Extended Operational and Trade Vocabulary

Pre-1900 Maritime History glossary (page 2)

The pre-twentieth-century maritime vocabulary: historic vessel types (the Dutch aak, the Acapulco galleon), navigation statutes (the Act of Navigation 1651), naval administration bodies, and the sailing-era trades and institutions. Grounds each term in the historic ship, voyage, or statute it names, the deep-history counterpart to the modern history section.

438 defined terms.

Showing 188 on this page (page 2 of 2).

N

Napier, Robert: Glasgow marine engineer who supplied engines to Cunard's first paddle steamers in 1840.
Nautical Almanac: Annual joint UK/US publication.
Nautilus: Cephalopod of the genus *Nautilus* with an external chambered shell.
Navarino: Naval engagement of October 20, 1827 in which an Anglo-French-Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet, the last major action fought solely under sail.
Navigation Acts: Series of English statutes from 1651 onward restricting colonial trade to English ships.
Nelson, Horatio: Royal Navy vice-admiral killed at Trafalgar, October 21, 1805.
Net Register Tonnage: Volumetric measure of a merchant ship's earning space, defined by deduction from gross under the Moorsom system.
New Bedford: Massachusetts whaling port that surpassed Nantucket as the leading American whaling base by the 1820s.
Nile, Battle of the: 1798 Nelson victory over the French at Aboukir Bay.
Niña: Caravel of Columbus's 1492 expedition, the only one of the three vessels to make a second voyage.
Nore Mutiny: Mass mutiny of Royal Navy ships at the Nore anchorage in May and June 1797.
North-East Passage: The Arctic sea route along the Russian coast, first transited by Nordenskiold in the Vega in 1878 to 1879.
Northwest Passage: Arctic sea route through the Canadian Archipelago, first transited 1903 to 1906 by Amundsen.
Numbers, Ship's: Identification flags hoisted by merchant vessels under the commercial code introduced by Marryat in 1817.

O

Oars: Wooden levers used to propel small craft and historically large galleys.
Oberon, HMS: Royal Navy bomb vessel of 1812, typical of the smaller bomb class.
Octant: A reflecting navigational instrument with a forty-five degree arc, devised independently by Hadley and Godfrey around 1731.
Old Ironsides: Nickname of USS Constitution, launched 1797.
Onedin Line: Fictional Liverpool shipping firm; included historically as the program drew on the genuine Allan, Inman, and Bibby lines; omit.
Oporto Wine Trade: English-Portuguese trade in port wine regulated by the Methuen Treaty of 1703.
Orient Line: British shipping company tracing its origins to the firm of James Thomson in 1797 and named for the Orient in 1878.
Outrigger: A lateral float used to stabilize Pacific and Indian Ocean canoes, observed by European mariners from the early sixteenth century.

P

P&O: Peninsular Steam Navigation Company founded in 1837 by Brodie McGhie Willcox and Arthur Anderson, renamed Peninsular and Oriental in 1840.
Packet Ship: Scheduled transatlantic mail and passenger sailing ship of the early nineteenth century.
Paddle Steamer: A steam-powered vessel propelled by paddle wheels, dominant in early ocean and river steam navigation.
Painter: Bow line of a small boat.
Panama Railroad: Trans-isthmian railroad opened in January 1855, transferring most California-bound cargo from clipper to combined steam-and-rail routing.
Parry, William Edward: Royal Navy officer who led four Arctic expeditions between 1819 and 1827.
Peggy, Schooner: Manx-built schooner of 1789 preserved at the Nautical Museum in Castletown.
Pelican: Original name of Drake's Golden Hind before his circumnavigation of 1577 to 1580.
Penn, John: English marine engineer whose trunk engine of the 1840s enabled the development of the screw warship.
Pepys, Samuel: Secretary to the Admiralty whose reforms from 1660 onward professionalized the Royal Navy's administration.
Petty Officer: Senior non-commissioned naval rating, the title formalized in the Royal Navy in 1808.
Phoenicians: Ancient Levantine seafaring people credited by Herodotus with a circumnavigation of Africa around 600 BC.
Pilot Cutter: Pilot transfer launch, distinct from harbor tugs but often colocated.
Pinnace: A small two-masted vessel of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used as a ship's tender or independent craft.
Pinta: One of the three vessels of Columbus's 1492 expedition, captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón.
Pisa, Republic of: Medieval Italian maritime republic that controlled trade in the western Mediterranean until defeated at Meloria in 1284.
Plimsoll mark: Load line marking on ship side.
Plimsoll, Samuel: British member of Parliament whose campaigning led to the load line requirement in the UK Merchant Shipping Act of 1876.
Plymouth: Devon port and home of Princess Yachts.
Polacca: A three-masted Mediterranean sailing vessel of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Pondicherry: French East India Company headquarters on the Coromandel coast, established in 1674.
Pook, Samuel: American naval architect who designed the Civil War river ironclads built by James B. Eads.
Port: Left-hand side of a vessel when facing forward; also a harbor.
Portolan Chart: Medieval Mediterranean coastal chart series of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries.
Portsmouth Dockyard: English royal dockyard at Portsmouth, dating from 1495 and the oldest continuously operated naval dockyard in the world.
Pratique: Health clearance granted by port authorities allowing the vessel to interact with shore.
Press Gang: Body of seamen employed to compel men into Royal Navy service under the Impress Service, abolished in practice after 1815.
Privateer: Privately owned vessel licensed by a state to attack enemy shipping.
Prize Court: Tribunal adjudicating captured vessels and cargo.
Pump Dale: A trough conducting water from the chain pumps overboard.

