Search Results - Bulkhead (partition)

The word bulki meant "cargo" in Old Norse. The Song Dynasty Chinese author Zhu Yu wrote of Chinese ships with watertight bulkhead compartments in his book Pingzhou Table Talks of 1119 AD. A Chinese trade ship dated to 1277 AD was found off the southern coast of China in 1973, and had 12 bulkhead compartment rooms in its hull.

Sometime in the 15th century sailors and builders in Europe realized that walls within a vessel would prevent cargo from shifting during passage. In shipbuilding, any vertical panel was called a "head". So walls installed abeam (side-to-side) in a vessel's hull were called "bulkheads."

Now, the term bulkhead applies to every vertical panel aboard a ship, except for the hull itself.