A TITANIC-SPECIFIC, NARRATIVE OVERVIEW OF NAUTICAL TERMINOLOGY

By Brett Anthony

GENERAL SHIP ORIENTATION

PLACES AND DIRECTIONS:

The BOW is the front of the ship, the STERN is the back. The leading edge of the bow is the STEM. Thus "stem to stern" means "the entire ship." AMIDSHIPS is the center section. PORT (or PORTSIDE) and STARBOARD are the left and right sides IF you are facing the bow, but like "driver side" and "passenger side" of a car, they don't move when you do. An easy way to remember is to think of Titanic at the PORT of Southampton. The PORT side was next to the dock.

FORWARD, FORE, or BEFORE means toward the bow. AFTER, AFT, or ABAFT all mean toward the stern. ABEAM means directly beside. INBOARD and
OUTBOARD mean, respectively, closer to centerline or closer to the rail.

P&S (for Port and Starboard) means "on both sides." Note that this is slightly different from ATHWART which means "crosswise." TO PORT
and TO STARBOARD are directions, as in "Vent XYZ is aft and slightly TO PORT of vent ABC."

The expression FORE & AFT means either "on both ends" or "lengthwise" depending on context.

PARTS IS PARTS:

Before ocean liners, ships just had a HULL, which was covered by a DECK. The top edge of the hull is the GUNWALE, pronounced "gunnel".

Various small buildings on the deck were DECKHOUSES. Once sails were eliminated, the deckhouses grew up to become the SUPERSTRUCTURE, several decks high amidships. Of course, deckhouses began sprouting on top of the superstructure as the need arose. The BRIDGE, originally a raised platform ahead of the engines on steam/sail ships, moved to the forward end of the superstructure. Titanic's DOCKING BRIDGE looks more like the original concept. The main deck, which had earlier covered the hull from stem to stern, became known as the WEATHER DECK, also, SHELTER DECK. The raised bow area is the FORECASTLE (or FO'C'SLE) pronounced 'FOKEsul' no matter how you spell it. The deck on top of the forecastle is called the FORECASTLE DECK, or more commonly, FOREDECK. The extreme forward end of the foredeck is the PROW.

The raised stern deck is the POOP DECK. Don't ask. Actually, in sailing ship days, ahead of the stem, below the bowsprit, was a structure called the HEAD. Built into the head timbers was a plank with a couple of holes in it called "seats of ease". Below that was the ocean. If the ship was pitching, a seat of ease doubled as a bidet. Thus, "going to the head" came to mean "using the toilet". "Going ahead" just means going forward. Titanic also had fore and aft WELL DECKS, which were lower than the forecastle or poop to facilitate cargo handling. Poop, incidentally, comes from the Medieval French term for "stern."

On a ship, walls are BULKHEADS, floors are DECKS, ceilings are OVERHEADS, windows are PORTS, stairs are COMPANIONWAYS, and doors are DOORS; unless they are a horizontal opening in the weather deck. Then they are called HATCHES. Note that the hatch is the opening; the cover is the HATCH COVER. Hatches had raised lips called HATCH COAMINGS around the edge to keep deck water from sloshing through the opening and annoying the rats below. Since the well decks were set below the top of the hull, the P&S well deck bulkheads were called BULWARKS, which means they were extra strong to resist wave and weather. Water, from rain or spray, did frequently get on the decks, so small drain holes called SCUPPERS were provided at the base of all bulwarks.

Of course, Titanic had a luxury hotel amidships, occupied by wealthy landlubbers, so sometimes a bulkhead was a wall and a stairway was just that.

PARKING THE TITANIC:

Since many of the deck features had to do with making the ship stay put when desired, a brief explanation is in order. Ships can be either tied to a dock, anchored, or moored. A mooring is a permanent anchor provided by the harbor authority. Visibly, a mooring is a buoy to which you can tie your ship, assuming you first ask permission of the harbormaster. The buoy is connected by chain to a great heavy lump of concrete or a piling driven into the harbor
bottom. Titanic was too big for any mooring, so she had to anchor at Cherbourg and Queenstown (Cobh). In fact, Titanic was so huge that she could only actually dock at Southampton and New York, and those facilities had to be modified to accommodate the Olympic ships. Just for sake of confusion, the ropes used to tie a ship to the dock are MOORING LINES, the sheltered area of a harbor where moorings are available is often called an ANCHORAGE, and the outer harbor where large ships are actually permitted to drop anchor is called a ROADS.

