Naut. [f. FORE- pref. + SHEET.]
1. The rope by which the lee corner of the foresail is kept in place.
1667. Davenant & Dryden, Tempest, I. i. Flat, flat, flat, in the Fore-sheet there.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., I. 16. The Wind blows a fresh Gale, round aft the Main-sheets, and Fore-sheets, brasse.
1745. P. Thomas, Jrnl. Anson’s Voy., 28. The next Day the Weather being still more tempestuous, with some Thunder and Lightning, we broke our Larboard Fore-sheet and fixed a new one.
2. pl. The inner part of the bows of a boat, fitted with gratings upon which the bow-man stands (Adm. Smyth).
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. xii. Two of the enemy’s men entered the boat just where this fellow stood, being in the fore-sheets; he immediately saluted them with a ladleful of the stuff, boiling hot, which so burnt and scalded them, being half naked, that they roared out like two bulls, and, enraged with the fire, leaped both into the sea.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 99. O’Brien, who had command of the first cutter, allowed me to go with him, on condition that I stowed myself away under the fore-sheets, that the captain might not see me before the boats had shoved off.
1883. Stevenson, Treasure Isl., III. xiii. In a jiffy I had slipped over the side, and curled up in the fore-sheets of the nearest boat, and almost at the same moment she shove off.
3. Comb., as fore-sheet horse, traveler (see quots.).
1846. Young, Naut. Dict. (ed. 2), Fore-sheet Horse. An iron rod or piece of wood fastened at its ends athwart the deck of a single-masted vessel, before the mast, for the foresail sheet to travel upon. Ibid., s.v. Traveller, The Fore-sheet Traveller is a ring of the same description, which traverses on the fore-sheet horse of a fore-and-aft rigged vessel.
