Flotsam
Nautical Trivia by Dean Calin

Hi, In The Mermaid my daughter and I are wondering what "skipping at the top" means. We are part of Kidsplay and can't wait for April to get here when you come perform at our Pirate Fest. She really likes the song "Blow the Wind Southerly" and sings it all the time unless she is in rehearsal for our current show.
Thanks,
Joe

Well, Ahoy Joe!  Thank you for the really great question.  While I have not found the confirmation in print, what this is referring to, I believe, is the sailors moving along the yards on the footropes in order to bunt (or set and stow) the sails.  Having to scramble sideways rapidly on a hanging rope while other sailors were attempting to do the same must have lent the appearance of a bouncing gait, if not skipping.

Here's a great reference page from Wikipedia that has a good illustration, plus a lot of good terms to know:

Flemish horse also this:  Yard (sailing)

When is the sun over the yardarm?

One day my wife asked me if I would like a glass of wine.  I said, "As long as the sun is over the yardarm."  She said, "All right, what is the story behind that nautical phrase?"  I thought about it and realized that I didn't know the "real" story behind the tale, and told her so.  She was delighted to have stumped me, and dashed to her computer to look up the derivation of the phrase.  From the World Wide Words page we get this explanation:  "In summer in the north Atlantic, where the phrase seems to have originated, this would have been at about 11am. This was by custom and rule the time of the first rum issue of the day to officers and men (the officers had their tots neat, the men’s diluted). It seems that officers in sailing ships adopted a custom, even when on shore, of waiting until this time before taking their first alcoholic drink of the day."  Well, it was, and I did, and another fine day's end.

When I board am I "in" a ship or "on" a ship?

That depends upon whether or not you board as a passenger or crewmember.  If you're one of the loyal crew you're considered "in" a ship.  If the crew refers to you as a "transport," "supercargo," or "supernumerary;" that is, if you're a passenger or a company member but not part of the ship's crew you're "on" a ship.

Why are you "heaving a Paul?"

Well, despite my willingness to toss about any idlers, we're not heaving a fellow at all.  The homonym is "pawl," as in 'heave a pawl."  The capstan is a cylinder on the deck at the front of a ship.  Poles are inserted all around it at which crew members push around in circles, winding up the anchor chain (via a guide rope). When the capstan bars were being pushed ("heaved") around the cylindrical capstan, the pawls were stops that kept it from unwinding or moving in reverse.  They make a distinctive "clink-clink" as it rotated around.

What the hell is "Splice the Main Brace?"

Maritime scholars scratch their heads at this all the time.  They keep seeking a factual origin or derivation of these terms.  It is folly, for the phrase was folderol invented to fool non-crew members.  It is a code that means, "Let's go have a drink."  Akin to sending a Seaman Third Class to get a bucket of prop wash, it is an inside joke for mariners.

Anchors Away?  You mean putting it "away?"

Almost.  The phrase is "Anchors a-weigh"   The use of the word weigh derives from an old Viking word for "lift" or "carry."  The end result is the Anchor, which was holding the ship in place by it's chain or cable, was brought back up in preparation for the ship to move forward.

"Get a clue" is a nautical phrase?

I wonder about when this phrase evolved into how we use it today.  It must have been around the 1940's or so when most sailing ships were replaced by steam-driven ships and people started forgetting the origins of words and phrases.  The original expression was "Get a clew."  A "clew," my land lubber friend, is the lower, aft corner of a fore-and-aft sail; or with a square sail, the two lower corners.  Attached to these corners are ropes (sailors call them "sheets" to further confuse things) which hold the sails in place.  To tell someone to "Get a clew" is to say that their sails are flapping uselessly, and by derivation to say they are either ignorant or foolish.  In any case, the phrase "get a clue" is a reasonable evolution for a society more familiar with detective television shows than the rigging of tall ships.

