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pilot

(Encyclopedia)pilot, person responsible for safe navigation of a ship or airplane. A ship's pilot is an individual possessing local knowledge of coastal waters. Usually licensed by public authority (in the United S...

Cutty Sark

(Encyclopedia)Cutty Sark, three-masted British clipper ship, launched 1869 from Dumbarton, Scotland. The last tea clipper to be built (and the only to survive), she set out on her maiden voyage from London to Shang...

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, American author and physician

(Encyclopedia)Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809–94, American author and physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1829; M.D., 1836); father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He began his medical career as a gen...

Presidents of Mexico since the Constitution of 1917 (table)

(Encyclopedia)Presidents of Mexico since the Constitution of 1917 ...

naval architecture

(Encyclopedia)naval architecture, science of designing ships. A naval architect must consider especially the following factors: floatability, i.e., the ability of the ship to remain afloat while meeting the require...

pontoon

(Encyclopedia)pontoon, one of a number of floats used chiefly to support a bridge, to raise a sunken ship, or to float a hydroplane or a floating dock. Pontoons have been built of wood, of hides stretched over wick...

Biddle, Nicholas, American naval officer

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1750–78, American naval officer, b. Philadelphia. Biddle left the British navy in 1773. In the American Revolution he became captain in the patriot navy and daringly raided British...

jettison

(Encyclopedia)jettison jĕtˈəsən, –zən [key] [O.Fr.,=throwing], in maritime law, casting all or part of a ship's cargo overboard to lighten the vessel or to meet some danger, such as fire. Such cargo, when fo...

Sutton Hoo

(Encyclopedia)Sutton Hoo sŭtˈən ho͞o [key], archaeological site near Woodbridge, SE Suffolk, E England, containing 11 barrows. Excavations here in 1938–39 revealed remains of a Saxon ship (c.660), which with ...

Vikings

(Encyclopedia)Vikings, Scandinavian warriors who raided the coasts of Europe and the British Isles from the 9th cent. to the 11th cent. In their language, the word “viking” originally meant a journey, as for tr...