Q

Quadrant: Brass arc on the rudder head to which steering chains are attached.
Quarterdeck: Upper deck abaft the mainmast.
Quartermaster: Helmsman on watch.
Queen Charlotte, HMS: First-rate Royal Navy ship of the line of 1790, Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June in 1794.

R

Race Built: Term for the new lower, sleeker English galleon design championed by John Hawkins in the 1570s.
Rainbow: New York-built clipper of 1845 by John Willis Griffiths, often cited as the first true extreme clipper.
Raleigh, Walter: Elizabethan courtier whose 1595 voyage up the Orinoco sought El Dorado.
Rammers: Tools used to seat charges in muzzle-loading naval guns.
Ranger: Continental Navy sloop commanded by John Paul Jones in the 1778 cruise that took HMS Drake.
Rates, Ship of the Line: Royal Navy classification of warships into first through sixth rates by number of guns, formalized in the seventeenth century.
Razee: A ship of the line cut down by one deck to make a heavy frigate.
Receiver of Wreck: British official, established under the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, who administers wrecked goods.
Red Ensign: The flag of the British merchant marine, carried since the seventeenth century and confirmed by the Merchant Shipping Act 1854.
Reef Points: Short lines on a sail used to gather and tie a reef when shortening sail.
Resolution, HMS: Royal Navy sloop in which Cook made his second and third Pacific voyages from 1772 to 1779.
Revenue Cutter: Armed government vessel used for the suppression of smuggling, the British service formalized in 1698.
Rhumb line: Line cutting all meridians at the same angle; straight on a Mercator chart.
Roanoke: English colony on the present-day North Carolina coast attempted in 1585 and 1587.
Roebuck, HMS: Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate of 1690 in which William Dampier made his 1699 to 1701 Pacific voyage.
Rope Walk: A long covered structure where ship's rope was laid up by hand, examples preserved at Chatham and Portsmouth.
Rouen: Norman Seine port with a long history of medieval and early modern maritime trade.
Round Ship: General medieval European term for a beamy cargo vessel as opposed to the narrow galley.
Royal African Company: English chartered company of 1672 with a monopoly of the West African trade including slaves.
Royal George, HMS: First-rate Royal Navy ship of the line that capsized at Spithead on August 29, 1782 with the loss of around 800 lives.
Royal Mail Steam Packet Company: Chartered in 1839 to carry mail to the West Indies under Captain James MacQueen.
Royal Navy Hospital Haslar: Naval hospital at Gosport opened in 1753 and the largest brick building in Europe at the time.
Royal Society: Founded in 1660 and central to the British promotion of scientific navigation and exploration.
Royal Tar: Steamer lost off Vinalhaven, Maine in October 1836 while carrying a circus.
Rudder: Hinged blade aft used to steer.
Russian-American Company: Chartered in 1799 to manage Russian trade and settlement in Alaska and California.

