Hawsehole
Hawsehole is a nautical term for a small hole in the hull of a ship through which hawsers may be passed. It is known as a cat hole. In the Royal Navy, an officer who had served as a seaman before being promoted was said to have "come in through the hawsehole". Hawsepiper
Mooring (watercraft)
A mooring refers to any permanent structure to which a vessel may be secured. Examples include quays, jetties, anchor buoys, mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An anchor mooring fixes a vessel's position relative to a point on the bottom of a waterway without connecting the vessel to shore; as a verb, mooring refers to the act of attaching a vessel to a mooring. The term stems from the Dutch verb meren, used in English since the end of the 15th century; these moorings are used instead of temporary anchors because they have more holding power, cause less damage to the marine environment, are convenient. Where there is a row of moorings they are termed a tier, they are occasionally used to hold floating docks in place. There are several kinds of moorings: Swing moorings known as simple or single-point moorings, are the simplest and most common kind of mooring. A swing mooring consists of a single anchor at the bottom of a waterway with a rode running to a float on the surface.
The float allows a vessel to connect to the anchor. These anchors are known as swing moorings because a vessel attached to this kind of mooring swings in a circle when the direction of wind or tide changes. For a small boat, this might consist of a heavy weight on the seabed, a 12 mm or 14 mm rising chain attached to the "anchor", a bridle made from 20 mm nylon rope, steel cable, or a 16 mm combination steel wire material; the heavy weight should be a dense material. Old rail wagon wheels are used in some places for this purpose. In some harbours heavy chain may be placed in a grid pattern on the sea bed to ensure orderly positioning of moorings. Ropes should be "non floating" to reduce likelihood of a boat's prop being fouled by one. Pile moorings are poles driven into the bottom of the waterway with their tops above the water. Vessels tie mooring lines to two or four piles to fix their position between those piles. Pile moorings are rare elsewhere. While many mooring buoys are owned, some are available for public use.
For example, on the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast, a vast number of public moorings are set out in popular areas where boats can moor. This is to avoid the massive damage. There are four basic types of permanent anchors used in moorings: Dead weights are the simplest type of anchor, they are made as a large concrete block with a rode attached which resists movement with sheer weight. In New Zealand old railway wheels are sometimes used; the advantages are that they are cheap. A dead weight mooring that drags in a storm still holds well in its new position; such moorings are better suited to rocky bottoms. The disadvantages are that they are heavy and awkward. Mushroom anchors are the most common anchors and work best for softer seabeds such as mud, sand, or silt, they are shaped like an upside-down mushroom which can be buried in mud or silt. The advantage is that it has up to ten times the holding-power-to-weight ratio compared to a dead weight mooring. Pyramid anchors are pyramid-shaped anchors known as Dor-Mor anchors.
They work in the upside-down position with the apex pointing down at the bottom such that when they are deployed, the weight of wider base pushes the pyramid down digging into the floor. As the anchors are encountered with lateral pulls, the side edges or corners of the pyramids will dig deeper under the floor, making them more stable. Screw-in moorings are a modern method; the anchor in a screw-in mooring is a shaft with wide blades spiraling around it so that it can be screwed into the substrate. The advantages include small size; the disadvantage is that a diver is needed to install and maintain these moorings. Multiple anchor mooring systems use two or more light weight temporary-style anchors set in an equilateral arrangement and all chained to a common center from which a conventional rode extends to a mooring buoy; the advantages are minimized mass, ease of deployment, high holding-power-to-weight ratio, availability of temporary-style anchors. A vessel can be made fast to any variety of shore fixtures from trees and rocks to specially constructed areas such as piers and quays.
