TRIM, the state or disposition by which a ship is best calculated for the several purposes of navigation.

To TREND, to run off in a certain direction.

TRIPING, the movement by which an anchor is loosened from the bottom by its cable or buoy-ropes.

V.

VEERING, the fame as wearing, which see.

To VEER away the cable, is to slacken it, that it may run out of the ship.

W.

WAKE, the print or track impressed by the course of a ship on the surface of the water.

WALES, an assemblage of strong planks extending along a ship’s side, throughout her whole length, at different heights, and serving to reinforce the decks, and form the curves by which the vessel appears light and graceful on the water.

WARP, a small rope employed occasionally to remove a ship from one place to another, in a port, road or river. And hence

To WARP, is to change the situation of a ship, by pulling her from one part of a harbour, &c. to some other, by means of warps.

WASH-BOARD, a broad thin plank fixed occasionally on the top of a boat’s side, so as to raise it, and be removed at pleasure. It is used to prevent the sea from breaking into the vessel, particularly when the surface is rough.

To WEATHER, is to sail to windward of some ship, bank, or headland.

To WEAR, the same as to veer, to perform the operation by which a ship, in changing her course from one board to the other, turns her stern to windward; it is the opposite to tacking, in which the head is turned to the windward and the stern to the leeward.

WINDLASS, a machine used in merchant-ships to heave up the anchors. It is a large cylindrical piece of timber, supported at the two

Voyaging Accounts