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A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships manoeuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides.
A model of a third-rate ship of the line of the Navy of the Order of Saint John from the late 18th century. In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker).
The phrase "toeing a line" appeared in Captain Maryatt's story "Poor Jack", which was published in several American newspapers in 1841. It refers to the crew of a ship being marshaled and inspected by a lieutenant. [4] The most likely origin of the term goes back to the wooden decked ships of the Royal Navy during the late 17th or early 18th ...
A 1728 diagram illustrating a first- and a third-rate ship. The rating system of the Royal Navy and its predecessors was used by the Royal Navy between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century to categorise sailing warships, initially classing them according to their assigned complement of men, and later according to the number of their carriage-mounted guns.
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a first rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Originating in the Jacobean era with the designation of Ships Royal capable of carrying at least 400 men, the size and establishment of first-rates evolved over the following 250 years to eventually ...
A fourth-rate was, in the British Royal Navy during the first half of the 18th century, a ship of the line mounting from 46 up to 60 guns. While the number of guns stayed in the same range until 1817, after 1756 the ships of 50 guns and below were considered too weak to stand in the line of battle, although the remaining 60-gun ships were still classed as fit to be ships of the line.
HMS Asia, a second-rate of the Royal Navy (John Ward, date unknown). In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a second-rate was a ship of the line which by the start of the 18th century mounted 90 to 98 guns on three gun decks; earlier 17th-century second rates had fewer guns and were originally two-deckers or had only partially armed third gun decks.
The sides of a ship. To describe a ship as "on her beam ends" may mean the vessel is literally on her side and possibly about to capsize; more often, the phrase means the vessel is listing 45 degrees or more. beam reach Sailing with the wind coming across the vessel's beam. This is normally the fastest point of sail for a fore-and-aft-rigged ...