The word pier is used in the following explanation in a generic sense. Mooring is accomplished using thick ropes called mooring lines or hawsers; the lines are fixed to deck fittings on the vessel at one end and to fittings such as bollards and cleats on the other end. Mooring requires cooperation between people on a vessel. Heavy mooring lines are passed from larger vessels to people on a mooring by smaller, weighted heaving lines. Once a mooring line is attached to a bollard, it is pulled tight. Large ships tighten their mooring lines using heavy machinery called mooring winches or capstans; the heaviest cargo ships may require more than a dozen mooring lines. Small vessels can be moored by four to six mooring lines. Mooring lines are made from manila rope or a synthetic material such as nylon. Nylon is easy to work with and lasts for years, but it is elastic; this elasticity has advantag
Harwich
Harwich is a town in Essex and one of the Haven ports, located on the coast with the North Sea to the east. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the northeast, Ipswich to the northwest, Colchester to the southwest and Clacton-on-Sea to the south, it is the northernmost coastal town within Essex. Its position on the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell rivers and its usefulness to mariners as the only safe anchorage between the Thames and the Humber led to a long period of maritime significance, both civil and military; the town became a naval base in 1657 and was fortified, with Harwich Redoubt, Beacon Hill Battery, Bath Side Battery. Harwich is the launch point of the Mayflower which carried English Puritans to North America, is the presumed birthplace of Mayflower captain Christopher Jones. Harwich today is contiguous with Dovercourt and the two, along with Parkeston, are referred to collectively as Harwich; the town's name means "military settlement", from Old English here-wic.
The town received its charter in 1238, although there is evidence of earlier settlement – for example, a record of a chapel in 1177, some indications of a possible Roman presence. Because of its strategic position, Harwich was the target for the invasion of Britain by William of Orange on 11 November 1688. However, unfavourable winds forced his fleet to sail into the English Channel instead and land at Torbay. Due to the involvement of the Schomberg family in the invasion, Charles Louis Schomberg was made Marquess of Harwich. Writer Daniel Defoe devotes a few pages to the town in A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain. Visiting in 1722, he noted its formidable fort and harbour "of a vast extent"; the town, he recounts, was known for an unusual chalybeate spring rising on Beacon Hill, which "petrified" clay, allowing it to be used to pave Harwich's streets and build its walls. The locals claimed that "the same spring is said to turn wood into iron", but Defoe put this down to the presence of "copperas" in the water.
Regarding the atmosphere of the town, he states: "Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and pleasure. Harwich played an important part in the Napoleonic and more the two world wars. Of particular note: 1793-1815—Post Office Station for communication with Europe, one of embarkation and evacuation bases for expeditions to Holland in 1799, 1809 and 1813/14; the dockyard built many ships for the Navy, including HMS Conqueror which captured the French Admiral Villeneuve at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Redoubt and the now-demolished Ordnance Building date from that era. 1914-18—base for the Royal Navy's Harwich Force light cruisers and destroyers under Commodore Tyrwhitt, for British submarines. In November 1918 the German U-Boat fleet surrendered to the Royal Navy in the harbour. 1939-1945—one of main East Coast minesweeping and destroyer bases, at one period base for British and French submarines. Harwich Dockyard was established as a Royal Navy Dockyard in 1652, it ceased to operate as a Royal Dockyard in 1713.
During the various wars with France and Holland, through to 1815, the dockyard was responsible for both building and repairing numerous warships. HMS Conqueror, a 74-gun ship completed in 1801, captured the French admiral Villeneuve at Trafalgar; the yard was a semi-private concern, with the actual shipbuilding contracted to Joseph Graham, sometimes mayor of the town. During World War II parts of Harwich were again requisitioned for naval use and ships were based at HMS Badger; the Royal Navy no longer has a presence in Harwich but Harwich International Port at nearby Parkeston continues to offer regular ferry services to the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands. Many operations of the Port of Felixstowe and of Trinity House, the lighthouse authority, are managed from Harwich; the port is famous for the phrase "Harwich for the Continent", seen on road signs and in London & North Eastern Railway advertisements. At least three pairs of lighthouses have been built over recent centuries as leading lights, to help guide vessels into Harwich.
The earliest pair were wooden structures: the High Light stood on top of the old Town Gate, whilst the Low Light stood on the foreshore. Both were coal-fired. In 1818 these were replaced by stone structures, designed by John Rennie Senior, which can still be seen today, they were owned by General Rebow of Wivenhoe Park, able to charge 1d per ton on all cargo entering the port, for upkeep of the lights. In 1836 Rebow's lease on the lights was purchased by Trinity House, but in 1863 they were declared redundant due to a change the position of the channel used by ships entering and leaving the port, caused by shifting sands, they were in turn replaced by the pair of cast iron lights at nearby Dovercourt. Despite, or because of, its small size Harwich is regarded in terms of architectural heritage, the whole of the older part of the town, excluding Navyard Wharf, is a conservation area; the regular street plan with principal thoroughfares connected b
Ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying passengers or goods, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense and fishing. A "ship" was a sailing vessel with at least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit. Ships are distinguished from boats, based on size, load capacity, tradition. Ships have been important contributors to human commerce, they have supported the spread of colonization and the slave trade, but have served scientific and humanitarian needs. After the 15th century, new crops that had come from and to the Americas via the European seafarers contributed to the world population growth. Ship transport is responsible for the largest portion of world commerce; as of 2016, there were more than 49,000 merchant ships, totaling 1.8 billion dead weight tons. Of these 28% were oil tankers, 43% were bulk carriers, 13% were container ships. Ships are larger than boats, but there is no universally accepted distinction between the two.
