Any person or entity who, in a contract of carriage, undertakes to perform or to procure the performance of carriage by rail, road, sea, air, inland waterway or by a combination of such modes.

A wind shift that forces a boat to sail below its mean wind course.

Slang for getting married. A splice joins two lines together permanently.

The windward side (from where the wind is blowing).

The bridge used for taking observations, or directing the handling of the ship.

Is the ratio of the polytropic compression energy transferred to the gas to the actual energy transferred to the gas.

Official terminology for life jacket. When properly used a PFD will support a person in the water. Also called a life jacket, life preserver or life vest.

A large foresail or jib that overlaps the mainsail. Also known as a genny. Can be expressed in percentages of overlap, e.g. 150 Genoa is 50% overlap of the mainsail.

A bulkhead that will not let water pass from one side of it to the other.

A cleat designed to hold a line in place without slipping. It consists of two narrowing jaws with teeth in which the line is placed.

Abbreviation for "With Particular Average."

A fix taken by visually observing the location of known landmarks.

A pin placed through the head of a rudder to prevent it from being lost.

A law of chemistry and physics: the rate of diffusion of one substance in another is proportional to the negative gradient of the concentration of the first substance.

This is a factor expressing deviation of a gas from perfect gas laws.

Transaction or interchange that occurs at the time a container leaves a rail or water terminal.

A rope used for securing any movable object in place

A sailing ship with three to five masts, all of them square-rigged except the after mast, which is fore-and-aft rigged.

Search of a vessel, by Customs authorities, for unreported goods.