S

Sail Plan: Diagram showing the arrangement of sails carried by a vessel.
Saint Brendan: Sixth-century Irish abbot whose Navigatio Sancti Brendani inspired later medieval Atlantic voyaging.
Saint Malo: Breton port and source of many French corsairs from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.
Salt Cod: Cured cod from the Newfoundland Banks that anchored European Atlantic provisioning trades.
Sampan: Small Chinese flat-bottomed boat used for inshore trade and fishing.
Sandbagger: An American inshore racing sailboat type of the mid-nineteenth century.
Santa María: Carrack flagship of Columbus's 1492 expedition, wrecked off Hispaniola on December 25, 1492.
Santissima Trinidad: Spanish four-decker first-rate launched at Havana in 1769 and lost at Trafalgar.
Savannah, SS: American hybrid sailing-paddle ship that made the first partly steam-powered transatlantic crossing in 1819.
Schooner: Two- or more-masted fore-and-aft rigged vessel of New England origin.
Scoresby, William: Whitby-born Arctic whaling captain and scientist (1789 to 1857).
Screw Propeller: Underwater rotating propulsor that displaced the paddle wheel in ocean service from the 1840s.
Scupper: Hole through the bulwark or deck to drain water overboard.
Sea Witch: New York-built clipper of 1846 that on her record passage in 1849 ran from Canton to New York in seventy-four days.
Second Rate: Royal Navy ship of the line carrying ninety to ninety-eight guns.
Selkirk, Alexander: Scottish sailor marooned on Mas a Tierra from 1704 to 1709, inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.
Semaphore: Hand-flag visual signaling system using letters.
Senior Service: Traditional epithet for the Royal Navy, reflecting its precedence over the British Army.
Sextant: Marine sextant with vernier or micrometer.
Shanghai: Chinese port opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.
Sheer: Curve of a ship's deck from bow to stern; sudden change in course at anchor.
Sheerness: UK port hosting the Medway Ports Recycling site.
Shelvocke, George: English privateer whose 1719 to 1722 voyage produced the albatross episode that inspired Coleridge.
Sherbro: Sierra Leone region used in the eighteenth-century slave trade.
Ship of the line: Wooden warship of the Age of Sail capable of fighting in line of battle.
Shipwright: A skilled craftsman in wooden ship construction; the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights received its first charter in 1605.
Shrouds: Standing rigging supporting a mast laterally.
Sirius, SS: British steamer of 1837 that crossed from Cork to New York in April 1838 just ahead of Great Western.
Slave Trade Act 1807: British statute abolishing the slave trade throughout the British Empire on March 25, 1807.
Sloop: Single-masted fore-and-aft rigged vessel with one headsail.
Smeaton, John: English engineer who built the third Eddystone Lighthouse from 1756 to 1759 using interlocking masonry.
Snow: A two-masted square-rigged vessel similar to a brig but with a small trysail mast abaft the mainmast.
South Sea Company: English joint-stock company founded in 1711, central to the speculative bubble of 1720.
Spanish Armada: The Spanish invasion fleet of 1588 defeated in the Channel and dispersed off Gravelines on August 8, 1588.
Sperm whale: *Physeter macrocephalus*, the largest toothed whale.
Sprit Topsail: A small square sail set above the spritsail under the bowsprit, common in seventeenth-century European warships.
Spritsail: A four-cornered sail extended by a spar called the sprit, used on Thames barges and seventeenth-century men-of-war.
Square Rig: Sail plan with primary sails set across the line of the keel from horizontal yards.
Stanton's Patent: Various nineteenth-century mechanical patents applied to merchant ship outfit.
Starboard: Right side facing forward.
State Barge: A ceremonial oared vessel, examples preserved including the Royal Shallop Jubilee.
Stay: Standing rigging supporting a mast in the fore-and-aft direction.
Steerage: Effect of the rudder on the ship.
Stevens, John: American engineer whose Phoenix in 1809 made the first ocean voyage by steamship, from Hoboken to Philadelphia.
Studding sail: Auxiliary sail set outboard of a square sail in light winds.
Suez Canal: Opened 1869, reshaping global shipping routes between Europe and Asia.
Sunderland: English northeast coast town that became the largest single shipbuilding center in the world by the mid-nineteenth century.
Sutton Hoo: Anglo-Saxon ship burial of the early seventh century discovered in Suffolk in 1939.
Swallow, HMS: Royal Navy sloop in which Carteret circumnavigated from 1766 to 1769.

T

Tackle: Combination of blocks and line giving mechanical advantage.
Tea Clipper: Fast British and American clipper ships engaged in the China tea race of the 1850s and 1860s.
Telford, Thomas: Scottish engineer whose Pontcysyllte Aqueduct of 1805 and Caledonian Canal of 1822 served inland navigation.
Tender: Small boat ferrying guests between ship and shore at anchor ports.
Teredo Navalis: Shipworm that attacks wooden hulls, the principal driver of copper sheathing from the 1760s.
Terror, HMS: Royal Navy bomb vessel that accompanied Erebus on the Franklin expedition of 1845.
Thames Tonnage: The English shipping tonnage measurement formula in use until superseded by the Moorsom system in 1854.
Third Rate: Royal Navy ship of the line typically of seventy to eighty guns, the backbone of the battle fleet.
Tonnage Act 1773: British statute regulating the measurement of merchant ships for duties.
Topsail Schooner: A schooner carrying square topsails on the foremast, sometimes called a hermaphrodite brig in older American usage.
Toulon: French Mediterranean naval port and arsenal developed under Vauban from the 1670s.
Trafalgar: See Battle of Trafalgar, 1805.
Trinity House: General Lighthouse Authority and deep-sea pilotage body, chartered 1514.
Trireme: Ancient Greek three-banked oared warship of the fifth century BCE.