DOCKING:

The very large diameter ropes, cables, and chains needed to restrain or tow a ship are often called HAWSERS. Thus, there are HAWSEHOLES in the well deck bulwarks (and elsewhere) for mooring lines. Additionally, where mooring lines run from the foredeck or poop directly over the gunwale, they pass through FAIRLEADS, which are basically guides. Mooring lines can either be attached to BOLLARDS or BITTS, depending on who passes the line to whom. A BOLLARD is a single, large, smooth finished cast iron post, wider at the top. The mooring line, which has an eye splice for this purpose, is simply slipped over the bollard, which in this case would be on the dock. Titanic's deck bollards were used for lines passed to her from tugboats.

The length of the mooring line is adjusted at the ship end, usually by hauling the line with the aid of a CAPSTAN. Titanic's capstans had vertical drums, ribbed for traction, and turned by a steam engine. The line was wrapped around the drum several turns, and the capstan then run to haul the ship in close to the dock. The free end (also called THE BITTER END) was paid into a ROPE LOCKER. Once the line was hauled up short, it would be slacked briefly and BELAYED to a set of BITTS. To BELAY is to tie a line to a cleat, bitts, or other tie-point. A set of BITTS, here plural, like pants, is a pair of cylindrical iron posts, each with a rim at the top. The line is passed between the bitts, then wrapped round them in a figure 8 and secured by flipping the final loop.

WARPING SHIP. The crew could actually move the ship along a dock by alternately hauling on the mooring lines and moving them to new (dockside) bollards. Similar to KEDGING, except warping was actually practical, and was frequently used. Cheaper and quicker than tugboats.

DROPPING THE HOOK:

Titanic had three bow (or bower) anchors. The center anchor, stowed in the well just aft of the stempost, was designed to be lifted from its well with the anchor crane and rigged to a wire hawser which paid out from the STEM HAWSEHOLE. This hawser was also used for towing, as when Titanic left Belfast on her sea trials. The port and starboard bow anchors were stowed with their shanks inside their HAWSEPIPES, so called because they were indeed pipes which extended from hull surface to foredeck. From the top of the hawsepipes the anchor chains lay aft along the foredeck secured with smaller gripe
chains passed through the links. The chains then passed below, each to a steam powered WINDLASS, which worked like a capstan with a horizontal drum, in the forecastle. The chains then paid off the back of the windlass drums to chain lockers below. The stem hawser had its own windlass and separate storage drum.

Although the speed of lowering could be controlled with a windlass brake, it was safer for the ship to drop anchor as fast as possible. Therefore, the winch was hauled tight to allow someone to free the gripes, then all hands stood clear and they let it rip. Close inspection of the anchor tracks and guard hoops on the foredeck suggests the chain would thrash about quite violently while paying out.

Once the anchor hit bottom, the pilot would BACK SHIP until five to ten times the water depth of cable (chain) had paid out, then the windlass brake would be locked to cause the anchor flukes to dig in. Raising anchor was the reverse: the ship would proceed AHEAD SLOW (or DEAD SLOW) toward the anchor as the cable was hauled. When the anchor broke free the foredeck officer would report "Anchor's aweigh" to the bridge and continue hauling while a deckhand directed a hose down the hawsepipe to wash off the mud.

TITANIC'S UNUSUAL ANCHOR ARRANGEMENT:

As can be seen above, it took a lot of searoom to anchor a liner, and there is an unstated assumption there that the current would not change while riding to anchor. Indeed, ships which expected to anchor in tidal estuaries needed stern anchors as large as those at the bow. Regulations and insurers demanded a certain anchoring capability based on tonnage; however Titanic's designers knew that the anchorages at Cherbourg and Queenstown would almost never require the specified holding power. The solution was to rig the Olympic ships with a pair of smallish (8 ton), easily handled hull-mounted anchors, and one humungous (15.5 ton) center anchor stowed in a special foredeck well. One assumes the deck crew devoutly wished never to have to use it.

KEDGE ANCHORS:

Originally, the purpose of a kedge anchor was to move a ship in a tight anchorage. The procedure was as follows:

1. Launch a boat, and lower the kedge anchor into the boat with a
   cable attached.
2. Row the boat in the direction you want the ship
   to go, and at a suitable distance, drop the anchor.
3. Wrap the
   cable round a capstan, and haul the ship over to the anchor.
4. Repeat.