The Sailor's Word-Book / An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc.

by W. H. Smyth

POLAR REGIONS. Those parts of the world which lie within the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

POLDAVIS, or Poldavy. A canvas from Dantzic, formerly much used in our navy. A kind of sail-cloth thus named was also manufactured in Lancashire from about the year 1500, and regulated by statute 1 Jac. cap. 24.

POLE. The upper end of the highest masts, when they rise above the rigging.

POLEAXE, or Pollax. A sort of hatchet, resembling a battle-axe, which was used on board ship to cut away the rigging of an adversary. Also in boarding an enemy whose hull was more lofty than that of the boarders, by driving the points of several into her side, one above another, and thus forming a kind of scaling-ladder; hence were called boarding-axes.

POLEMARCH. The commander-in-chief of an ancient Greek army.

POLE-MASTS. Single spar masts, also applied where the top-gallant and royal masts are in one. (See [Mast].)

POLES. Two points on the surface of the earth, each 90° distant from all parts of the equator, forming the extremities of the imaginary line called the earth's axis. The term applies also to those points in the heavens towards which the terrestrial axis is always directed.—Under bare poles. The situation of a ship at sea when all her sails are furled. (See [Scud] and [Try].)

POLE-STAR. α Ursæ minoris. This most useful star is the lucida of the Little Bear, round which the other components of the constellation and the rest of the heavens appear to revolve in the course of the astronomical day.

POLICY. A written contract, by which the insurers oblige themselves to indemnify sea-risks under various conditions. An interest policy, is where the insurer has a real assignable interest in the thing insured; a wager policy, is where the insurer has no substantial interest in the thing insured; an open policy, is where the amount of interest is not fixed, but left to be ascertained in case of loss; a valued policy, is where an actual value has been set on the ship or goods.

POLLACK. The Merlangus pollachius, a well-known member of the cod family.