Plumb stem A vertical stem (see ‘stem’) found mainly in traditional working craft.


Poop (v) A ‘pooping’ sea sweeps a vessel from aft forward.


Port The left-hand side of the boat looking forward.


Pounding The slamming as the bow hits the trough of a sea.


Pram A dinghy with a bow transom as well as a transom stern.


Pre-bend A healthy bend in the mast set by tensioning the standing rigging. Pre-bend stiffens the spar and assists mainsail shape.


Preventer A line rigged from the end of the main boom to the bow to steady the spar in light weather and to prevent gybing in heavy going.


Quarter The side of a vessel between amidships and the stern. ‘Over the quarter’ means around 45° forward from dead aft or 45° abaft the beam.


Reaching Any sailing heading between closehauled and running.


Reefing Shortening sail as wind increases.


Reefing pennants The lines used for hauling and holding down the clew of a boomed sail when reefing.


Roach The area of a fore-and-aft sail which extends beyond the straight line between two corners, most frequently applied to the leech.


Rudder post The rudder shaft.


Running backstay Temporary backstays used to tension the jib or staysail luff on yachts whose rig cannot carry a standing backstay.


Samson post A single bitt. SAR Search and Rescue.


160 | MANUAL OF SEAMANSHIP


Schooner A fore-and-aft rigged boat with two or more masts that is neither ketch nor yawl.


Seacock A valve on a through-hull skin fitting which can close off the hole when required.


Sections The athwartships slices through the hull in the body-plan part of a vessel’s drawings.


Shackles A horseshoe-shaped metal fitting closed with a screw-thread pin, used for semi-permanently attaching anything on board that will take serious load.


Shaft The steel rod that connects the engine to the propeller.


Sheave Pronounced ‘shiv’. The ‘wheel’ inside a pulley block or set into a spar to lead a rope or turn its direction of pull.


Sheet The rope which controls the set of a sail.


Shroud Wire rigging which supports the mast athwartships.


Skeg A built-up extension of the lower hull either forward of and supporting the rudder, or protecting a salient propeller.


Skin fitting Through-hull fitting. Sloop A single-masted vessel with one headsail.


SNAME/USYRU The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers/United States Yacht Racing Union, (USYRU is the predecessor to US Sailing).


Snatch block A block that can be opened to admit the bight of a rope, rather than having to feed the end through.


Spade rudder Rudder with no external support save the through-hull bearing.


Spar General term for all the items on board that would traditionally have been wooden poles of various sizes involved with the rig in some way. Eg: the mast, or a booming-out pole. A boat hook is not a spar.


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