16 / JUL / 2026 · skippercheck.net/crossword
⚓ Daily Maritime Crossword
16 / JUL / 2026 — archive puzzle. The world's first maritime-only crossword — 259-term nautical corpus.
Across
Down
Finished Thursday's puzzle? Try Wednesday's previous too
You're looking at the 16 / JUL / 2026 daily maritime crossword — a free nautical puzzle drawn from our 259-term corpus of COLREGs rules, VHF radio procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary. Every daily puzzle is deterministic — players worldwide saw exactly the same grid on 16 / JUL / 2026, so your time and hint count still rank against the global leaderboard.
If you solved this Thursday grid, don't stop — 15 / JUL / 2026's puzzle is waiting with a fresh layout from the same nautical vocabulary. Warning: some clues lean on COLREGs Rule numbers and IALA buoyage — brush up if you're rusty.
Browse the full crossword archive to replay every past puzzle, or print this one to A4 using the 🖨️ Print button above — solutions are printed upside-down at the bottom of the page, newspaper-style.
Yesterday's clues & answers — 15 / JUL / 2026
Newspaper-style: today's page publishes the full solution to Wednesday's puzzle (15 maritime terms). Today's answers stay hidden until tomorrow — play the grid above, or replay Wednesday's grid.
Across
- The leading edge of a sail (4) — LUFF
- Any space inside the vessel that is beneath the deck (5) — BELOW
- A pivoting keel that can be raised into a trunk to reduce draft and lowered to resist leeway (11) — CENTERBOARD
- The aft lower corner of a fore-and-aft sail; on a mainsail it is tensioned by the outhaul, on a jib by the sheets (4) — CLEW
- A point of sail with the wind coming from dead astern (3) — RUN
- To route a line through a block, fairlead, or similar fitting (4) — LEAD
- A patch of shallow water, often sand or mud, representing a hazard (5) — SHOAL
Down
- To put away neatly and securely (4) — STOW
- Length Overall — the maximum fore-and-aft hull length, excluding bowsprits and pulpits unless specifically included (3) — LOA
- The vertical distance from the waterline to the deck edge (9) — FREEBOARD
- Toward, at, or behind the stern (3) — AFT
- A two-masted rig whose shorter mizzen mast stands forward of the rudder post and is shorter than the main mast (5) — KETCH
- The line of sight formed when two marks ashore line up, showing the centre of a channel or a transit bearing (5) — RANGE
- To make fast — attaching a sail to a spar or stay, or tying a line to a sail (4) — BEND
- Length Waterline — the fore-and-aft length of the hull measured at the waterline; a major factor in hull speed (3) — LWL
Great for studying COLREGs, VHF procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary — or just as a spoiler if you got stuck.