Ships can remain at sea for longer periods of time than boats. A legal definition of ship from Indian case law is a vessel. A common notion is, but not vice versa. A US Navy rule of thumb is that ships heel towards the outside of a sharp turn, whereas boats heel towards the inside because of the relative location of the center of mass versus the center of buoyancy. American and British 19th Century maritime law distinguished "vessels" from other craft. In the Age of Sail, a full-rigged ship was a sailing vessel with at least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit. A number of large vessels are referred to as boats. Submarines are a prime example. Other types of large vessel which are traditionally called boats are Great Lakes freighters and ferryboats. Though large enough to carry their own boats and heavy cargoes, these vessels are designed for operation on inland or protected coastal waters. In most maritime traditions ships have individual names, modern ships may belong to a ship class named after its first ship.
In the northern parts of Europe and America a ship is traditionally referred to with a female grammatical gender, represented in English with the pronoun "she" if named after a man. This is not universal usage and some English language journalistic style guides advise using "it" as referring to ships with female pronouns can be seen as offensive and outdated. In many documents the ship name is introduced with a ship prefix being an abbreviation of the ship class, for example "MS" or "SV", making it easier to distinguish a ship name from other individual names in a text; the first known vessels could not be described as ships. The first navigators began to use animal skins or woven fabrics as sails. Affixed to the top of a pole set upright in a boat, these sails gave early ships range; this allowed men to explore allowing for the settlement of Oceania for example. By around 3000 BC, Ancient Egyptians knew, they used woven straps to lash the planks together, reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams.
The Greek historian and geographer Agatharchides had documented ship-faring among the early Egyptians: "During the prosperous period of the Old Kingdom, between the 30th and 25th centuries BC, the river-routes were kept in order, Egyptian ships sailed the Red Sea as far as the myrrh-country." Sneferu's ancient cedar wood ship Praise of the Two Lands is the first reference recorded to a ship being referred to by name. The ancient Egyptians were at ease building sailboats. A remarkable example of their shipbuilding skills was the Khufu ship, a vessel 143 feet in length entombed at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC and found intact in 1954, it is known that ancient Nubia/Axum traded with India, there is evidence that ships from Northeast Africa may have sailed back and forth between India/Sri Lanka and Nubia trading goods and to Persia and Rome. Aksum was known by the Greeks for having seaports for ships from Yemen. Elsewhere in Northeast Africa, the Periplus of the Red Sea reports that Somalis, through their northern ports such as Zeila and Berbera, were trading frankincense and other items with the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula well before the arrival of Islam as well as with Roman-controlled Egypt.
A panel found at Mohenjodaro depicted a sailing craft. Vessels were of many types; this treatise gives a technical exposition on the techniques of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes, the materials from which they were built; the Yukti Kalpa Taru sums up in a condensed form all the available information. The Yukti Kalpa Taru gives sufficient information and dates to prove that, in ancient times, Indian shipbuilders had a good knowledge of the materials which were used in building ships. In addition to describing the qualities of the different types of wood and their suitability for shipbuilding, the Yukti Kalpa Taru gives an elaborate classification of ships based on their size; the oldest discovered sea faring hulled boat is the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey, dating back to 1300 BC. The Phoenicians, the first to sail around
Naval rating
In a navy, a rate, rating or bluejacket is a junior enlisted member of that navy, not a warrant officer or commissioned officer. Depending on the country and navy that uses it, the exact term and the range of ranks that it refers to may vary. In the Royal Navy and other navies in the Commonwealth and rating are interchangeably used to refer to an enlisted member of the navy, ranked below warrant officers and commissioned officers but may include petty officers and chief petty officers; the term comes from the general nautical usage of rating to refer to a seaman's class or grade as recorded in the ship's books. The system of conferring authority on sailors in the Royal Navy evolved through the recognition of competence: landsman, ordinary seaman, able seaman, through to the appointment of authority as a petty officer; the general structure now used breaks down into four major groupings: Able rate Leading rate Petty officer Chief petty officer In the United States Navy, the term bluejacket is used instead to refer enlisted sailors that rank below a chief petty officer.
