20 / OCT / 2026 · skippercheck.net/crossword
⚓ Daily Maritime Crossword
20 / OCT / 2026 — archive puzzle. The world's first maritime-only crossword — 259-term nautical corpus.
Across
Down
Finished Tuesday's puzzle? Try Monday's previous too
You're looking at the 20 / OCT / 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 / OCT / 2026, so your time and hint count still rank against the global leaderboard.
If you solved this Tuesday grid, don't stop — 19 / OCT / 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 / OCT / 2026
Newspaper-style: today's page publishes the full solution to Monday's puzzle (15 maritime terms). Today's answers stay hidden until tomorrow — play the grid above, or replay Monday's grid.
Across
- An inflated plastic or rubber buffer hung over the side to protect the hull when alongside a dock or another vessel (6) — FENDER
- Wear on a rope, sail, or sheet caused by repeated rubbing against another surface (5) — CHAFE
- To adjust the tension and alignment of the standing rigging so the mast stands straight and the sails set correctly (4) — TUNE
- 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
- A sudden, unintended round-up into the wind, usually while running or reaching in strong breeze and waves (6) — BROACH
- Any space inside the vessel that is beneath the deck (5) — BELOW
- The curved extension of a sail's area aft of a straight line drawn from head to clew (5) — ROACH
Down
- United States Coast Guard — the US federal service responsible for maritime safety, security, and SAR (4) — USCG
- To hire a vessel for a period — either bareboat (skipper and crew provided by hirer) or crewed (7) — CHARTER
- The side or direction away from the wind — where the wind is blowing toward (7) — LEEWARD
- A point of sail with the wind coming from dead astern (3) — RUN
- The mostly horizontal upper surface of the hull (4) — DECK
- The aft edge of a fore-and-aft sail (5) — LEECH
- The horizontal spar that extends aft from the mast and carries the foot of the mainsail (4) — BOOM
Great for studying COLREGs, VHF procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary — or just as a spoiler if you got stuck.