AFLOAT Crossword 68

Compiled by John Gray

Athwart

1 To bear away from the wind (4,3)
5 A four-sided sail set on a lug or yard, used mainly on small sailers, similar to a gaff sail (7)
9 Two or more spars resting at a common apex used to lift heavy loads (5,4)
10 Contraction for device to measure revolutions per minute of a motor engine (5)
11 To repeat the phonetic Alphabet call sign for the letter “E” (4)
12 Name for an atoll in the Marshall Islands, U.S. proving ground (1948) for atomic weapons (8)
15 The old English name for the French port of St. Malo (7)
17 A sandbank laying off the coast of Suffolk, England, to seaward of ‘Orfordness’ (7)
18 A strait connecting upper New York Bay with lower New York Bay, between west end of Long Island and Staten Island (7)
20 To take out or withdraw a rope from a deadeye, block or thimble (7)
21 A block is said to do this when its sheave squeals (8)
22 A small portion of land or sand bank projecting into the water at low tide (4)
26 The tendency for a vessel to come up into the wind when close-hauled and so carry too much weather helm to correct it (5)
27 Entrance granted in this era for a little girl with a changed atom (9)
28 Flat plated cord or canvas strips used to lash furled sails to the yards (7)
29 A sheaveless block having holes to receive the lanyard used to set up shrouds, stays etc. (7)

Below

1 Name for a traditional ‘bend’, a knot, around which the hawser is bent to the ring of an anchor (10)
2 The aft area, from head to clew, of a sail – the trailing edge (5)
3 Wooden instruments found on boats which have blades, looms and shafts (4)
4 Narrowing sections of tube, for luff ropes of headsails to be fed into the tracks of forestay fittings such as a Gemini (7)
5 A rope or cord which is used to secure something on board a vessel (7)
6 A port in Sweden on the shore of the Kattegat and the home of the Sjofartsmuseet i Goteborg maritime museum (10)
7 An area off the coast where the ground is suitable for ships to hold bottom (9)
8 Name of H.M.S. battle-cruiser, flagship of Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty – and for many other Royal Navy ships (4)
13 Region of the atmosphere extending from 40 to 250 miles above the earth’s surface (10)
14 A recent Deva who somehow shows Heedfulness (10)
16 An old word to describe that part of the ship’s company who formed the ‘port watch’ (9)
19 Cylindrical canvas bags, fastened with drawstrings, in which sailors stowed their clothes (3,4)
20 Being or having an unknown or unidentified source (7)
23 A general nautical term meaning to make ready for immediate use (5)
24 Highly excited in the past with the first of the Grenadiers (4)
25 The American Sail Training Association (4)

Answers to Xword 68