26 / OCT / 2026 · skippercheck.net/crossword
⚓ Daily Maritime Crossword
26 / OCT / 2026 — archive puzzle. The world's first maritime-only crossword — 259-term nautical corpus.
Across
Down
Finished Monday's puzzle? Try Sunday's previous too
You're looking at the 26 / 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 26 / OCT / 2026, so your time and hint count still rank against the global leaderboard.
If you solved this Monday grid, don't stop — 25 / 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 — 25 / OCT / 2026
Newspaper-style: today's page publishes the full solution to Sunday's puzzle (14 maritime terms). Today's answers stay hidden until tomorrow — play the grid above, or replay Sunday's grid.
Across
- The top end of the mast, often carrying a wind instrument, anchor light, VHF antenna, and sheave for the main halyard (8) — MASTHEAD
- The marine term for a pulley — a sheave in a housing through which a line runs (5) — BLOCK
- Of wind: a clockwise shift in direction (opposite of 'back') (4) — VEER
- A pivoting keel that can be raised into a trunk to reduce draft and lowered to resist leeway (11) — CENTERBOARD
- Any space inside the vessel that is beneath the deck (5) — BELOW
- The spars, standing rigging, and sail plan collectively — or the act of rigging the boat for sea (3) — RIG
- The upper corner of a sail; also, the marine toilet (4) — HEAD
Down
- The outgoing phase of the tide, when water level is falling and the flow runs seaward (3) — EBB
- To propel a boat with a single oar worked side-to-side through a notch or rowlock in the transom (5) — SCULL
- The condition of a vessel whose keel or hull is in contact with the seabed (7) — AGROUND
- Horizontal movement of water driven by tide, wind, river flow, or ocean circulation (7) — CURRENT
- The line on the hull where it meets the water surface at the design load (9) — WATERLINE
- A fast-moving, short-lived storm cell producing sudden strong winds and often heavy rain (6) — SQUALL
- To hire a vessel for a period — either bareboat (skipper and crew provided by hirer) or crewed (7) — CHARTER
Great for studying COLREGs, VHF procedure, navigation marks, rigging and seamanship vocabulary — or just as a spoiler if you got stuck.