The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chesstree \Chess"tree`\, n. [Cf. F. chassis a framework of carpentry.] (Naut.) A piece of oak bolted perpendicularly on the side of a vessel, to aid in drawing down and securing the clew of the mainsail.
Wiktionary
n. (context nautical English) Either of two pieces of oak fitted to the topsides of a square-rigged vessel on each side of the bow through which the bowlines were fed; often decoratively carved
Usage examples of "chesstree".
She was what sailors term rather a wet one, and as she plunged through the short waves the sea broke continually over her bows and chesstree, so that there was no occasion to draw water for purification.
But the mountainous waves took her with irresistible force from her chesstree, retarding her velocity, and forcing her each moment nearer to the reef.
That task performed, they first the braces slack, Then to the chesstree drag th'unwilling tack: And, while the lee clew-garnet's lowered away, Taut aft the sheet they tally and belay.
Little passes unnoticed in a man-of-war, and although only the Marine sentry and one or two members of the anchor-watch had seen Jack and Colonel Keating come aboard after Governor Farquhar's farewell dinner, the whole ship's company knew that the skipper "had taken a glass', that he had been "as pissed as old Noah', that he had been "brought down in a barrow, roaring for a woman for a black girl in his cot', and they smiled indulgently, whispering quotations from his homily on the beastly vice of inebriation, as he called out to know whether that tack was to be brought to the chesstrees this watch or not.