Our Favorite Nautical Sailing Terms, Phrases, and Slangs

Sailing is littered with funny words and phrases. Our everyday speech is littered with words and phrases that were borrowed from seafaring times. If you’ve had a long day (or are actively having one), let’s get three sheets to the wind and have some fun with nautical terms.

First a quick public service announcement about our knowledge base:

At the American Mainsail, our mission is to make you the most informed sailor on the water. We want to simplify boat maintenance into something easy to digest, steer you toward quality products that work for real sailors, and most importantly, give you an answer for the “why?” behind the “what?”. Our knowledge base is supported by the online products that we sell, as well as income from affiliate marketing of products that we use and believe in. Check out the links to products that are linked in our knowledge base and consider making a purchase of one of the products we endorse to support American Mainsail’s mission!

Check out these books on nautical english

• https://amzn.to/41qvJ1J - The Sailor's Word Book - An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms

  • Seriously old school reference of nautical, sailing, and naval terms. First publish in 1867 and revised for the modern reader.

• The Sailor's Word-Book - W.H. Smyth

  • So cheap it’s a no-brainer. Why not?

• Three Sheets to the Wind: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions - Cynthia Barrett

“Able” Seaman - Still used by the USCG to describe members of the US Merchant Marine

On to it…

Abatement - A plea seeking a reduction of freight when unforeseen circumstances have hindered performance of the charterer.

Abbey Lover - Term of reproach for idleness.

Abet - Excite or encourage. Used often in competitive sailing or other competitive events.

Able - A person not only of strong faculties, but acquainted with and equal to perform expected duties. Still used by the US Coast Guard today. Able-bodied seaman.

Acre - An old duel fought by warriors between the frontiers of England and Scotland.

Bab - Entrance of the red sea. Arabic.

Back Off All - Order when the harpooner has thrown his harpoon into a whale.

Backsters - Flat pieces of wood or cork, strapped on the feet in order to walk over a beach.

Bad-Name - Given to a ship for privateering or inefficiency. A bad reputation.

Bamboozle - To decoy the enemy by hoisting false flags.

Boom - A (roughly) horizontal spar or pole for rigging a sail. Allows easier/better control of the angle of the sail rigged to the boom. Rigs the clew of the mainsail on a sloop, and in addition, the clew of the mizzen sail on a ketch or yawl (less common).

Dog - Device to secure doors and hatches.

Fathom - An old unit for depth. One fathom is equal to six feet.

Fall Off - To change the direction of a sailing ship’s bow to point more downwind.

Fast - Fastened or held firmly. To make fast.

“Fife” rail of an old sailing ship.

Feeling Blue - If a captain or officer of a ship died while at sea, the crew would fly blue flags and paint a blue band along the ship’s hull. Over time, this symbol of grieving was equated with feeling sad or melancholy.

Fife Rail - A freestanding pinrail surrounding the base of a mast and used for securing that mast's sails' halyards with a series of belaying pins.

Flank - Fastest speed of a ship.

Flog the Glass - The act of vibrating or shaking a half-hour marine sandglass - used until the early 19th century to time the length of a watch - to speed the passage of the sand in order to get off watch duty earlier

Flotilla - 1.  In naval usage, a group of warships under a single commander that is smaller than a fleet but otherwise not formally defined. A flotilla often is larger than a squadron, and usually is made up of smaller vessels than those assigned to a squadron, but some flotillas are smaller than squadrons and some include larger vessels. In some navies, the term flotilla is reserved for naval formations that operate on inland bodies of water, while the terms fleet and squadron denote naval formations that operate at sea. A flotilla may be a permanent or temporary formation. In modern times, a flotilla sometimes is an administrative naval unit responsible for maintaining and supporting vessels but not for commanding their operations at sea. 2.  Informally, a group of naval or civilian vessels operating together or in close proximity to one another.

Gunwale/Gunnel - One of the most oft-confused nautical terms. Refers to the top surface of the sides of a boat. Originally the “gun wale”, a strip of reinforcing placed along the sides of a sailing warship for the purpose of reinforcing against the forces of firing cannon. A “waler” is a term that is still used for horizontal reinforcing members often heard in construction.

In the Doldrums - The “doldrums” refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator. Because there is often little surface wind for ships' sails to use in this geographic location, sailing ships got stuck on its windless waters. Over time, people equated the calmness of the doldrums with being listless or depressed.

