Terminology?????

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My little project Pram Dinghy is coming along quite nicely. I have decided to start looking around the online chandlers to see what bits and bobs I will need once all of the hard work is done. My problem is, at what point did you all start using a different lnguage to the rest of us?? Cleats, fairleads, swivels to name but a few. Is there an online dictionary telling us numpties what these things are and what they're used for.

Cheers

Karl
 
My problem is, at what point did you all start using a different lnguage to the rest of us?? errrr well as a mostly self taught child I made up names .. like jammer anything you could fix a sheet (that's one term I got right) to/through... lol I would say if in doubt make up a term for it..
 
Re: Jargon......

Cant quite see your problem. Cleats, fairleads, swivels etc are what these things are called - just like toast and marmalade, Marigolds and Polyanthus, Firewire and floppy, big end and bearing journal ....etc etc.

If you dont know the names for the parts you need, get one of those nice glossy illustrated catalogues from a mail order chandlers where they show pictures of everything. You will find your nautical vocabulary increasing by leaps and bounds!

Alternatively, go to the chandlers, take a look round, and ask for 'one of those, and two of those please'!
 
Re: Jargon......

A lot of chandlers, especially the smaller ones, are quite happy if you turn up (by prior arrangement) with the boat on a trailer. they will then help you fit it out. That way you don't need to know the names for parts, and you can learn as you go along. I've done this a couple of times in the past, and its much quicker, and you'll always end up with the correct sized fittings.

Also, as you'll be spending a lot of money, you can usually negotiate a fairly large discount!

As far as learning terminology, get an old fasioned 'learn to sail' book from a second hand book shop. These older books nearly always have a chapter on the names of parts and what they do.
 
See if you can find an old copy of Reeds Nautical Almanac. I'm sure many of the terms were listed there. Maybe someone here has a copy they can give you. I haven't looked but maybe MacMillans list the terms too.

http://www.alexander-advertising.co.uk
 
The real problem with your question is the assumption that the hard work will be over when you get to the stage of buying bits and pieces - it will only be starting!
 
I wouldn't worry about it too much. The yachting fraternity are usually quite happy with generic terms like thingy, thingamebob, doovey, dooverlacky, rope, front, sharp, back, blunt, left, right, until you learn them gradually.
 
Re: Avast ye lubbers!

That Dixon Kemp dictionary is brilliant but the one word that I've always wondered about is 'Abaft' and it isn't there!

Anyone?
 
Quite right... thingy being of the best if prefaced with short description....rope thingy, big stick thingy, ...or a slightly longer description, chuck heavy weight thingy off the pointy end to stop the boat moving, or pull hard on red rope thingy

This alternative terminology is especially useful if novice crew on board, where pressured yelled instructions such as 'pull that sheet', tend to involve them stopping dead in their tracks and looking for large white cloth object, which can then have uncertain consequences ;-)
 
Ahhhh luv it, you should have been a co writer for Rudyard Kipling.

Thingy is an unbelievably useful word. One place it doesn't get confused is of course is 'Get a cupla thingys out of the esky'

No confusion there.
 
Re: Avast ye lubbers!

It's a polite term for 'She's got a big arse'. Of course it isn't published a lot as it was often mistaken for a comment about the skippers wife which of course it wasn't meant at all.
 
Re: Avast ye lubbers!

'Abaft'...... Well I guess most of us pick this stuff up by association and of course you can hardly blame us either since we are just carrying on the long tradition..... As far as I know you could replace 'abaft' with 'behind' as in 'abaft' the mast = 'behind' the mast. Behind being further from the pointy end.....

I think it must be the magazine journalists who want to show how clever they all are with keeping all this old junk going....
Roger
 
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