SHIP, vaisseau, (scip, Sax.) a general name given by seamen to the first rank of vessels which are navigated on the ocean.
Amongst people who are unacquainted with marine distinctions, this term is of very vague and indiscriminate acceptation: and indeed sailors themselves, submitting occasionally to the influence of custom, receive it according to this general idea. In the sea-language, however, it is more particularly applied to a vessel furnished with three masts, each of which is composed of a lower mast, top-mast, and top-gallant-mast, with the usual machinery thereto belonging.
The design of this work being professedly to treat of the construction, mechanism, furniture, movements, and military operations of a ship, we may properly consider the present article as a general recapitulation of the whole subject.
The plans, elevations, and sections used in the construction of a ship; the principal pieces of which she is composed, and the qualities requisite to answer the several purposes of navigation, are described, or referred to, in Naval Architecture: and the application of this theory to practice is treated in the article Ship-BUILDING.
The machinery and furniture with which she is equipped are variously diffused throughout this work, and naturally spring from one another, like a multitude of branches from one general trunk. See Mast, Sail, Yard, Rigging, Anchor, &c.
The qualities by which she is enabled to encounter a tempestuous sea are treated in the article Ballast and Trim; and her several movements therein are explained under Navigation, Drift, Sailing, Tacking, Leeway, Pitching, and Rolling.
Considered as a moveable fortress or citadel, her military operations are copiously described in Cannon, Cannonade, Engagement, Line, and Range; and as her efforts are occasionally like those of a mine, or bombardment, the reader is also referred to the articles Fire-ship and Mortar.
The vessels which are usually comprehended under the general name of ship, besides those of the line of battle, are galleons, frigates, hag-boats, cats, barks, pinks, and fly-boats; all of which are defined in their proper places, except the hag-boat, that only differs from a frigate-built ship in the figure of the stern, which has a great resemblance to that of the cat, as being in a middle degree between the former and the latter. See also the article Quarter.
Ships of war are properly equipped with artillery, ammunition, and all the necessary martial weapons and instruments for attack or defence. They are distinguished from each other by their several ranks or classes. See Rate.
Ship of the line is usually applied to all men of war mounting sixty guns and upwards. Of late, however, our fifty-gun ships have been formed sufficiently strong to carry the same metal as those of sixty, and accordingly may fall into the line in cases of necessity. See Line.