T
TABLING to TAIL
TABLING
TACK
To TACK
TACKLE
Ground TACKLE
TACK-TACKLE
Winding TACKLE
TAFFEREL
TAIL
TAIL-BLOCK to TENDING
TENON to TIDE
TIER to TOGGEL
TOMPION to TOPPING
TOPPING-LIFT to TRACT-SCOUT
TRACTING to TREE-NAILS
TRESTLE-TREES to TRIP
TRIPPING to TRYING
TUCK to TYE
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TACK
TACK, (couet, Fr.) a rope used to confine the foremost lower-corners of the courses and slay sails in a fixed position, when the wind crosses the ship's course obliquely. The same name is also given to the rope employed to pull out the lower corner of a scudding -sail or driver to the extremity of its boom.The main-sail and fore-sail of a ship are furnished with a tack on each side, which is formed of a thick rope tapering to the end, and having a knot wrought upon the largest end, by which it is firmly retained in the clue of the sail. By this means one tack is always fastened to windward, at the same time that the fleet extends the sail to leeward. See CHESTREE.
TACK is also applied, by analogy, to that part of any sail to which the tack is usually fastened.
A ship is said to be on the starboard or larboard tack, when she is close-hauled, with the wind upon the starboard or larboard side; and in this sense the distance which the sails in that position is considered as the length of the tack; although this is more frequently called a BOARD. See that article.
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© Derived from Thomas Cadell's new corrected edition, London: 1780, page 286, 2003
Prepared by Paul Turnbull
http://southseas.nla.gov.au/refs/falc/1328.html