pintle: the male member of a pintle-gudgeon alliance. See “gudgeon.”

scantling: the thickness of a frame, plank, or other hull element. An impressive way of saying “measurement” when near salt water.

scupper: a drain through the rail, gunwale, or planking to permit accumulated deck-water to wash overboard. The “scuppers” are the line of them, port and starboard. sheet: a line by which the clew of a sail is controlled. It thus controls the sail itself and the boom if there is one.

sloop: a single-masted sailing vessel. It becomes a cutter when the mast is moved far enough aft. (See “cutter.")

sole: the floor of the cabin or cockpit. “Floor” on a boat means something else, i.e. , the structural timbers used to support the sole.

shroud: a wire cable leading from the outboard edge of a deck to a mast, giving the mast lateral support. Shrouds are to port and starboard: stays are generally fore and aft.

spreader: a horizontal strut on a mast, holding shrouds away from the mast for better support. Also “crosstrees” or, inaccurately, “yardarms.”

stay: a wire cable leading from deck level to the mast to support the mast fore-and-aft.

staysail (sta’s’l): Any sail thanked onto a stay. On a ketch, usually refers to the second sail in line (between jib and mainsail).

strake: one width of planks extending the length of the hull from bow to stern. Thus, the “garboard strake” lies next to the keel and the “sheer strake” lies at the deck line.

swaging: clamping a collar around a wire cable so that fittings can be attached, or a stay or shroud repaired.

sternway: headway backwards.

warp: a line used to move a vessel by hauling it. Warps are sometimes towed, or “streamed,” in a hurricane situation, i.e. , let out in a long “U” from the stern, perhaps weighted to increase their drag. Towing warps under bare poles will theoretically help to keep the boat from broaching. Do not count on it.

trades: reliable easterly winds, from ten to sixteen knots. They are found roughly from the equatorial doldrum belt to 25 degrees north and south latitude. In northern latitudes they blow from the northeast and in southern from the southeast. To ride with them is joyful. Getting back is hell, because they seldom let up. That is why most small boat sailors would rather continue around the world than beat back across the Pacific from its western edge.

Very pistol: a flare-shooting pistol invented in 1877 by E. W. Very and not much improved since.

yawl: a two-masted vessel like a ketch but with the after mast set aft of the rudder post. (See “ketch.")

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