HOOK, a crooked piece of iron, of which there are several of different shapes and sizes, used at sea, as boat-hooks, can-hooks, cat-hooks, fish-hooks, foot-hooks, &c. See the articles Boat-hook, Can-hook, &c.
HORSE, marche-pied, a rope reaching from the middle of a yard to its extremity, or what is called the yard-arm, and depending about two or three feet under the yard for the sailors to tread upon, whilst they are loosing, reefing or furling the sails, rigging out the studding-sail booms, &c. In order therefore to keep the horse more parallel to the yard, it is usually suspended thereto, at proper distances, by certain ropes called stirrups, which hang about two feet under the yard, having an eye in their lower ends through which the horse passes. See the article Rigging.
Horse is also a thick rope, extended in a perpendicular direction near the fore or after-side of a mast, for the purpose of hoisting or extending some sail thereon. When it is fixed before a mast, it is calculated for the use of a sail called the square-sail, whose yard being attached to the horse, by means of a traveller, or bull’s-eye, which slides up and down occasionally, is retained in a steddy position, either when the sail is set, or whilst it is hoisting or lowering. When the horse is placed abaft or behind a mast, it is intended for the try-sail of a snow, and is accordingly very rarely fixed in this position, except in those sloops of war which occasionally assume the form of snows, in order to deceive the enemy.
HOUNDS, a name given to those parts of a mast-head, which gradually project on the right and left side, beyond the cylindrical or conical surface, which it preserves from the partners upwards. The hounds, whose upper parts are also called cheeks, are used as shoulders to support the frame of the top, together with the top-mast and the rigging of the lower-mast. See the article Mast.
HOUSED, à la serre, the situation of the great guns of a ship, when they are secured at sea by their tackles and breechings. See Cannon.
HOWKER, a vessel in the Dutch marine, commonly navigated with two masts, viz. a main-mast and a mizen-mast, and being from sixty to upwards of two hundred tons in burthen.
HOUSING, or HOUSE-LINE, a small line, formed of three fine strands, or twists of hemp, smaller than rope-yarn. It is chiefly used to seize blocks into their strops, to bind the corners of the sails, or to fasten the bottom of a sail to its bolt-rope, &c. See Bolt-rope.
HOY, a small vessel, chiefly used in coasting, or carrying goods to or from a ship, in a road or bay, where the ordinary lighters cannot be managed with safety or convenience.
It would be very difficult to describe, precisely, the marks of distinction between this vessel and some others of the same size, which are also rigged in the same manner; because what is called a hoy in one place, would assume the name of a sloop or smack in another: and even the people, who navigate these vessels, have, upon examination, very vague ideas of the marks by which they are distinguished from those above mentioned. In Holland, the hoy has two masts; in England it has but one, where the main-sail is sometimes extended by a boom, and sometimes without it. Upon the whole, it may be defined a small vessel, usually rigged as a sloop, and employed for carrying passengers and luggage from one place to another, particularly on the sea-coast.
HULK, an old ship of war, fitted with an apparatus, to fix or take out the masts of his majesty’s ships, as occasion requires.