Nautical Terminology

Mister E said:
I have owned a small sailing boat for nearly a year and to begin with wanted to learn the proper terms for the various things. I quickly realised that they are unfathomable.
The Halyard for example I do not have a yard to haul on my boat, so why stick to that name?
My sail has leading and trailing edges on my boat. Works for me and the few others that are on my boat. I could learn all the terms or I can sail. I do the latter.

Could somebody explain to me what a Cunningham is but not use the strange names for the stuff it is attached to.
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As has already been pointed out, part of the reason for using the traditional terms is that they are an efficient way of defining what is meant. We talk about halyards, but if you want to call them "that piece of rope that you pull to hoist the sail", feel free.
:rolleyes:
 
Mister E said:
I have owned a small sailing boat for nearly a year and to begin with wanted to learn the proper terms for the various things. I quickly realised that they are unfathomable.
The Halyard for example I do not have a yard to haul on my boat, so why stick to that name?
My sail has leading and trailing edges on my boat. Works for me and the few others that are on my boat. I could learn all the terms or I can sail. I do the latter.
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What about the bottom edge of your sail?

Unfathomable is a bit strong, isn't it? This whole sailing business seems "unfathomable" until people get the idea - then they soon start to fathom it. Some even sail and learn the names of things at the same time.

Hard to learn unless you sail with others who use the usual terminology and it's fine not to do so if you only sail with people who don't. But it could be a problem when you need to relate to other people in the sailing world, either to understand what they are saying or make yourself understood, for example, to a chandler, or another sailor who wants you to give way under the collision regulations, or, perhaps, the coastguard. Whatever language you speak in private, you might need to use the lingua franca from time to time as well, eventually.
 
Mister E said:
I have owned a small sailing boat for nearly a year and to begin with wanted to learn the proper terms for the various things. I quickly realised that they are unfathomable.
The Halyard for example I do not have a yard to haul on my boat, so why stick to that name?
My sail has leading and trailing edges on my boat. Works for me and the few others that are on my boat. I could learn all the terms or I can sail. I do the latter.

Could somebody explain to me what a Cunningham is but not use the strange names for the stuff it is attached to.
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Sorry, no. Not because I don't want to but because my description and explanation of how it works would include the use of the word halyard, and since I don't know what you've decided to rename your halyard, or any other part of your boat and its equipment, I cannot know how to reference anything in whatever terms you use.
 
Going by some of the responses to my post I think I had better add a few personal details. I have memory problems after a series of nervous breakdowns.
So I think it better to remember the important things like Col Regs with the usable memory I have. So the bottom of the sail is the bottom of the sail.

However if you can not explain to me (I now have some idea of the terminology as in Haulyard) what chance does somebody starting out have? Do they have to learn all the lists before going on any boat? The list earlier is a good example, how many of those names are used where ever you go sailing?

Oh and sailing is very good for my mental health as it enables me to go out of the house.
 
Learning the few nautical terms needed to crew on a modern yacht is no more difficult than learning the specialist terms used in everyday activities such as driving a car, using a computer, operating a TV remote control etc.

Imagine a driving instructor telling his pupil to press "the pedal that disconnects the engine from the gearbox".
 
dom said:
Quite, one obviously needs a spanner not a pedal to undo the bell housing :rolleyes:
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To be sure.

By the way, I like the way you ended your post with a pictorial representation that, in the absence of body language and prosody, served to draw my attention to the tenor or temper of your nominal noon-verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation.
 
parsifal said:
To be sure.

By the way, I like the way you ended your post with a pictorial representation that, in the absence of body language and prosody, served to draw my attention to the tenor or temper of your nominal noon-verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation.
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Sir,

I am at a loss to fathom the word you use above:- prosody !

Especially as a fathom is six feet, I only have two and all my charts show things called metres; or is it meters. But meters show how much electricity I use, but not on my boat or in the sea.........:rolleyes:

I remain your obedient servant,

etc etc etc
 
Robert Wilson said:
Sir,

I am at a loss to fathom the word you use above:- prosody !

Especially as a fathom is six feet, I only have two and all my charts show things called metres; or is it meters. But meters show how much electricity I use, but not on my boat or in the sea.........:rolleyes:

I remain your obedient servant,

etc etc etc
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I don't know what it means either. I must confess to having copied it from a free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by the people who use it....... Need I go on?
 
parsifal said:
I don't know what it means either. I must confess to having copied it from a free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by the people who use it....... Need I go on?
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I came across it the other week, in a book about grammar. If I'm right, it is a technical term describing the manner in which words sound or flow in speech or writing, but it doesn't stand for "prose".
 
parsifal said:
I don't know what it means either. I must confess to having copied it from a free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by the people who use it....... Need I go on?
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I have just looked it up in my Hamlyn (ham again, what a coincidence!) dictionary. I quote:-

"The science or study of poetic metres (not meters!) and versification."

Little did I know that my above post would have something to do with metres ;)

Anyway, back to the OP and his stimulating thread.
(Stimulating: to rouse to action or effort, as by pricking or goading)
Certainly get plenty of the latter two on this forum!!
 
Robert Wilson said:
Sir,

I am at a loss to fathom the word you use above:- prosody !

Especially as a fathom is six feet, I only have two and all my charts show things called metres; or is it meters. But meters show how much electricity I use, but not on my boat or in the sea.........:rolleyes:
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Ahh, you have missed a step there

Fathom => six feet => meters (BTW 10/10 for not falling into the metres trap) ...all perfectly logical.