Food at Sea

"Food was always a problem, and drink even more so.  The victuallers needed to be watched like hawks to ensure that they provided full measure, and did not recycle old stock.  Ships like the Mary Rose, which rarely left home waters and were seldom at sea for more than two or three weeks at a time, had nothing like the difficulties suffered by the longer voyagers of later in the century, but it was tough enough.  It was hard to find supplies until the system was reorganized after 1550, and harder still to get the supplies to where they were needed.  the standard diet was simple, and reasonably nutritious, but it was dull and lacked certain vital ingredients.  The main provisions were bread, or biscuit, cheese, butter, bacon, salted beef, dried or salted fish and beer.  The rations allowed were ample, but the absence of fresh fruit and vegetables encouraged diseases such as scurvy, and both the biscuit and the beer tended to deteriorate rapidly, even if they were shipped in god condition.  The pursers of individual ships made their own supplementary purchases, and the officers and their servants bought their provisions to suit themselves.  Consequently, the presence of fruit stones and chicken bones among the detritus of the wreck does not prove that such superior rations were on general offer.  Food was prepared in a galley, and cooked in a massive brick oven housed in the bowels of the ship, where the almost permanent fire not only guaranteed hot meals (a very important consideration), but also enabled wet clothes to be dried when there was no sun on deck.  These ovens were a feature of all large ships, and needed very careful and skilled management if disaster were to be avoided."

"Letters From the Mary Rose," C.S. Knighton & David Loades.

Sailors really sang on board ship?

Yep, it is well documented that sailors either took songs from their homes and fit them to the rhythms required for their work (hauling lines to raise sails, pumping the bilge, walking the capstan, etc.) or wrote songs just for such purposes.  They sang of their work, their ships, their fellow crew, their loves at home or the dangers they faced. 

Why did pirates wear gold earrings?

Is is popularly thought that many sailors (pirates are merely sailors who have taken up poorly regarded missions) wore a gold earring to pay for a Christian burial if their bodies washed up on shore.  Personally I feel that Wreckers and scavengers would not be inclined toward very "Christian" behavior; I suspect the earrings, like the tattoos, were part of the ritual of group identification.

Wreckers?

This was more of a hobby than a full-time vocation, but certain nefarious coastal dwellers would set lights to trick ships into thinking they were heading into safe harbor, when in fact they were being guided onto rocks.  The Wreckers would then row out and pick up whatever they could salvage.

Was it called the "poop deck" because that's where they went to the bathroom?

One would think so, but no.  Let's imagine an Elizabethan-era sailing ship.  The "poop deck" is the exposed partial deck on the stern superstructure (the high part at the back).   Now, one would think that if a ship were moving forward the place to sit would be at the back of the ship, so their waste would fall behind them and keep the back of the ship clean.  So wrong.  Remember, ships relied on external power:  the wind.  If the ship is moving forward it is not because they're throwing water behind them with a propeller, they are riding the air currents.  If an inexperienced sailor ("landsman") does his business on the Poop Deck the wind will make a mess and his ship mates will be pretty sore at the work he made for them.  Sailors go to the front of the ship for their business.  Some scholars feel that there were some manner of "vile tubes" placed up there to guide the waste, but the evidence is sketchy.  Incidentally, this is where we get the term "head" for bathroom.  The fore part of the ship is sometimes referred to as the head.  The stern of the ship being called "the poop" actually is a holdover from a Latin term:

The name comes from the after deck section on Roman ships, (puppim - pronounced "poopim") where small statues or sacred images (puppis - meaning dool or statue) of gods were kept.
www2.sandi.net/dingeman/5grade/glossary.htm

Okay, while we're on the subject, did sailors really drink their urine?

Despite Blackadder's Captain Redbeard Rum's proclivity for "self-indulgence" it was only under dire circumstances that this was done.  Like cannibalism, a desperate measure for survival, but for early sailors, always a very real possibility.  Dropping back to two-hundred years before canning was remotely seen as a neat idea, stores of food and beverages for the Elizabethan sailor were very difficult to keep edible on board ships.  Water went brackish in weeks, even beer and wine turned bad in short order.  Rum, less inclined to spoil, would not be invented for another one-hundred and forty-odd years.  This is why maps of voyages often show ships bouncing off the continental coasts -- they had to continually refresh their stores against spoilage.  In times that provisions ran out or turned, sailors could either drink their own urine or die.  Being surrounded by oceans must have made them quite frustrated; salt water makes the body produce 25% more liquid than is taken in.  Sailors tempted to drink it would die of dehydration faster than if they'd drunk nothing. 

Why are English sailors called "Limeys?"

