Ok Folks - Nautical Expressions

[coxswain]

Windfall !!

A sudden unexpected rush of wind from a mountainous shore which allowed a ship more leeway.



Feel free to follow on lol






jj..........

[Albert Ross]

I think you have just been watching 'The One Show' where they were trying to say POSH doesn't stand for Port Out Starboard Home.....

[Ladylouwho]

Originally Posted by coxswain

Windfall !!

A sudden unexpected rush of wind from a mountainous shore which allowed a ship more leeway.



Feel free to follow on lol






jj..........

Hi jj,
Hope you are doing well.

How about this one:

"Three Sheets to the Wind"

There are three sheets that control the sails on a small boat. (The Main Sheet, The Windward Sheet and The Leeward Sheet). Three sheets to the wind means that the sheets are flying with the wind and the person does not have control of the boat. Hence the expression "three sheets to the wind" when a person has no control of themselves, like being intoxicated.


Colleen

[coxswain]

Originally Posted by Albert Ross

I think you have just been watching 'The One Show' where they were trying to say POSH doesn't stand for Port Out Starboard Home.....

Oh caught out lol


Nice one Colleen lol - yeah i'm great off on the Brilliance next week yehaa. Hows you ?




jj......

[imsulin]

"Splice the Mainbrace"

Thanks, Pusser's!

(Proud owner of the Pusser's blue triangle flag)

[Ladylouwho]

Originally Posted by coxswain

Oh caught out lol


Nice one Colleen lol - yeah i'm great off on the Brilliance next week yehaa. Hows you ?




jj......

You're off on the Brilliance again? I'm jealous. Where are you going?


Colleen

[jbond]

no room to swing a cat

During flogging all hands were called on deck to witness. On a small ship with a full crew this could make for a very crowded deck. The deck could be so crowded that a cat o' nine tails could not be used without hitting the crew so there was no room to swing a cat.

[G'ma]

Off-shore winds?
Freshening winds?
Fair wind?

[nutzo]

Arrr, Shiver me timbers!

Avast ye scurvy dogs!

You missed "talk like a pirate day" by a couple weeks

[ehfl]

Pintels and gudgeons. It's fun to say, and will impress your friends with your nautical knowledge. A pintel fits into a gudgeon, and holds the rudder onto the boat.

[joan_al]

Nautical question:
Where would you find the spool of pipe thread stored?
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It's kept next to the realative bearing grease.

Poop Deck - the deck that is the furthest and the highest back, usually above the Captain's quarters, NOT to be confused with the head.

[sddsddean]

Why is a toilet called 'the head'? During the good old times of sailing ships, there was no 'plumbing', but of course the sailors still had to 'do their thing'. What they used to do was go to the front of the ship (which is of course downwind from the rest of the ship) and climb on to the beam that the anchor was attached to and squat. This beam is called the 'Cathead'. This of course got shortened to 'The Head'.


Why are children called 'nippers' (well in the UK anyway!). Again, in sailing ships, when it came time to weigh anchor, the anchor was hauled up by the crew walking round a capstan which hauled the hawse (anchor rope) up. The problem was, on a large man of war, the hawse cable could be up to 12" thick, which made it too stiff to wrap around the capstan. The solution was to run a smaller diameter continuous rope from the capstan to a pulley in a loop. As the hawse came up through the hawse hole the hawse was tied with short pieces of rope to the continuous loop until it reached the hole in the deck to the cable locker where the short piece of rope was undone and the hawse dropped into the cable locker. The tying and untying of these small ropes was a job for the ships boys and the ropes were called 'nippers' as they nipped the hawse to the loop. Thus the ships boys (and children in general) became known as nippers.

Simon

[cruisebunnies]

"Son of a gun"-when captains took their wives to sea with them ,a common practice,some times women gave birth on board the ship.one of the only places with privacy was the gun deck,not used unless in battle.boys born in this area were called "son of guns."

"To freeze the balls off a brass monkey"- a brass monkey was a triangular rack upon which cannonballs were stacked in readiness for battle.in cold weather the brass would contract causing the cannonballs to fall off of the brass monkey.

[sddsddean]

Originally Posted by cruisebunnies

"Son of a gun"-when captains took their wives to sea with them ,a common practice,some times women gave birth on board the ship.one of the only places with privacy was the gun deck,not used unless in battle.boys born in this area were called "son of guns."

"To freeze the balls off a brass monkey"- a brass monkey was a triangular rack upon which cannonballs were stacked in readiness for battle.in cold weather the brass would contract causing the cannonballs to fall off of the brass monkey.

I'm afraid your second one, though popular, is totally apocryphal. If you think about it, how would the cannonballs stay in neat stacks on a pitching ship? Cannonballs were usually kept in shot garlands, like shelves along the inside of the gunwales, with holes in that the cannonballs sat in.

Simon

[imsulin]

Red sky at night,
Sailors' delight.
Red Sky at morning,
Sailors take warning.

Three sheets to the wind.
(hic..urp...hic)

Hang from the yardarm

Shiver me timbers

Swab the poopdeck
(yuk!)

Fit to be tied
(I heard somewhere this meant when some crew member committed an aggregious act, he was FIT to be TIED up while he received backlashes.)

UK posters - you've been very helpful! If some of could explain these terms, I'd really appreciate it! TIA.

[sddsddean]

Loads of explanations here
http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/navalsayings

Simon

[cruisebunnies]

Originally Posted by sddsddean

I'm afraid your second one, though popular, is totally apocryphal. If you think about it, how would the cannonballs stay in neat stacks on a pitching ship? Cannonballs were usually kept in shot garlands, like shelves along the inside of the gunwales, with holes in that the cannonballs sat in.

Simon

the balls are stacked in a pyramid and do not fall over ,you sir have not sailed on a man war.
sincerely

Captain BARRIE

[sddsddean]

Originally Posted by cruisebunnies

the balls are stacked in a pyramid and do not fall over ,you sir have not sailed on a man war.
sincerely

Captain BARRIE

True, as I would have to be at least 130 years old to have sailed on a ship that used cannonballs, but I spent a lot of my youth in the National Maririme Museum in Greenwich, am an engineer, studied Physics and have been stuck on a cross channel ferry in a force 9 gale when everything was flying about! There is no way a pyramid of cannon balls would have remained intact in that!

Simon

[Capt_BJ]

Ask away

In my years as Captain I had a habit of including a quiz question for the watch in the Night Orders consisting of the nautical term of the day. This went on way longer than did my ready list of terms so I ended up with a shelf of books similar to


....
and altho not quite that old as referenced above I have crossed the Atlantic twice on a square rigger .... and not as supercargo




Son of a gun - yes but more genericly, sailors wives often lived on board when the ship was in port and births on the gun deck were common. The master would probaly have used the cabin if found in this situation....so typically a son of a gun would not have been relations to a ship's officer, at least not the commanding officer.

[cruisebunnies]

Originally Posted by sddsddean

I'm afraid your second one, though popular, is totally apocryphal. If you think about it, how would the cannonballs stay in neat stacks on a pitching ship? Cannonballs were usually kept in shot garlands, like shelves along the inside of the gunwales, with holes in that the cannonballs sat in.


Simon

i respectfully suggest that you refer to the ROYAL NAVY website royalnavy.mod.uk for the correct definition of this saying.you may also wish to check the plymouth website you have directed us to.
Captain Barrie