25 / JUL / 2026 · skippercheck.net/crossword
⚓ Daily Maritime Crossword
25 / JUL / 2026 — archive puzzle. The world's first maritime-only crossword — 259-term nautical corpus.
Across
Down
Finished Saturday's puzzle? Try Friday's previous too
You're looking at the 25 / 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 25 / JUL / 2026, so your time and hint count still rank against the global leaderboard.
If you solved this Saturday grid, don't stop — 24 / 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 — 24 / JUL / 2026
Newspaper-style: today's page publishes the full solution to Friday's puzzle (15 maritime terms). Today's answers stay hidden until tomorrow — play the grid above, or replay Friday's grid.
Across
- The aerodynamic or hydrodynamic force generated by a sail or keel that drives the boat through the water (4) — LIFT
- The forward end of the vessel (3) — BOW
- Digital Selective Calling — a feature of modern VHF and SSB radios that allows a pre-formatted digital distress alert, i… (3) — DSC
- A pivoting keel that can be raised into a trunk to reduce draft and lowered to resist leeway (11) — CENTERBOARD
- Length Waterline — the fore-and-aft length of the hull measured at the waterline; a major factor in hull speed (3) — LWL
- Wear on a rope, sail, or sheet caused by repeated rubbing against another surface (5) — CHAFE
- To reduce effective sail area in strong wind by rolling, folding, or partly lowering a sail (4) — REEF
- On a four-sided fore-and-aft sail, the spar that supports the sail's upper (head) edge (4) — GAFF
Down
- To route a line through a block, fairlead, or similar fitting (4) — LEAD
- The line on the hull where it meets the water surface at the design load (9) — WATERLINE
- A windshift in which the wind moves forward on the boat, forcing the helm to bear away or the sheets to be eased (6) — HEADED
- A simple rig with a single mainsail stepped on an unstayed mast set well forward, with no headsail (7) — CATBOAT
- To put away neatly and securely (4) — STOW
- A sudden, unintended round-up into the wind, usually while running or reaching in strong breeze and waves (6) — BROACH
- Automatic Radar Plotting Aid — radar software that tracks targets automatically and computes CPA (closest point of appro… (4) — ARPA
Great for studying COLREGs, VHF procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary — or just as a spoiler if you got stuck.