Hull - The main structure of a boat. The hull keeps the water out and the people and cargo in. Appendages are attached to the hull and serve purposes such as steering or providing stability; such as the rudder and keel.

The “keel” of a modern sailboat is an appendage. It is attached to the hull.

Keel - On a modern sailboat, an appendage that both provides ballast to oppose the tipping force that is created by the force of the wind on the sails and also creates lift, like the wing of an airplane, that allows the sailboat to sail against the wind. Made of a heavy material, usually lead or iron.

Keelboat - A sailboat that carries ballast (weighted at the bottom - see the image on the right) in order to balance the loads created on the sails in order to stay upright and avoid capsizing. Some sailboats, like catamarans, rely on form stability in order to stay upright. Other, smaller sailboats rely on crew operating the boat to weight the boat with their bodies in order to stay upright.

Knot - A unit of speed equivalent to 1 nautical mile (1.8520 km; 1.1508 mi) per hour. Originally the speed of a moving vessel was measured by paying out a line from the stern; the line was tied into a knot every 47 feet 3 inches (14.40 m), and the number of knots paid out in 30 seconds gave the speed through the water in nautical miles per hour.

Know the Ropes - A sailor who knows the ropes can identify all the many ropes used in working a sailing vessel. On a square rigged ship, there would typically be more than 130 named ropes in the running rigging which are made fast at deck level – the majority of these are duplicated on both the port and starboard sides, so doubling that count.

Lay Day - An unexpected delay time during a voyage often spent at anchor or in a harbor. It is usually caused by bad weather, equipment failure, or needed maintenance.

League - A unit of length used to measure distances, normally equal to three nautical miles, but varies by nationality.

Lee Shore - A shore downwind of a ship. A ship that cannot sail well to windward risks being blown onto a lee shore and grounded.

Lie To - To arrange a ship's sails so that they counteract each other. A ship in this condition or in the process of achieving this condition is said to be lying to.

Long Shot - An occurrence that would take a great deal of luck. Since early cannons were not very accurate (smooth ball in a smooth bore, a successful hit from a long shot was not very common).

Loose Cannon - An irresponsible and reckless individual whose behavior (either intentionally or unintentionally) endangers the group he or she belongs to. The term refers to a hypothetical literal loose cannon which, weighing thousands of pounds, would crush anything and anyone in its path, and possibly even break a hole in the hull, thus endangering the seaworthiness of the whole ship. If you’ve seen Master and Commander - you can imagine the damage that a cannon would do if it came loose from its lashings.

Lubber’s Hole - A port cut into the bottom of a masthead allowing easy entry and exit. It was considered "un-seamanlike" to use this method rather than going over the side from the shrouds, and few sailors would risk the scorn of their shipmates by doing so (at least if there were witnesses). In practice, it is often actually quicker and easier for a fit sailor to climb outside the masthead than through the lubber's hole.

Luff - The leading edge of a sail, where most of the power is generated when sailing upwind. Can also be the action of a sail flogging when it is totally stalled (luffing).

Lying Ahull - Waiting out a storm by dousing all sails and letting the boat drift.

Mast - A vertical spar or pole for rigging sails. Sloops have one mast, while ketch’s and yawls (less common) have two. Larger sailboats/yachts may have more than two masts.

Mayday - French origin: “m’aidez”, literally meaning “help me”. Formal radio call only used when a vessel is in imminent danger and requires immediate assistance.

Pipe Down - Ship crews received a variety of signals from the boatswain’s pipe. One signal was “piping down the hammocks,” which instructed the crew to go below decks and prepare for sleep.

Scantlings - Dimensions of a ship's structural members, e.g. frame, beam, girder, etc.

Toe the Line - Members of the British Royal Navy were required to stand barefoot and at attention for inspection. While at attention they lined up along the seams of the planks of the deck with their toes touching the line. This became known as "toeing" the line.

Warm the Bell - Royal Navy slang from the Age of Sail for doing something unnecessarily or unjustifiably early. Holding a half-hour marine sandglass used until the early 19th century to time watches under one's coat or in one's hand to warm it allegedly expanded the glass′s neck to allow the sand to flow more quickly, justifying ringing the bell rung every half-hour to announce the passage of time on watch earlier than if the glass was cold, hence warming the bell and shortening the length of the watch.

Taken Aback - The sails of a ship were described as “aback” when the wind blew them flat, or back, against their supporting structures.