To girdle a ship, was to fasten planks along her sides some two or three strakes above and below the water-line; this had the effect of adding to her beam and thereby rendering her stiffer under sail. Incessant girdling seems to have been necessary at this period, to counter the defective conditions in which English ships were designed, built, and sent to sea. Ships were consistently restricted in beam, in compliance with the faulty “establishments,” and under a mistaken notion that narrowness, in itself, directly contributed to speed. “Length,” says Charnock, “was the only dimension regarded as indispensably necessary, by the ancients for their galleys and by the moderns for galleons. Breadth was not considered, or if considered was accepted as a necessary evil.” Pepys remarked, “that the builders of England, before 1673, had not well considered that breadth only will make a stiff ship.” It was an inquiry ordered by Sir Richard Haddock in 1684 which brought to light the fulness of the fallacy; ships were subsequently made broader, and experience showed that a good breadth was beneficial, not only for stability but for speed and sea-keeping qualities. But even if a ship were built initially broad enough, the continual addition of armament and top-hamper to which she was often subjected had the effect eventually of impairing her stability. In such a case there were two remedies: to ballast or to girdle. The former expedient was objectionable, as it involved an increase both of displacement and of draught. Girdling was therefore generally practised. By this means the vessel was made stiffer, her buoyancy was improved, and her sides were also rendered less penetrable between wind and water. Even if, when thus girdled, she proved to be less stiff than the enemy this was not altogether a disadvantage: she formed a steadier gun-platform, her sides were less strained by the sea and, because her rolling was less violent, her topmasts were less liable to be sprung. But sufficient stiffness was necessary to allow of her lowest and heaviest tier of guns being fought in moderate weather; and for this reason alone, girdling was preferable to ballasting, in that the former tended to keep the guns high out of water while the latter brought them nearer the water-line.