Forecastle

The forecastle, an old term usually pronounced and often written fo'c'sle, is the forward part of a ship at the bow, and on most vessels it takes the form of a short raised deck or superstructure above the main deck at the very front of the ship. The name dates from the days when ships of war carried a raised, castle-like fighting platform at the bow, and although the fighting purpose is long gone, the raised structure at the bow has kept the name. Its most obvious practical benefit is that by raising the bow it helps the ship rise to oncoming seas and keeps the forward part drier, giving the vessel better seakeeping and protecting the deck fittings from being swept by heavy water.

On a modern merchant ship the forecastle is a busy working area. It is where the anchor-handling and forward mooring machinery is located, the windlass, with its cable lifters for the anchor chain and its warping drums for the mooring lines, together with the bitts, fairleads and rollers used to moor the ship at the bow. Beneath it, the forecastle space is typically used for stores, such as the bosun's store containing ropes, paints and deck equipment, and it may house the chain lockers into which the anchor cables are stowed. In earlier times, on many ships the forecastle also housed the crew's living quarters, which is why to "live before the mast" and the term fo'c'sle became associated with the ordinary sailors' accommodation, though on modern ships the crew live in the aft superstructure.

As the location of the anchor and forward mooring operations, the forecastle is where the anchor party works when anchoring and where the forward mooring team works when berthing, so it is central to some of the more hazardous routine operations on a ship, and it is a defining feature of a vessel's profile and layout.