Waist clothes

Waist clothes, also called armings or fights, were colored clothes or sheets, usually red, that were hung around the outside of a ship's upper works, fore and aft, and before the cubbridge heads. They were used as an adornment during ceremonious occasions, and served as a visual screen during times of action, to protect the men aboard. They were sometimes also hung around the tops, in which case they were called top armings.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, December 13, 2010. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.