HOVE KEEL OUT. Hove so completely over the beam-ends that the keel is above the water.
HOVELLERS. A Cinque-Port term for pilots and their boatmen; but colloquially, it is also applied to sturdy vagrants who infest the sea-coast in bad weather, in expectation of wreck and plunder.
HOVERING, and Hovering Acts. Said of smugglers of old.
HOVE-SHORT. The ship with her cable hove taut towards her anchor, when the sails are usually loosed and braced for canting; sheeted home.—Hove well short, the position of the ship when she is drawn by the capstan nearly over her anchor.
HOVE-TO. From the act of heaving-to; the motion of the ship stopped. It is curious to observe that seamen have retained an old word which has otherwise been long disused. It occurs in Grafton's Chronicle, where the mayor and aldermen of London, in 1256, understanding that Henry III. was coming to Westminster from Windsor, went to Knightsbridge, "and hoved there to salute the king."
HOW. An ancient term for the carina or hold of a ship.
HOWE, Hoe, or Hoo. A knoll, mound, or elevated hillock.
HOW FARE YE? Are you all hearty? are you working together? a good old sea phrase not yet lost.
HOWITZER. A piece of ordnance specially designed for the horizontal firing of shells, being shorter and much lighter than any gun of the same calibre. The rifled gun, however, throwing a shell of the same capacity from a smaller bore, and with much greater power, is superseding it for general purposes.
HOWKER. See [Hooker].