DEAD-WORK, all that part of a ship which is above water when she is laden. See the article Upper-Work.
DECKS, ponts, (decken, Dan. to cover) the planked floors of a ship, which connect the sides together, and serve as different platforms to support the artillery, and lodge the men, as also to preserve the cargo from the sea in merchant-vessels.
As all ships are broader at the lower-deck than on the next above it, and as the cannon thereof are always heaviest, it is necessary that the frame of it should be much stronger than that of the others; and, for the same reason, the second or middle deck ought to be stronger than the upper deck, or forecastle.
Ships of the first and second rates are furnished with three whole decks, reaching from the stem to the stern, besides a forecastle and a quarterdeck, which extends from the stern to the main-mast, between which and the fore-castle, a vacancy is left in the middle, opening to the upper-deck, and forming what is called the waist. There is yet another deck above the hinder or aftmost part of the quarter-deck, called the poop, which also serves as a roof for the captain’s cabin or couch.
The inferior ships of the line of battle are equipped with two decks and a half, and frigates, sloops, &c. with one gun-deck and a half, with a spar deck below to lodge the crew.
The decks are formed and sustained by the beams, the clamps, the water-ways, the carlings, the ledges, the knees, and two rows of small pillars, called stanchions, &c. See those articles.
That the figure of a deck, together with its corresponding parts, may be more clearly understood, we have exhibited a plan of the lower-deck of a 74 gun-ship in plate [III]. And as both sides of the deck are exactly similar, the pieces by which it is supported appear on one side, and on the other side the planks or floor of which it is composed, as laid up on those pieces.
Explanation of the figures represented in the Deck, plate [III].
A, the principal, or main hatch-way.
B, the stern-post.