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| HAIL | To speak or call to another vessel, or to men in a different part of a ship. |
| HALYARDS | Ropes or tackles used for hoisting and lowering yards, gaffs, and sails. |
| HALF-HITCH | Kind of knot. |
| HAMMOCK | A piece of canvass, hung at each end, in which seamen sleep. |
| HAND | To hand a sail is to furl it.
Bear-a-hand; make haste. Lend-a-hand; assist. Hand-over-hand; hauling rapidly on a rope, by putting one hand before the other alternately. |
| HAND-LEAD | A small lead, used for sounding in rivers and harbors. |
| HANDSOMELY | Slowly, carefully. Used for an order, as, "Lower handsomely!" |
| HANDSPIKE | A long wooden bar, used for heaving at the windlass. |
| HANDY BILLY | A watch-tackle. |
| HANKS | Rings or hoops of wood, rope, or iron, round a stay, and seized to the luff of a fore-and-aft sail. |
| HARPINGS | The fore part of the wales, which encompass the bows of a vessel, and are fastened to the stem. |
| HARPOON | A spear used for striking whales and other fish. |
| HATCH or HATCHWAY | An opening in the deck to afford a passage up and down. The
coverings over these openings are also called hatches.
Hatch-bar is an iron bar going across the hatches to keep them down. |
| HAUL | Haul her wind, said of a vessel when she comes up close upon the wind. |
| HAWSE | The situation of the cables before a vessel's stem, when moored.
Also the distance upon the water a little in advance of the stem;
as, a vessel sails athwart the hawse, or anchors in
the hawse of another.
Open hawse. When a vessel rides by two anchors, without any cross in her cables. |
| HAWSE-HOLE | The hole in the bows through which the cable runs. |
| HAWSE-PIECES | Timbers through which the hawse-holes are cut. |
| HAWSE-BLOCK | A block of wood fitted into a hawse-hole at sea. |
| HAWSER | A large rope used for various purposes, as warping, for a spring, &c. |
| HAWSER-LAID or CABLE-LAID | Rope laid with nine strands against the sun |
| HAZE | A term for punishing a man by keeping him unnecessarily at work upon disagreeable or difficult duty. |
| HEAD | The work at the prow of a vessel. If it is a carved figure, it is called a figure-head; if simple carved work, bending over and out, a billet-head; and if bending in, like the head of a violin, a fiddle-head. Also, the upper end of a mast, called a mast-head. (See BY-THE-HEAD. See FAST.) |
| HEAD-LEDGES | Thwartship pieces that frame the hatchways. |
| HEAD-SAILS | A general name given to all sails that set forward of the fore-mast. |
| HEART | A block of wood in the shape of a heart, for stays to reeve through. |
| HEART-YARNS | The centre yarns of a strand. |
| HEAVE SHORT | To heave in on the cable until the vessel is nearly over her anchor. |
| HEAVE-TO | To put a vessel in the position of lying-to. (See LIE-TO.) |
| HEAVE IN STAYS | To go about in tacking. |
| HEAVER | A short wooden bar, tapering at each end. Used as a purchase. |
| HEEL | The after part of the keel. Also, the lower end of a mast or
boom. Also, the lower end of the stern-post.
To heel, is to lie over on one side. |
| HEELING | The square part of the lower end of a mast, through which the fid-hole is made. |
| HELM | The machinery by which a vessel is steered, including the rudder, tiller, wheel, &c. Applied more particularly, perhaps, to the tiller. |
| HELM-PORT | The hole in the counter through which the rudder-head passes. |
| HELM-PORT-TRANSOM | A piece of timber placed across the lower counter, inside, at the height of the helm-port, and bolted through every timber, for the security of that port. |
| HIGH AND DRY | The situation of a vessel when she is aground, above water mark. |
| HITCH | A peculiar manner of fastening ropes. |
| HOG | A flat rough broom, used for scrubbing the bottom of a vessel. |
| HOGGED | The state of a vessel when, by any strain, she is made to droop at each end, bringing her centre up. |
| HOLD | The interior of a vessel, where the cargo is stowed. |
| HOLD WATER | To stop the progress of a boat by keeping the oar-blades in the water. |
| HOLY-STONE | A large stone, used for cleaning a ship's decks. |
| HOME | The sheets of a sail are said to be home, when the clews are hauled chock out to the sheave-holes. An anchor comes home when it is loosened from the ground and is hove in toward the vessel. |
| HOOD | A covering for a companion hatch, skylight, &c. |
| HOOD-ENDS or HOODING-ENDS or WHOODEN-ENDS | Those ends of the planks which fit into the rabbets of the stem or stern-post. |
| HOOK-AND-BUTT | The scarfing, or laying the ends of timbers over each other. |
| HORNS | The jaws of booms. Also, the ends of cross-trees. |
| HORSE | (See FOOT-ROPE.) |
| HOUNDS. | Those projections at the mast-head serving as shoulders for the top or trestle-trees to rest upon. |
| HOUSE | To house a mast, is to lower it almost half its length, and secure it by lashing its heel to the mast below. |
| HOUSING or HOUSE-LINE | A small cord made of three small yarns, and used for seizings. (Pronounced houze-lin.) |
| HULL | The body of a vessel. (See A-HULL.) |
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