Nautical Terms in Common Usage

The bottom portion of a sail is called the foot. If it is not secured, it is footloose and it dances randomly in the wind.

Aboard ship, a booby hatch is a sliding cover or hatch that must be pushed away to allow access or passage.

To sail downwind directly at another ship thus "stealing" or diverting the wind from his sails.

A sheet is a rope line which controls the tension on the downwind side of a square sail. If, on a three masted fully rigged ship, the sheets of the three lower course sails are loose, the sails will flap and flutter and are said to be "in the wind". A ship in this condition would stagger and wander aimlessly downwind.

The poop is the stern section of a ship. To be pooped is to be swamped by a high, following sea.

When lost or unsure of their position in coastal waters, ships would release a caged crow. The crow would fly straight towards the nearest land thus giving the vessel some sort of a navigational fix. The tallest lookout platform on a ship came to be know as the crow's nest.

Using a buoy to raise the bight of an anchor cable to prevent it from chafing on a rough bottom.

If a captain of a smaller ship encountered a larger enemy vessel, he might decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and so he would order the crew to cut the lashings on all the sails and run away before the wind. Other sources indicate "Cut and Run" meant to cut the anchor cable and sail off in a hurry.

The "petard" was a small cask of black powder used to prime cannon fuses. During battle a petard was stored alongside each gun. Ocasionally, a careless crewman would set one off while lighting a fuse, thereby "hoisting" himself in the air. The expression was used by English sailors describing the inept French gunners.

The end of an anchor cable is fastened to the bitts at the ship's bow. If all of the anchor cable has been payed out you have come to the bitter end.

When called to line up at attention, the ship's crew would form up with their toes touching a seam in the deck planking.

To prevent the buntline ropes from chaffing the sails, crew were sent aloft to haul them over the sails. This was called overhauling.

A slushy slurry of fat was obtained by boiling or scraping the empty salted meat storage barrels. This stuff was often sold ashore by the ship's cook for the benefit of himself or the crew. The money so derived became known as a slush fund.

To sail downwind rapidly towards another ship or landmark.

If a crewman is standing watch on the weather side of the bow, he will be subject to the constant beating of the sea and the ocean spray. He will be under the weather.

If a ship holds a tack course too long, it has overreached its turning point and the distance it must travel to reach it's next tack point is increased.

Anything seen to have gone overboard or spotted floating past the ship (by the board) was considered lost at sea.

Old English for capsize or founder.

The devil seam was the curved seam in the deck planking closest to the side of the ship and next to the scupper gutters. If a sailor slipped on the deck, he could find himself between the devil and the deep blue sea.

To pay the deck seams meant to seal them with tar. The devil seam was the most difficult to pay because it was curved and intersected with the straight deck planking. Some sources define the "devil" as the below-the-waterline-seam between the keel and the the adjoining planking. Paying the Devil was considered to be a most difficult and unpleasant task.

From the French "arrimage" meaning ship's cargo. Damaged cargo was sold at a rummage sale.

In good weather, crews' mess was a warm meal served on square wooden platters.

When in port, and with the crew restricted to the ship for any extended period of time, wives and ladies of easy virtue often were allowed to live aboard along with the crew. Infrequently, but not uncommonly, children were born aboard, and a convenient place for this was between guns on the gun deck. If the child's father was unknown, they were entered in the ship's log as "son of a gun".

Sailing in a manner so as to steal or divert wind from another ship's sails.

Between a ship's guns were lip-edged brass trays called monkeys which held pyramid stacks of cannon balls. In cold weather the brass tray would contract faster than the iron cannon balls and the balls would go tumbling on the deck. In this case it was said to be "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".

In the Royal Navy the punishment prescribed for most serious crimes was flogging. This was administered by the Bosun's Mate using a whip called a cat o' nine tails. The "cat" was kept in a leather or baize bag. It was considered bad news indeed when the cat was let out of the bag.�� Other sources attribute the expression to the old english market scam of selling someone a pig in a poke(bag) when the pig turned out to be a cat instead.

The entire ship's company was required to witness flogging at close hand. The crew might crowd around so that the Bosun's Mate might not have enough room to swing his cat o' nine tails.

A slate tablet was kept near the helm on which the watch keeper would record the speeds, distances, headings and tacks during the watch. If there were no problems during the watch, the slate would be wiped clean so that the new watch could start over with a clean slate.

A dangerous situation where the wind is on the wrong side of the sails pressing them back against the mast and forcing the ship astern. Most often this was caused by an inattentive helmsman who had allowed the ship to head up into the wind.

An iron ball attached to a long handle was a loggerhead. When heated it was used to seal the pitch in deck seams. It was sometimes a handy weapon for quarrelling crewmen.

A large sail used only for sailing downwind and requiring rather little attention.

When casks became empty they were "shaken" (taken apart) so the pieces, called shakes, could be stored in a small space. Shakes had very little value.

To anchor a ship far enough away from another ship so that they did not hit each other when they swung with the wind or tide.

Warships many times had their foresails or jib sails cut thinly so that they could maintain point and not be blown off course. Upon sighting thin foresails on a distant ship a captain might not like the cut of his jib and would then have an opportunity to escape.

Garbling was the prohibited practice of mixing rubbish with the cargo. A distorted, mixed up message was said to be garbled.

The British navy filled their ships' crew quotas by kidnapping men off the streets and forcing them into service. This was called Impressment and was done by Press Gangs.

Yards are the spars attached at right angles across a mast to support square sails. (Yardarms are either side of a yard.) On a fully-rigged three-masted ship there were three major square sails on each mast. So if the nine major sails were all employed at the same time, the whole nine yards were working.

This referred to a ship's keel touching the bottom and getting right off again.

A butt was a barrel. Scuttle meant to chop a hole in something. The scuttlebutt was a water barrel with a hole cut into it so that sailors could reach in and dip out drinking water. The scuttlebutt was the place where the ship's gossip was exchanged.