Nautical Terms

It's another sea day with nothing special to write about, so I will share the information on today's Current in case someone might find this interesting.

 

 

KNOTS & LOGS

That the speed of a ship is reckoned not in kilometers or miles but knots has a valid reason. Prior to the advent of modern aids, sailors ingeniously used a log and a rope to measure the distance their boat had covered and to determine the speed at which it had advanced. The earliest printed description of this method is contained in a 1574 tract by William Bourne. It records how 15^th century sailors learned to improve their method of determining the speed of their boat.

NAVIGATING WITH KNOTS

By the 8^th century, an Arab seamen using the Red Sea and Indian Ocean had perfected a simple instrument for measuring latitude, their distance north or south of the equator, called a “Kamal” from the Arabic “guide.” It was accurate to within about 30 miles. The device consisted of a hand-sized rectangular board, with a knotted cord attached to its center. Each knot represented the known latitude of a port.

With the appropriate knot in his teeth, the navigator held the Kamal out in front of his eyes until it filled the space between pole star and horizon, with the board’s bottom edge resting on the horizon. The height of the pole star in the same at any given latitude, it is almost directly overhead at the north pole, and just on the horizon at the equator.

So when the star appeared above the top edge of the Kamal, it meant that the boat was too far north and had to sail south to reach the required port. When the star was below the top of the Kamal, the boat altered course and sailed north.

WHY A “SHE?”

Actually, there are some very interesting explanations as to why a ship is almost always referred to as a “she.” A ship is a she because she has a “waist” (a mid-ships section), a “bonnet” (cover for the engine or added strips of canvas for sails), “laces” (rigging fasteners), “stays” (ropes), “combings” (edges of hatches), “jewels” (small blocks on signal yards) and “earrings” (short pieces of rope).

There is a great deal of “bustle” around a ship, and in port she has an agent handling her business known as her “husband.” On large vessels, the word “she” was attached because of the sails, which represented the vessel as “dressed as a woman.”

SEAGULLS

A peculiar thing about seagulls is their built-in precise sense of time. They can take inland trips, but then return to shore to feed at the exact hour when the tide is right. Seagulls are one of the few birds in the world that can drink fresh and salt water. They have a special gland near their eye that removes the salt from their system.