stem

The Sailor's Word-Book

The foremost piece uniting the bows of a ship; its lower end scarphs into the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon its upper end. The outside of the stem is usually marked with a scale of feet and inches, answering to a perpendicular from the keel, in order to ascertain the ship's draught of water forward.

♦ False stem. When a ship's stem is too flat, so that she cannot keep a wind well, a false stem, or gripe, is fayed on before the right one, which enables her to hold a better wind.

♦ From stem to stern, from one end of the ship to the other.

♦ To stem, to make way against any obstacle. "She does not stem the tide," that is, she cannot make head against it for want of wind.

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Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
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Stem-winding
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The Sailor's Word-Book
false stem
A hard timber fayed to the fore-part of the main stem, its tail covering the fore-end of the keel. (...

The Sailor's Word-Book
stem-knee
In ship-building, the compass-timber which connects the keel with the stem. (See dead-wood knees.) ...

The Sailor's Word-Book