Naut. Also 8 spirkit-, 9 spirkitting, sparketting. [app. f. spirket (cf. prec.), var. of SPURKET.]
1. Inside planking between the waterways and the ports of a vessel. (See quots. 1750, 1769.)
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. iv. 158. Her spirkiting and timbers were very rotten.
1750. Blanckley, Nav. Expos., 156. Spirketing are Strakes of thick Plank wrought from the lower Edge of each Port to each Deck respectively within Side of the Ship.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), Spirketing, that range of planks which lies between the waterways and the lower edge of the gun-ports within the side of a ship of war.
1801. Naval Chron., VI. 202. Carlings, and sparketting, much damaged by shot.
1805. Shipwright’s Vade-M., 202. All clamps and spirkittings above the lower gun-deck should have three port shifts in midships.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 69. The spirketting works up so as to form the lower sills of the ports.
1874. Thearle, Naval Archit., 43. The butts of shelf, spirketting, clamps, and waterway should all be carefully disposed with reference to each other.
attrib. 1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., xvii. 368. The preceding method … is also applicable to deck tie-plates, clamp or spirketing plates.
2. (See quot. 1846.)
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 291. In merchant vessels, when there is a strake of ceiling wrought between the upper deck and the plank-sheer, it is called the spirketting, or quick-work.
1850. Weale, Dict. Terms, 246. Kevels … are sometimes fixed to the spirketing on the quarter-deck, when the timber-heads are deficient.
