A cockpit is an open well in the deck of a boat outside any deckhouse or cabin.
In the Royal Navy, the term cockpit originally referred to the area where the coxswain was stationed. This led to the word being used to refer to the area towards the stern of a small decked vessel that houses the rudder controls. The midshipmen and master's mates were berthed in the cockpit, and served as the action station for the ship's surgeon and his mates during battle.
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. Most modern cockpits are enclosed, except on some small aircraft.
The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls that enable the pilot to fly the aircraft. In most airliners, a door separates the cockpit from the aircraft cabin. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, all major airlines fortified their cockpits against access by hijackers.
The word cockpit was originally a sailing term for the coxswain's station in a Royal Navy ship, and later the location of the ship's rudder controls. Cockpit first appeared in the English language in the 1580s, "a pit for fighting cocks", from cock + pit. Used in nautical sense (1706) for midshipmen's compartment below decks; transferred to airplanes (1914) and to cars (1930s). From about 1935, cockpit came to be used informally to refer to the driver's seat of a car, especially a high performance one, and this is official terminology in Formula One.
A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters (cocks), or more accurately gamecocks, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the word gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a “game”, a sport, pastime or entertainment, was recorded in 1646, after the term “cock of the game” used by George Wilson, in the earliest known book on the sport of cockfighting in The Commendation of Cocks and Cock Fighting in 1607. But it was during Magellan's voyage of discovery of the Philippines in 1521 when modern cockfighting was first witnessed and documented by Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's chronicler, in the kingdom of Taytay.
The combatants, referred to as gamecocks, are specially bred birds, conditioned for increased stamina and strength. The comb and wattle are cut off in order to meet show standards of the American Gamefowl Society and the Old English Game Club and to prevent freezing in colder climates (the standard emerged from the older practice of severing the comb, wattles, and earlobes of the bird in order to remove anatomical vulnerabilities, similar to the practice of docking a dog's tail and ears).
Big Fantastic, LLC is a filmmaking collective and production company located in Santa Monica, California which creates, develops and produces online video entertainment. The company is currently most known for their popular web series Sam Has 7 Friends and Prom Queen. Recent project include the web experiment Control TV, the web sitcom Cockpit,Foreign Body, a prequel to the Robin Cook novel, and Sorority Forever for The WB.
Big Fantastic started as an ambitious attempt by Douglas Cheney, Chris McCaleb, Ryan Wise, and Chris Hampel to revolutionize the web series phenomenon by serializing dramatic content into a short, daily 90 second format. The company also expands their product into the metaverse by giving the characters in their shows MySpace pages and Blogs. Big Fantastic originally was funded completely out of their own pockets, but has now made deals with Warner Brothers, Vuguru, Generate LA-NY, 60 Frames and other companies for further productions. The Big Fantastic company was Emmy nominated twice for the Outstanding Broadband Drama award in 2007. One nomination for Sam Has 7 Friends and one for Prom Queen.
Sailing comprises wind propulsion of a craft by means of sails and steering it over water, ice or land, depending on the type of craft. A sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails by adjusting their angle with respect to the moving sailing craft and sometimes by adjusting the sail area. The force transmitted from the sails is resisted by forces from the hull, keel, and rudder of a sailing craft, by forces from skate runners for an iceboat, and by forces from wheels for a land sailing craft to allow steering a course on a point of sail with respect to the true wind.
While there are still some places in the world where sail-powered passenger, fishing and trading vessels are used, these craft have become rarer as internal combustion engines have become economically viable in even the poorest and most remote areas. In most countries sailing is enjoyed as a recreational activity or as a sport. Recreational sailing or yachting can be divided into racing and cruising. Cruising can include extended offshore and ocean-crossing trips, coastal sailing within sight of land, and daysailing.
Sailing refers to using sailboats for sporting purposes. It can be recreational or competitive.
Sailing is the main variety of yachting, and competitive sailing the main variety of yacht racing. A sailing competition is known as a regatta, usually consists of multiple individual races, where the boat that performs best in each race is the overall winner. There is a broad variety of kinds of races and sailboats used for racing from large yacht to dinghy racing. Much racing is done around buoys or similar marks in protected waters, while some longer offshore races cross open water. All kinds of boats are used for racing, including small dinghies, catamarans, boats designed primarily for cruising, and purpose-built raceboats. The Racing Rules of Sailing govern the conduct of yacht racing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, model boat racing, dinghy racing and virtually any other form of racing around a course with more than one vessel while powered by the wind.
"Sailing" is a song written and recorded by The Sutherland Bros. Band (featuring the Sutherland Brothers Gavin and Iain). Released in June 1972, it can be found on their album Lifeboat released in the same year.
Rod Stewart recorded the song at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, for his 1975 album Atlantic Crossing, and it was subsequently a number 1 hit in the UK in September 1975 for four weeks. The single returned to the UK top 10 a year later when used as the theme music for the BBC documentary series Sailor, about HMS Ark Royal. Having been a hit twice, it remains Stewart's biggest-selling single in the UK, with sales of over a million copies.
The music video was shot in New York Harbor in 1975 and credited with a 1978 completion date. It also was one of the first to be aired on MTV when it launched on 1 August 1981. Despite Stewart's great popularity in the United States, the song never climbed higher than number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.