DEAD-SHEAVE. A scored aperture in the heel of a top-mast, through which a second top-tackle pendant can be rove. It is usually a section of a lignum-vitæ sheave let in, so as to avoid chafe.
DEAD-TICKET. Persons dying on board, those discharged from the service, and all officers promoted, are cleared from the ship's books by a dead-ticket, which must be filled up in a similar manner to the [sick-ticket] (which see).
DEAD UPON A WIND. Braced sharp up and bowlines hauled.
DEAD-WATER. The eddy-water under the counter of a ship under way; so called because passing away slower than the water alongside. A ship is said to make much dead-water when she has a great eddy following her stern, often occasioned by her having a square tuck. A vessel with a round buttock at her line of floatation can have but little dead-water, the rounding abaft allowing the fluid soon to recover its state of rest.
DEAD WEIGHT. A vessel's lading when it consists of heavy goods, but particularly such as pay freight according to their weight and not their stowage.
DEAD WOOD. Certain blocks of timber, generally oak, fayed on the upper side of the keel, particularly at the extremities before and abaft, where these pieces are placed upon each other to a considerable height, because the ship is there so narrow as not to admit of the two half timbers, which are therefore scored into this dead wood, where the angle of the floor-timbers gradually diminishes on approaching the stem and stern-post. In the fore-part of the ship the dead wood generally extends from the stemson, upon which it is scarphed, to the loof-frame; and in the after-end, from the stern-post, where it is confined by the knee, to the after balance frame. It is connected to the keel by strong spike nails. The dead wood afore and abaft is equal in depth to two-thirds of the depth of the keel, and as broad as can be procured, not exceeding the breadth of the keel, i.e. continued as high as the cutting-down line in both bodies, to afford a stepping for the heels of the cant timbers.
DEAD-WOOD KNEES. The upper foremost and aftermost pieces of dead wood; being crooked pieces of timber, the bolting of which connects the keel with the stem and stern posts.
DEAD WORKS. All that part of the ship which is above water when she is laden. The same as [upper work], or [supernatant] (which see).
DEAL BEACH. This coast consists of gravelly shingle; and a man who is pock-marked, or in galley-cant cribbage-faced, is figuratively said to have been rolled on Deal beach.
DEAL-ENDS. Applied to deal-planks when under 6 feet in length.