||William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine
Table of Contents
BACK of the post to BALANCE of the mizen
BALANCE of the boom sail to BARK
BARNACLE to BEAMS
BEAMS to BED of a river
BED of a cannon to BIGHT
BILANDER to BLACK-STRAKES
BLADE to Trim the BOAT!
To bale the BOAT to BOLT-ROPE
BOMB to BOTTOM
BOTTOM to BOX-HAULING
BOXING to To BREAK-UP
BREAK-WATER to BRIDLES of the bowline
BRIG, or BRIGANTINE to Ship-BUILDING
BRIG, or BRIGANTINE
To BRING by the lee
Ship-BUILDING to BUNTINE
BUNTLINES to BUTTONS
Ship-BUILDINGShip-BUILDING may be defined the manner of constructing ships, or the work itself, as distinguished from naval architecture, which we have rather considered as the theory or art of delineating ships on a plane, and to which this article may properly be understood as a supplement.
During the construction of a ship, she is supported in the dock, or upon a wharf, by a number of solid blocks of timber placed at equal distances from, and parallel to, each other, as may be seen in the article LANCHING; she is then laid to be on the stocks.
The first piece of timber laid upon the blocks is generally the keel. I say generally, because, of late, a different method has been adopted in some of the royal dock-yards, by beginning with the floor-timbers; the artists having found that the keel is often apt to rot during the long period of building a large ship of war. The pieces of the keel, as exhibited in plate I. are scarsed together, and bolted, forming one entire piece, A A. which constitutes the length of the vessel below. At one extremity of the keel is erected the stem. It is a strong piece of timber incurvated nearly into a circular arch, or, according to the technical term, compassing, so as to project outwards at the upper end, forming what is called the rake forward. In small vessels this is framed of one piece, but in large ships it is composed of several pieces scarsed and bolted together, as expressed in the explanation of plate I. PIECES of the HULL, and in those terms separately. At the other extremity of the keel, is elevated the stern-post, which is always of one entire strait piece. The heel of it is let into a mortise in the keel, and it's upper-end hangs outwards, making an obtuse angle with the keel, like that of the stem: this projection is called the rake abaft. The stern-post, which ought to support the stern, contains the iron-work or hinges of the rudder, which are called googings, and unites the lower-part of the ship's sides abaft. See the connexion of those pieces in the ELEVATION, plate I.
© Derived from Thomas Cadell's new corrected edition, London: 1780, page 52, 2004
Published by South Seas, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
To cite this page use: http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-ss-refs-falc-0222