What's the top paint stripe on some boats called?

[BrightSEALAB]

I prefer to call things by their proper names when I can and this one is stumping me.

Simply put, there is a stripe of paint on my boat that extends from the hull-deck joint down about 6-10 inches. It seems to follow the waterline stripes more than the line of the deck which rises quite a bit approaching the bow.

Below this line I have a recessed cove line.

"Painted Sheer-Strake" is the closest I can find that describes what I'm talking about, but it is a plastic boat without a proper strake really anywhere, sheer or not.

Is there a proper term for this line? I see some boats with and maybe as many without this feature.

As always, much thanks in advance,
Chris

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by BrightSEALAB

Simply put, there is a stripe of paint on my boat that extends from the hull-deck joint down about 6-10 inches. It seems to follow the waterline stripes more than the line of the deck which rises quite a bit approaching the bow.

Below this line I have a recessed cove line.

"Painted Sheer-Strake" is the closest I can find that describes what I'm talking about, but it is a plastic boat without a proper strake really anywhere, sheer or not.

Is there a proper term for this line? I see some boats with and maybe as many without this feature.

Here's my guess: a wale strake.

A wale is a plank, especially the topmost plank running along the topsides.

Closely related is the word waler or the term waler plank, for a horizontal plank running along the top edge of a pontoon and through which dock cleats etc might be fastened.

Nautical English has been using wale words since Middle English (in this case around the 13th century) for planks or timbers forming the sides of a ship ors similar. Best guesses about origin point to Old English words (around the 9th century) for a weal left on the skin by a blow from, for example, a cane; and for a ridge or bank of earth.

A strake is a continuous line of planking, especially one that is made distinct from other lines of planking by being a different colour or of a different size (width of the plank). Again, it's been used in nautical English since Middle English, in this case from late middle English of around the 14th century.

A wale strake of distinctive colour has been a feature of boat decoration in several different cultures around the world at different times and continues currently. For example, in the 19th century Yankee whale boats were often usually painted white, but they'd each have a distinctive wale strake colour.

[wguinon]

My topsides are red with an 10" wide white stripe at the top. I call it the cove stripe.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by wguinon

My topsides are red with an 10" wide white stripe at the top. I call it the cove stripe.

Cove has the meaning of a recess, a groove, and from 1850 in nautical English "the arched moulding sunk in at the foot or lower part of the taffrail".

Good Old Boat has a series of web pages on cove stripes, focusing on how cove strips can be used to identify boats from a particular boat yard or boat builder.

If you look at the Good Old Boat A-I page (https://www.goodoldboat.com/resource...ifiers/a-i.php), then I'd suggest that the coloured stripes on the Bayfield, Bristol Channel Cutter, and Buccaneer hulls are wale strakes while the grooved ornamentations are cove stripes.

But don't let me get in the way of you calling parts of your boat whatever you like.

[doublewide]

WE call it the "boot stripe." Ours is applied with a vinyl adhesive tape.

[Captain John]

I've always called it the "Boot Top" or "Boot Stripe"

[boatpoker]

Sheer stripe.

[FionaJC]

I call it the boot top too, I had a self adhesive one but it unselfed itself so I painted one on. Then added the name at the stern.

[zengirl]

What is the purpose of this stripe?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by zengirl

What is the purpose of this stripe?

Same as pin striping on an automobile

[FionaJC]

Originally Posted by zengirl

What is the purpose of this stripe?

When mine didnt have it it looked bare, I think it looks nicer.


You judge from my two shots.



Apart from looking nice, it gives other boats a place to graze you when the come along side when rafting without fenders.

[CommodoreDoug]

Technically the stripe below the rub rail is a "Cove Stripe" so-called because back in the day it was coved (indented) so it wouldn't make contact with the dock. The more expensive the boat, the fancier the coving. Wealthy owners would have gold leaf and other ornamentation applied to their cove stripe.

I call it a mortgage stripe simply because an old timer I knew around the dock when I first started sailing explained that back in the day, masters of boats who needed money to complete a voyage but couldn't reach the owners would mortgage the boat to one of the many firms that offered such mortgages. They each had their own color to identify to whom the mortgage was owed. So to me it's always been a mortgage stripe. The hardcore traditionalists always correct me but I'm sticking with it.

Best Regards,

Doug
S/V Egret
Somewhere in the Salish Sea

[zengirl]

Originally Posted by FionaJC

I call it the boot top too, I had a self adhesive one but it unselfed itself so I painted one on. Then added the name at the stern.
Attachment 195164

I get it...I like it with. Your's is wide, I like that. But those skinny ones like mine just don't do the trick. I'm gonna paint a wide one. Thanks

[Tingum]

It is a shear stripe, the lower one by the waterline is the boot stripe, or boot top.

[Dooglas]

I call it a "boot top" or "boot top stripe" as well. The one that marks the water line, I call a "water line stripe".