The missing step is:

Meters => metrics

then the rest is straightforward

metrics => poetic rhythm => prosody :rolleyes:
 
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Mister E said:
Oh and sailing is very good for my mental health as it enables me to go out of the house.
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Keep sailing!

But, Mister E, you might have got a more sympathetic response if you had mentioned your memory problems earlier. You don't have to learn from lists - most people learn by hearing the words and using them, building up their vocabulary as they go along. Unfamiliar words for new things, that's all. They are no more unfathomable than, say French or computer speak.

If you really want to learn, I would suggest that you look up two or three words that describe the bits of boat you use every time you sail - like halyards (or halliards) to pull the sails up and sheets to alter their angle to the wind - and use them every time. Then, when they come naturally, try two or three more. There are plenty of diagrams you can use to find out the names of things visually.

If not, just keep at it, but as you gain experience, you might find it harder to communicate with other sailors, because the core vocabulary is pretty much standard amongst English speakers, with occasional local variations.
 
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JumbleDuck said:
Do BSM instructors still say "give gas" to avoid the complication of referring to the accelerator?
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When I learned to drive in 1999, it was certainly "gas" - the instructor apologised for the Americanism but said that "accelerator" took too long to say!

Pulling out of a junction etc, he'd always be sat there urging "gas and away, gas and away!"

Pete
 
Mister E said:
I have owned a small sailing boat for nearly a year and to begin with wanted to learn the proper terms for the various things. I quickly realised that they are unfathomable.
The Halyard for example I do not have a yard to haul on my boat, so why stick to that name?
My sail has leading and trailing edges on my boat. Works for me and the few others that are on my boat. I could learn all the terms or I can sail. I do the latter.

Could somebody explain to me what a Cunningham is but not use the strange names for the stuff it is attached to.
Click to expand...

Leading and trailing edges are good terms to use. After all, sails are just wings stood on end so it makes sense to take a lead from the aero industry, which has done far more work on aerodynamics than the boat industry. Added to which (and this may just be a personal thing) I don't find luff and leach to be immediately self-evident and it always requires an additional thought process to establish which one I mean.

A cunningham is an extra control line on a mainsail. It attaches a short distance above the boom and pulls down hard on the leading edge (or luff) of the sail. This has the function of de-powering the sail which is especially useful on dinghies which usually have to facility to reef. It's pretty rare (non-existent?) on ordinary cruising yachts. It's named after the inventor Bruce Cunningham who also took an American racing team to Le Mans during most of the 1950's, first with some adapted yank-tanks and then with sports cars of his own design and manufacture.
 
trapezeartist said:
Leading and trailing edges are good terms to use. After all, sails are just wings stood on end so it makes sense to take a lead from the aero industry, which has done far more work on aerodynamics than the boat industry. Added to which (and this may just be a personal thing) I don't find luff and leach to be immediately self-evident and it always requires an additional thought process to establish which one I mean.

A cunningham is an extra control line on a mainsail. It attaches a short distance above the boom and pulls down hard on the leading edge (or luff) of the sail. This has the function of de-powering the sail which is especially useful on dinghies which usually have to facility to reef. It's pretty rare (non-existent?) on ordinary cruising yachts. It's named after the inventor Bruce Cunningham who also took an American racing team to Le Mans during most of the 1950's, first with some adapted yank-tanks and then with sports cars of his own design and manufacture.
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Once again, herein lies the problem. Your leech line now needs renamimg, as does you leech pennant, your leech telltales and your leech battens. You can also no longer use the terms, luffing, luff up, luff pennant, etc. Also, is it OK to use the words boom and reef?

In terms of Cunninghams themselves, I wouldn't have said that they are rare on cruising yachts and certainly not non-existent. Most mainsails are be made with a Cunningham cringle as standard and a resonable number are to be seen rigged. I have mine semi-permanently rigged. Semi-permanently in so much as that depending on the conditions it may become the making the back sail as small as posssible without taking it all down leading edge pulling down rope, by way of a quick undo rope end clip attached to the relevant pair of metal rings one each end of a piece of webbing passed through a metal lined hole in the leading edge of the back sail. (Or in unfathomable speak - the reef 3 luff pennant by way of it being snap-shackeld to the relevant luff spectacles).
 
Simondjuk said:
Once again, herein lies the problem. Your leech line now needs renamimg, as does you leech pennant, your leech telltales and your leech battens. You can also no longer use the terms, luffing, luff up, luff pennant, etc. Also, is it OK to use the words boom and reef?

In terms of Cunninghams themselves, I wouldn't have said that they are rare on cruising yachts and certainly not non-existent. Most mainsails are be made with a Cunningham cringle as standard and a resonable number are to be seen rigged. I have mine semi-permanently rigged. Semi-permanently in so much as that depending on the conditions it may become the making the back sail as small as posssible without taking it all down leading edge pulling down rope, by way of a quick undo rope end clip attached to the relevant pair of metal rings one each end of a piece of webbing passed through a metal lined hole in the leading edge of the back sail. (Or in unfathomable speak - the reef 3 luff pennant by way of it being snap-shackeld to the relevant luff spectacles).
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That exhausted me!;)

And for the record, I have a cunningham, permanently rigged with line led to cockpit. Actually used it once, although I'm not sure I needed to!
 
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