U

Ulster Steamship Company: Belfast-based shipping company founded by G. Heyn in 1825.
Union Jack: Flag of the United Kingdom flown as the jack of British warships from 1606 and revised in 1801.
Unrated: Royal Navy vessel below sixth rate, including sloops, gun brigs, and cutters.
Upper deck: Highest continuous deck.

V

Vanderbilt, Cornelius: American shipping and railroad magnate (1794 to 1877), founder of the Accessory Transit Company and the New York Central system.
Vasa: Swedish royal warship sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, salvaged 1961.
Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre de: French military engineer who fortified Brest, Toulon, and other royal arsenals from the 1670s.
Vega: Steamship in which Nordenskiold completed the first Northeast Passage in 1878-1879.
Venetian Arsenal: State shipbuilding complex of the Venetian Republic.
Venturer, Merchant: Member of an English regulated trading company such as the Merchant Adventurers of Bristol.
Vernon, Edward: Royal Navy admiral who in 1740 introduced diluted rum, called grog from his nickname Old Grog.
Victory, HMS: Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, launched 1765, preserved at Portsmouth.
Vikings: Scandinavian seafarers of the eighth to eleventh centuries whose longships ranged from the Mediterranean to North America.
Vinland: Norse name for the part of North America reached by Leif Erikson around the year 1000.
Volunteer Reserve: British naval reserve formed under the Naval Reserve Act 1859.

W

Wapping: Thames-side district of London long associated with seamen, shipyards, and the Execution Dock.
Warrior, HMS: Royal Navy iron-hulled armored frigate launched on December 29, 1860, preserved at Portsmouth.
Washington Navy Yard: United States Navy shipyard on the Anacostia River founded in 1799.
Watch: Period of duty.
Waterford: Irish south coast port and the eighteenth-century home of the Newfoundland provisions trade.
Wear: English northeast coast river whose Sunderland yards built large numbers of nineteenth-century colliers and merchantmen.
Wedgwood, Josiah: Staffordshire potter whose oceanic export trade depended on the East India Company and the Atlantic packet system.
Whaleback: A late nineteenth-century American Great Lakes bulk carrier with a rounded upper hull, designed by Alexander McDougall.
Whaler: Larger pirate craft used as a mothership in the early Somali era.
Wharf: Quay alongside which vessels berth.
White Star Line: British shipping company 1845 to 1934, operator of Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic.
Whydah Gally: English slave ship turned pirate vessel under Samuel Bellamy, wrecked off Cape Cod on April 26, 1717.
William Denny and Brothers: Dumbarton shipbuilder founded in 1844, builders of the Cutty Sark's sister ship Norman Court.
Williamson, John: Scottish shipbuilder of the early Clyde steam era.
Wilson Line: Hull-based shipping company founded by Thomas Wilson in 1825, by the 1890s the largest privately owned shipping company in the world.
Windjammer: Late nineteenth and early twentieth century large steel sailing cargo vessel.
Windlass: Powered machine for hoisting the anchor cable.
Windward: Toward the wind.
Woolwich Dockyard: English royal dockyard founded by Henry VIII in 1512 and closed in 1869.

Y

Yard: Spar set crosswise from a mast carrying a square sail.
Yardarm: Outer end of a yard.
Yarmouth, Great: Norfolk port long associated with the North Sea herring fishery.
Yawl: Two-masted fore-and-aft rigged vessel with small mizzen aft of the rudder post.
York Factory: Hudson's Bay Company depot at the mouth of the Hayes River established in 1684.

Z

Zeebrugge: Belgian port with major ro-ro, container, and LNG terminals.
Zheng He: Ming admiral who led seven treasure voyages 1405 to 1433.
Zong: British slave ship from which 132 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard in November 1781, leading to the 1783 insurance case Gregson v Gilbert.
Zuiderzee: Dutch inland sea, historically a key sheltered approach for shipping from the North Sea to Amsterdam.