Naut. [corruption of CHAIN-WALE; cf. gunwale.]
1. One of the broad thick planks projecting horizontally from the ship’s side, nearly abreast of the masts. They are distinguished as the fore, main and mizen channels.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Channels, or Chain-Wales [of a ship].
1805. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1846), VII. 207, note. There being a great swell, she damaged the main channels.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xi. I took my station in the fore-channels.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxix. 105. Our unusually large cargo … brought the ship channels down into the water.
2. Comb., as channel-board = channel; channel-bolt, a long bolt passing through all the planks, and connecting the channel with the side; channel-plate = CHAIN-PLATE; channel-wale, one of the ‘strakes worked between the gun-deck and the upper deck ports of large ships; also, the outside plank which receives the bolts of the chain-plates’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.).
1808. Marine Pocket-Dict., Channel-wale, préceinte superieure.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 105. Channel-wales, three or four thick strakes … for the purpose of strengthening the topside.
