20 / JUL / 2026 · skippercheck.net/crossword
⚓ Daily Maritime Crossword
20 / JUL / 2026 — archive puzzle. The world's first maritime-only crossword — 259-term nautical corpus.
Across
Down
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You're looking at the 20 / 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 20 / JUL / 2026, so your time and hint count still rank against the global leaderboard.
If you solved this Monday grid, don't stop — 19 / 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 — 19 / JUL / 2026
Newspaper-style: today's page publishes the full solution to Sunday's puzzle (15 maritime terms). Today's answers stay hidden until tomorrow — play the grid above, or replay Sunday's grid.
Across
- To bind or secure with line or webbing (4) — LASH
- A multihull with two parallel hulls connected by a deck, bridgedeck, or trampoline (9) — CATAMARAN
- A length of rope sewn inside the foot or luff of a sail so the sail can be slid into a groove on the boom or mast (8) — BOLTROPE
- A pivoting keel that can be raised into a trunk to reduce draft and lowered to resist leeway (11) — CENTERBOARD
- To hold, and keep tension on, the free end of a line while a winch grinder takes turns on the drum (4) — TAIL
- Any pole that supports a sail — mast, boom, gaff, sprit, yard, whisker pole, or spinnaker pole (4) — SPAR
- The periodic vertical rise and fall of the sea surface caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun (4) — TIDE
- On a four-sided fore-and-aft sail, the spar that supports the sail's upper (head) edge (4) — GAFF
Down
- Length Overall — the maximum fore-and-aft hull length, excluding bowsprits and pulpits unless specifically included (3) — LOA
- To throw — usually a line (5) — HEAVE
- Short strands of wool or ribbon on a sail (or shrouds) showing airflow — a practical guide to sail trim (9) — TELLTALES
- Toward the source of the wind (8) — WINDWARD
- A simple rig with a single mainsail stepped on an unstayed mast set well forward, with no headsail (7) — CATBOAT
- A sudden, unintended round-up into the wind, usually while running or reaching in strong breeze and waves (6) — BROACH
- Automatic Identification System — a VHF-based transponder network that continuously broadcasts a vessel's identity, posi… (3) — AIS
Great for studying COLREGs, VHF procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary — or just as a spoiler if you got stuck.