Bluejacket derives itself from an item of clothing, worn by junior enlisted sailors before 1886. It is used when the sailors are deployed ashore as infantry. Royal Navy ratings rank insignia Rating system of the Royal Navy List of United States Navy ratings List of United States Navy enlisted rates List of United States Coast Guard ratings The Bluejacket's Manual Baker, Ernest A; the New English Dictionary, Odhams Press, London, 1932. Cutler, Thomas J; the Blue Jacket's Manual Centennial Edition, Naval Institute Press, Maryland, 2002. ISBN 9781557502087
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France; the modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century. From the middle decades of the 17th century, through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War; the Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the unmatched world power during the 19th and first part of the 20th centuries. Due to this historical prominence, it is common among non-Britons, to refer to it as "the Royal Navy" without qualification. Following World War I, the Royal Navy was reduced in size, although at the onset of World War II it was still the world's largest.
By the end of the war, the United States Navy had emerged as the world's largest. During the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines and active in the GIUK gap. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its focus has returned to expeditionary operations around the world and remains one of the world's foremost blue-water navies. However, 21st century reductions in naval spending have led to a personnel shortage and a reduction in the number of warships; the Royal Navy maintains a fleet of technologically sophisticated ships and submarines including two aircraft carriers, two amphibious transport docks, four ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear fleet submarines, six guided missile destroyers, 13 frigates, 13 mine-countermeasure vessels and 22 patrol vessels. As of November 2018, there are 74 commissioned ships in the Royal Navy, plus 12 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary; the RFA replenishes Royal Navy warships at sea, augments the Royal Navy's amphibious warfare capabilities through its three Bay-class landing ship vessels.
It works as a force multiplier for the Royal Navy doing patrols that frigates used to do. The total displacement of the Royal Navy is 408,750 tonnes; the Royal Navy is part of Her Majesty's Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, an admiral and member of the Defence Council of the United Kingdom; the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The Royal Navy operates three bases in the United Kingdom; as the seaborne branch of HM Armed Forces, the RN has various roles. As it stands today, the RN has stated its 6 major roles as detailed below in umbrella terms. Preventing Conflict – On a global and regional level Providing Security At Sea – To ensure the stability of international trade at sea International Partnerships – To help cement the relationship with the United Kingdom's allies Maintaining a Readiness To Fight – To protect the United Kingdom's interests across the globe Protecting the Economy – To safe guard vital trade routes to guarantee the United Kingdom's and its allies' economic prosperity at sea Providing Humanitarian Aid – To deliver a fast and effective response to global catastrophes The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the kingdom's power in the 10th century.
At one point Aethelred II had an large fleet built by a national levy of one ship for every 310 hides of land, but it is uncertain whether this was a standard or exceptional model for raising fleets. During the period of Danish rule in the 11th century, the authorities maintained a standing fleet by taxation, this continued for a time under the restored English regime of Edward the Confessor, who commanded fleets in person. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Following the Battle of Hastings, the Norman navy that brought over William the Conqueror disappeared from records due to William receiving all of those ships from feudal obligations or because of some sort of leasing agreement which lasted only for the duration of the enterprise. More troubling, is the fact that there is no evidence that William adopted or kept the Anglo-Saxon ship mustering system, known as the scipfryd. Hardly noted after 1066, it appears that the Normans let the scipfryd languish so that by 1086, when the Doomsday Book was completed, it had ceased to exist.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 1068, Harold Godwinson's sons Godwine and Edmund conducted a ‘raiding-ship army’ which came from Ireland, raiding across the region and to the townships of Bristol and Somerset. In the following year of 1069, they returned with a bigger fleet which they sailed up the River Taw before being beaten back by a local earl near Devon. However, this made explicitly clear that the newly conquered England under Norman rule, in effect, ceded the Irish Sea to the Irish, the Vikings of Dublin, other Norwegians. Besides ceding away the Irish Sea, the Normans ceded the North Sea, a major area where Nordic peoples traveled. In 1069, this lack of naval presence in the North Sea allowed for the invasion an
Towing
Towing is coupling two or more objects together so that they may be pulled by a designated power source or sources. The towing source may be a motorized land vehicle, animal, or human, the load anything that can be pulled; these may be joined by a chain, bar, three-point, fifth wheel, drawbar, integrated platform, or other means of keeping the objects together while in motion. Towing may be as simple as a tractor pulling a tree stump; the most familiar form is the transport of disabled or otherwise indisposed vehicles by a tow truck or "wrecker." Other familiar forms are the tractor-trailer combination, cargo or leisure vehicles coupled via ball or pintle and gudgeon trailer-hitches to smaller trucks and cars. In the opposite extreme are heavy duty tank recovery vehicles, enormous ballast tractors involved in heavy hauling towing loads stretching into the millions of pounds. Government and industry standards have been developed for carriers and coupling to ensure safety and interoperability of towing equipment.