It is documented that James Lancaster, an English ship's captain of the Elizabethan era issued an order for his crew to drink a spoonful of lemon juice daily upon the pain of death.  While the crews of other ships became feeble, gums bleeding, teeth falling out, this fellow's crew remained healthy.  This showed that as early as 1601 it was known that citrus juice would ward off a disease that would cripple sailing crews.  Incomprehensibly , the English navy waited until 1789 to make the drinking of lime juice a standard requirement in their fleet.  There are connections between the popularity and availability of sugar (again with the rum!) and the increased occurrences of scurvy on land as people switched from citrus-as-sweeteners (vitamin C was an unknown benefit) to cane sugar (with no dietary benefits whatsoever).  This social change may be what triggered an official rule being required to enforce that crews drank their juice.  Incidentally, German ships' crews never got scurvy.  A diet of sauerkraut, rich in vitamin C, kept them relatively healthy.

Why Jack "Tar?"

Tar was boiled, into which twists of rope were dipped.  This sticky object was called oakum, and it was hammered between deck boards to keep them watertight.  This was a constant activity, so sailors generally were covered with, and stank of, tar.

What's with the eye-patches, peg-legs, hooks and all that?

What Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island" was trying to convey is that only sailors grievously wounded and unable to find work as regular sailors turned to piracy.  Yeah, and pirates all went "Arrr, and "Yo-ho-ho . . ."  First of all, naval warfare was a very dangerous, very messy business.  Medical skills were primeval at best (how spoiled we are in this modern age where elective cosmetic surgery is actually sought after!) and a few years at sea were likely to take their toll on limb as well as life.  The fact is that many who were considered to be "pirates" (Drake by Spain, for instance) were quite whole and hearty, for the main.  Likewise, one of Britain's greatest naval heroes, Lord Horatio Nelson, led his most famous actions without one eye and one arm!

Sailors used to sail up between Texas and Mexico? 

The Rio Grande referred to in various sea shanties is not the river separating Texas from Mexico, which would be rather difficult for a sailing ship to navigate. It is the much larger river in Argentina, South America.  There was a French tall ship, The Griffon, on the great lakes as early as 1660, the traces of its wreck being searched for at the bottom of Lake Superior today.

"Three bells and all is well?"

Ship's bell strike is based on "watches" onboard ship of 4 hours each. A new watch starts at noon, 4 p.m., 8 p.m., midnight, 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. The end of a "watch" and start of a new watch is marked by the bell being struck 8 times. A half hour later, the bell is struck once, with an additional strike each half hour until the end of the watch. Then the cycle starts again. The bells are struck in pairs, that is, the first two bells are struck close together followed by a pause, then the next two, etc. The table below shows the pattern of the bells from 4 o'clock to 8 o'clock:

[A tip o' the hat to Bill's Clockworks for this explanation!] 

And watches?

They were the work shifts on naval vessels.  Here is how they break down by name and time.

As you can see, if there are two watches on a vessel (the names of the watches were at the discretion of each vessel; starboard/larboard, red/blue, etc.) the dog watch allows them to rotate their shifts.  It was thought this kept the crew fresh and alert.

Merchant vessels did not necessarily operate on the same watch system.

What does "Shiver me timbers" mean?

I actually read on a web site dedicated to pirates that the expression referred to the ship's own cannons' vibration shaking the deck.  Not so much.  While the word also means "to shake," in this case to "shiver" means to break up into splinters.  This term is used frequently in Malory's tale of King Arthur, the knights lances going "all a-shiver."  When a cannon ball smashes into any part of a tall ship the wood explodes in a dangerous spray of splinters.  This was a mild oath back in the day, and there is an equivalent one today, but the contemporary two word phrase contains a verb considered obscene by modern standards, so I can't share it here.  Its figurative translation would be something akin to "Well, I'll be darned!"

How do you get your sea legs back?

Go out to sea again.  A landsman on board ship for the first time must have given great amusement to the experienced sailors.  While the newbie lost his balance and stumbled into everything around him, the fellow whose muscle memory and inner ear had become accustomed to a pitching and rolling deck could move with some manner of grace in all but the worst conditions.  The reverse is true when the sailor hits the land:  the lack of movement underfoot no long feels "right" and it takes some time to assume a normal countenance again.

St. Elmo's Fire?

Sailors, being a superstitious lot, took the appearance of a tangible glow on the masts of a ship to be the visitation of St. Erasmus, their patron saint.  The "fire" is a glowing and sometimes audible plasma generated by ionization of the air, most often during a thunderstorm or the weather preceding one.  The tall masts that reach high above the deck act like collectors and while infrequent the sailors often were blessed by their patron saint.  This glow can be seen in other locations as well, most notably aboard aircraft.