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GLOSSARY
Battens: Flexible strips of wood or fiberglass placed in a sail to help the
leech retain its' proper shape.
Becket: A loop, eye or grommet; the eye in the strap of a block to which a line
can be attached.
Belay: To secure a line, usually to a cleat.
Block: A wood or metal shell enclosing one or more sheaves, through which lines
are led.
Boom Vang: A single line - usually wire - or a block and tackle commonly used
to hold down the boom while reaching or running.
Bow: The forward part of the boat. (The word prow, cherished by poets,
describes a ship's ornamented stem and is otherwise avoided by seamen.
Buoy: A floating aid to navigation used to mark the navigable limits of
channels, indicate hazards, define anchorages, post local regulations, etc.
Car: A metal fitting that slides on a track and to which blocks are attached.
Chafing gear: A covering put around a short section of line to reduce wear, or
on the rigging to protect the sails.
Chain plate: A narrow metal plate attached to the hull as a fastening point for
shrouds and stays.
Cleat: A metal or wood fitting with two projecting horns fastened to some part
of the boat, to which a line is belayed.
Clew: The lower, after corner of a sail, where the foot meets the leech.
Cringle: A circular eye, often formed by a metal ring, grommet or piece of rope
worked into the: eye, set in the corners or on the edges of a sail and used for
fastening the sail to spars or running rigging.
Downhaul: A length of wire or line that pulls down the tack of the sailor the
foremost end of the boom to tighten the lugg.
Fairlead: A metal, plastic or wooden eye - usually attached to a deck - that
guides a line in a desired direction.
Foot: The bottom edge of a sail.
Freeboard: The vertical' distance measured on the boat's side from the
waterline to the deck.
Genoa: A large headsail set on the headstay and overlapping the mainsail.
Halyard: A line to hoist and lower a sail.
Head: The top corner of a triangular sail. Also, a seagoing lavatory.
Helm: The device, usually a tiller or wheel, connected to the rudder, by which
a boat is steered.
Jibe: To turn a boat's stern through the wind so that the sails swing from one
side of the boat to the other, putting the boat on another tack.