Barges were hauled along rivers or canals using tow ropes drawn by men or draught animals walking along towpaths on the banks. Came chain boats. Today, tug boats barges. Over thousands of years the maritime industry has refined towing to a science. Aircraft tow one-another as well. Troop and cargo carrying gliders are towed behind powered aircraft, which remains a popular means of getting modern leisure gliders aloft; this section refers to the towing of a cargo-carrying device behind a car. Most trailers fit into one of three categories: Small trailers that attach to cars and small trucks: Small enclosed trailers are covered by four sides and a roof; these types of trailers are used for carrying livestock since they protect the contents from weather. People rent these types of trailers for moving boxes and other materials. Boat trailers are used for pulling boats; these types of trailers are designed for easy loading in and out of the water and are purchased based on the specific type and style of boat they will be hauling.
They are open trailers that are specially shaped to hold and secure boats, but because of this specialty, they are a unique category. Recreational vehicles are utility vehicles or vans that are equipped with living facilities. While some are self-propelled, many are designed as trailers to be attached to a trailer hitch; these trailer hitches are common on the back of many cars and trucks, RV trailers are used for camping outings or road trips. In the United Kingdom, RV trailers are known as caravans. Trailers designed to be hauled in a "big rig" tractor-trailer configuration, which come in many configurations: Flat bed or open trailers, which are platforms with no sides or stakes; this type of trailer works well for hauling unconventional shaped objects. Some are small enough to be towed behind cars. Tank trailers, which are trailers designed to contain liquids such as milk, water or motor fuel. Container trailers are standard intermodal "boxes" that can be fitted with a front stand; the containers are stacked on ships and used as railroad boxcars.
Non-containerized tractor-trailer boxes are fairly common, work much like containers, but with the stand and dolly integrated permanently into the box. Trailers for speciality applications that may require a specialized vehicle, such as a farm tractor. Unpowered train cars pulled behind a locomotive can be considered in this category. There are many safety considerations to properly towing a caravan or trailer / travel trailer starting with vehicle towing capacity and ranging through equalizer hitches to properly and connecting the safety chains. According to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Association, more than 65,000 crashes involving passenger vehicles towing trailers occurred in 2004 in the US, jumping nearly 20 percent from the previous year. In 2006, Master Lock did their annual study on towing safety to see how many Americans tow their cargo correctly; the study, Towing Troubles included responses from trailer owners across the country and found that while the majority of trailer owners believe they know what they’re doing when it comes to towing, most were lacking the proper education.
Master Lock reported that 70 percent of trailer owners did not know the correct way to tow their cargo. An important factor in towing safety is tongue weight, the weight with which the trailer presses down on the tow vehicle's hitch. Insufficient tongue weight can cause the trailer to sway forth when towed. Too much tongue weight can cause problems with the tow vehicle. Of the many cars fitted with towbars, most are to have fitted towing electrics which are ‘hidden’ from the car; this electrical installation is called ‘By-pass electrics’. This system is used to protect the car's lighting systems from potential damage if wiring in a trailer should malfunction, it is a tried and tested system in wide use. Bypass systems are found both in dedicated and OEM systems. Since the early 2000s, vehicle technology has moved forward introducing CANbus network systems which allowed the interaction of different systems, the detection of a trailer or caravan. In some cases, the manufacturers have not only designed automobiles to sense the presence of a trailer, but they have created enhanced new features within the systems connect
Media related to Hawser ropes at Wikimedia Commons
