Boatbuilding terms

- Beam : the width of a boat. Also a deck re-inforcement

- Bevel : an angle cut in the edge of a piece of wood
- Bow : the front end of a boat

- Breasthook : a triangular piece of wood that reinforces the stems of a boat

- Chines : wooden strips that run the length of some boats and connect the sides to the bottom. Also the intersection between hull panels

- Countersink : to recess the head of a nail or screw below the surface of a board
- Crosscut : making a cut in a piece of wood that is across the grain
- Fair curve : a curve that looks smooth, without any bumps or hollows

- Fillet : a radiused mixture of thickened epoxy formed at the intersection of two hull panels

- Frame : a permanent wooden assembly that gives a boat its shape while it is being built. If it is removed from the boat after it is assembled, it is called a mold

- Gain : a ramping bevel cut into the end of a lapstrake plank that lets the stems fair in smoothly
- Garboard : the bottom-most plank on a boat; the one closest to the keel

- Grain : the direction that the wood fiber run in a board. Generally it runs in the longest dimension of the board
- Hull : the basic body of a boat without the seats, hardware, sails, etc.
- Inwales : wooden strips that run lengthwise inside a hull at the sheer line.

- Lapstrake : a boatbuilding method with each plank overlapping the one below it

- Line : the overall shape of a boat, as in "she has pretty lines",; also a piece of rope on a boat

- Lining off : the process of laying out the shape of the planks on a lapstrake boat

- Mold : a frame member that is removed from the hull after construction is complete

- Painter : a piece of line at the bow of a boat that is used for towing or tying to a dock

- Plane : to smooth or flatten a board with a hand tool also called a plane.
- Pilot hole : a pre-drilled hole for a nail or screw
- Port side : the left side of a boat

- Rasp : a coarse cutting tool shaped and used like a file
- Ribbands : wooden strips that define the shape of the planks on a lapstrake hull

- Rip : to make a cut in the direction that the grain runs in a board
- Rubrails : the wooden strips that run the length of the outside of a boat that strengthen the hull and protects the sides from damage. Also called gunwales

- Scarf : a joint cut into the end of a board or piece of plywood to join it to others
- Sheer : the top edge of the sheer strake. Also refers to the curve of that line, as in "that design has a pretty sheer line"

- Sheer strake : the top-most plank on a lapstrake boat

- Square : a line or cut perpendicular to an edge
- Starboard Side : the right side of a boat.

- Stem : the wooden piece at the bow of a boat that connects the sides (Some boats are pointed at both ends, and therefore has a stem at both ends ).

- Stern : the back of a boat.

- Stretcher : the temporary brace used to set the beam of a boat to it's correct measurement.

- Strongback : a sturdy framework that's used in traditional lapstrake construction

- Thwart : a wooden piece that runs across the hull at about the middle of the sheer line

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