User:KDS4444/My revision of Stern
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section of the ship, but eventually came to refer to the entire back of a vessel. The stern side of a ship is indicated with a white navigation light at night.
Sterns on European and American wooden sailing ships have exist in two principal forms: the 1.) square or transom stern and the 2.) elliptical or fantail stern[1] and were developed in that order. The hull sections located before the stern are composed of a series of U-shaped rib-like frames set in a sloped or "cant" arrangement, with the last frame before the stern being called the fashion timber or fashion piece, so called for "fashioning" the after part of the ship.[2] This frame is designed to support the various beams that make up the stern. In 1817 the British naval architect Sir Robert Seppings first introduced the concept of the round or "circular" stern.[3] The square stern was an easy target for enemy ships and could not support the weight of heavy stern-chase guns. But Seppings' design left the rudder head exposed, and was regarded by many as simply ugly-- no American warships were designed with such sterns, and the round stern was quickly superseded by the elliptical stern which addressed the problems of the exposed rudder and the ungraceful shape of the round stern. The United States began building the first elliptical stern warship in 1820, a decade before the British began doing so.[3] The USS Brandywine became the first sailing ship to sport such a stern.