T
TABLING to 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
TRESTLE-TREES
TRIM
TRIM of the masts
TRIM of a ships hold
TRIM the boat
Sailing TRIM
Sharp-TRIMMED
TRIMONEER
TRIP
TRIPPING to TRYING
TUCK to TYE
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TRIM (continued)
Several circumstances are also to be particularly considered with regard to the quality, weight, and stowage of the ballast. The center of gravity being placed too high, will render the ship incapable of carrying a sufficient quantity of sail; and by having it too low, she will be in danger of rolling away her masts. When it is placed too far forward, the ship will pitch, and labour heavily; and when too far aft, she will occasionally be exposed to the dangerous circumstance of a pooping sea. These extremes being carefully avoided, it remains to proportion the contents of every part of the hold to its capacity, and to place the lightest materials uppermost. See STOWAGE.TRIM, when applied to the sails, denotes the general arrangement which is best calculated to accelerate the ship's course, according to the direction of the wind. See the article SAILING.
If the ship were always to sail before the wind, it would be a very simple operation to trim the sails; because nothing else could be required than to dispose them so as to receive the greatest possible effort of the wind, which is evidently performed by arranging them at right angles with its direction. But when the current of wind acts more directly upon the ship's side, it necessarily falls more obliquely on the surface of the sails, so as to diminish their effort to push the ship forward; and to augment their tendency to make her incline to one side. Hence we may conclude, that an increase of the wind, when accompanied with a variation unfavourable to the ship's course, will by no means augment her velocity; because the force, previously employed to push her forward, will afterwards operate to overturn her; and because this impression renders it necessary to reduce the quantity of sail; the effort of which is further diminished by the obliquity of the action of the wind upon its surface.
By this theory it appears, that the effect of the wind to advance the ship decreases in proportion to its obliquity with any sail upon which it operates.
The mechanical disposition of the sails, according to every direction of the wind upon their surfaces, is copiously described in the article CLOSE-HAULED, LARGE, SAILING, and TACKING.
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© Derived from Thomas Cadell's new corrected edition, London: 1780, page 299, 2003
Prepared by Paul Turnbull
http://southseas.nla.gov.au/refs/falc/1399.html