Cutter. A small boat. Also, a kind of sloop.
Dagger. A piece of timber crossing all the puppets of the bilge-ways to keep them together.
Dagger-knees. Knees placed obliquely, to avoid a port.
Davits. Pieces of timber or iron, with sheaves or blocks at their ends, projecting over a vessel's sides or stern, to hoist boats up to. Also, a spar with a roller or sheave at its end, used for fishing the anchor, called a fish-davit.
Dead-eye. A circular block of wood, with three holes through it, for the lanyards of rigging to reeve through, without sheaves, and with a groove round it for an iron strap. (See page 59.)
Dead-flat. One of the bends, amidships.
Dead-lights. Ports placed in the cabin windows in bad weather.
Dead Reckoning. A reckoning kept by observing a vessel's courses and distances by the log, to ascertain her position.
Dead-rising, or Rising-line. Those parts of a vessel's floor, throughout her whole length, where the floor-timber is terminated upon the lower futtock.
Dead-water. The eddy under a vessel's counter.