tub.

Jack