What is "to speak a ship"

Speak \Speak\, v. t.

1. To utter with the mouth; to pronounce; to utter articulately, as human beings.

   They sat down with him upn ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him.
   --Job. ii. 13.

2. To utter in a word or words; to say; to tell; to declare orally; as, to speak the truth; to speak sense.

3. To declare; to proclaim; to publish; to make known; to exhibit; to express in any way.

   It is my father;s muste To speak your deeds.
   --Shak.

   Speaking a still good morrow with her eyes.
   --Tennyson.

   And for the heaven's wide circuit, let it speak The maker's high magnificence.
   --Milton.

   Report speaks you a bonny monk.
   --Sir W. Scott.

4. To talk or converse in; to utter or pronounce, as in conversation; as, to speak Latin.

   And French she spake full fair and fetisely.
   --Chaucer.

5. To address; to accost; to speak to.

   [He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.
   --Ecclus. xiii.

6. each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan.
   --Emerson.

   To speak a ship (Naut.), to hail and speak to her captain or commander.