Garboard Strake
The Garboard Strake is the first strake (row) of bottom shell plating on either side of the keel, to which it is joined. It is the lowest plating of the hull and forms the transition between the flat of the bottom and the keel.
The garboard seam — the joint between the garboard strake and the keel — is a highly worked, well-detailed connection, and the garboard region is a place where corrosion, grounding damage and cracking are watched for. In traditional wooden shipbuilding the garboard was the plank next to the keel; the term carries over to steel ships.
Sitting right beside the keel at the lowest point of the hull, the garboard strake takes grounding contact and collects water and sediment in tanks, making it a corrosion and damage hot spot. Its condition is part of the underwater-hull check at a docking survey.
Where is the garboard strake?
It is the row of bottom plating directly alongside the keel — the lowest strake of the shell on each side of the ship.