or Haws, is generally understood to imply the situation of the cables before the ship's stem, when she is moored with two anchors out forward, viz. one on the starboard, and the other on the larboard bow. Hence it is usual to say, she has a clear hawse, or a foul hawse. This term also denotes any small distance a-head of a ship, or between her head and the anchors employed to ride her, as, He has anchored in our hawse, The brig fell athwart our hawse, and so on.

A ship is said to ride with a clear hawse when the cables are directed to their anchors, without lying athwart the stem, or crossing or being twisted round each other by the ship's winding about, according to the change of the wind, tide, or current. A foul hawse, on the contrary, implies that the cables lie across the stem, or bear upon each other, so as to be rubbed and chafed by the motion of the vessel. The hawse accordingly is foul, by having either a cross, an elbow, or a round turn. If the larboard cable, lying across the stem, points out on the starboard side, whilst the starboard cable at the same time grows out on the larboard side, there is a cross in the hawse. If, after this, the ship, without returning to her former position, continues to wind about the same way, so as to perform an entire revolution, each of the cables will be twisted round the other, and then directed out from the opposite bow, forming what is called a round turn. An elbow is produced when the ship stops in the middle of that revolution, after having had a cross; or, in other words, if she rides with her head northward with a clear hawse, and afterwards turns quite round so as to direct her head northward again, she will have an elbow.