A ship sailing close-hauled is "on a taut bowline."
·adj Snug; close; firm; secure. II. Taut ·adj Tight; stretched; not slack; — said ·esp. of a rope ...
Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
[from the Anglo-Saxon tought]. Tight. ...
The Sailor's Word-Book
·noun A rope fastened near the middle of the leech or perpendicular edge of the square sails, by sub...
A rope leading forward which is fastened to a space connected by bridles to cringles on the leech or...
The act of turning the capstan, &c., till the rope applied thereto becomes straight and ready for ac...
A strict disciplinarian. ...
, or taut weather-helm. A ship with a side wind is said to carry a taut weather-helm, when the wat...
A sail well set on a wind, and well filled. ...
A vessel at anchor, heeling over to the force of the wind. ...
The mode of bending warps or hawsers together by taking a bowline in the end of one rope, and passin...
The span attached to the cringles on the leech of a square sail to which the bowline is toggled or c...
An eye worked into the leech-rope of a sail; usually in that of a fore-sail two, a main-sail three, ...
A hearty and simultaneous bowse. (See one! two!! three!!!) In hauling the bowline it is customary fo...
That by which the bowline-bridles were fastened to the cringles: the bowline-knot is made by an invo...
The bowline of the fore-sail. ...
See taut helm ...
The bowline of the main-topsail. It is used to haul the weather-leech forward when on a wind, which ...
Close to the wind, when the sail will not stand without hauling the bowlines. ...
Is made by taking the end round the standing part, and making a bowline upon its own part. ...