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Afloat Xword 82

Compiled by John Gray

 Afloat Crossword 82Athwart

  1.     Strands – or hauls-up a sailing vessel on shore to effect repairs (7)
  5.     Those general categories into which boats of the same or similar design are grouped (7)
  9.     The colloquial term used to describe the red ensign flown by all British merchant ships (3,6)
 10.     Name given to the small cloud in the sky off the east coast of Africa, presaging a violent storm (2,3)
 11.     Luxurious – Sailors slang term for the wealthy, who sailed Port Out Starboard Home to avoid the sun on P&O liners (4)
 12.     A ship’s name used five times in the British Navy, the first one boasting Horatio Nelson as her captain (9)
 14.     A kind of shot formerly used at sea for tearing sails and rigging. It consisted of bolts, nails, and other pieces of iron (7)
 16.     Wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it) (7)
 18.     Name given a ‘knot’, which prevents it from going through an eye, fitting or block (7)
 20.     Heaves a ship on her side, to expose the other for the cleaning off of weed and barnacles (7)
 21.     A small rope attached to the eye of a hawser and used to haul it out to the ring of a mooring buoy (9)
 22.     Surname of legendary Venetian traveller who travelled to Persia by sea from court of Kublai Khan in Peking (4)
 25.     Eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet used in star classification (5)
 26.     The H.M.S. ship name of the Royal Navy’s gunnery training establishment at Portsmouth (9)
 27.     Small lines used in the clews of hammocks, doubled around a ring and to the eyelet holes, at head and foot of the hammock – real stingers? (7)
 28.     The name given to a woollen cap worn by seamen in late 19th century, in Arctic and Antarctic waters (7)

Below

  1.     The condition of a sailing ship, when in a severe storm all her canvas has to be taken in (4,5)
  2.     Name given a hand-held electric ‘lamp’, fitted with a finger-operated mirror, to signal with (5)
  3.     The seaman’s word meaning to pull (4)
  4.     To adjust the rigging to embark on a journey in a yacht (3,4)
  5.     A maritime general term for rope (7)
  6.     Above the deck and therefore open and visible (10)
  7.     A docking line leading from the stern, in order to moor a ship to a dock (5,4)
  8.     The fleshy part that one sits on at the after end of one’s yacht (5)
 13.     A fish, also known as the jumping cod, named for large round caudal lobes which make it look like it has three tails (6.4)
 15.     The sextant sighting taken to establish the highest point through which the sun passes at midday (4,5)
 17.     A capsized inflatable life raft is best righted by turning it toward the wind and standing on its  . . . , . . . . . . (3,6)
 19.     Those who specialise in preparing ships for sea-worthiness (7)
 20.     The ‘Lacer Co’ makes an Irish curach boat – a small rectangular boat with round corners made of wickerwork and made watertight with hides or pitch – used for salmon fishing (7)
 21.     One of the families of sub-nuclear particles – sounds just like my little boy? (5)
 23.     The great body of water that occupies about two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills (5)
24.   A real pest, is this metal slider, on the luff of a sail that fits into a mast track, when rigging a sail (4)

Solution to Afloat Crossword 82