Free Salty Dog Talk by Bill Beavis Page A

risk implicit in the expression ‘touch and go’.
Two Six Heave
    From the days when each man of a gun’s crew was given a number. It was the job of Nos 2 and 6 to haul the gun back through the gun port in preparation for firing after it had been loaded.

U
Under the Weather
    To feel ill. Originally it meant to feel seasick or to be adversely affected by bad weather. The term is correctly ‘under the weather bow’ which is a gloomy prospect; the weather bow is the side upon which all the rotten weather is blowing.
Under Weigh
    To get started. Often spelt this way although correctly the term is under way . In law it means not at anchor nor made fast to the shore or aground. The significance is that the vessel’s rudder is effective, that she can be handled and must therefore obey the ‘rule of the road’. The word weigh has actually nothing to do with forward movement but concerns the raising or weighing of the anchor. Another expression which means get started is set sail . Sails were set when the gaskets tying them to the yards were let go allowing the sails to fill with wind. It is now a figurative term and everything from hydrofoils to nuclear submarines set sail.

    Touch and go
Under Your Own Steam
    Comes from the infant days of steamships which not infrequently ran out of coal or broke down. In those uncertain times it was a matter of great satisfaction and importance for them to make port unaided. It quickly took on a metaphoric meaning – ships which sailed home under jury rig would still be said to have made it ‘under their own steam’. Hence its present use – without assistance. The alternative, taken in tow , is another expression adopted by landsmen.
Up and a Downer
    An argument or fierce row. Possibly from the continual disagreements that must have gone on between sailors and engineers drafted aboard the first steam auxiliary ships. Apart from the unaccustomed smoke and soot, sailors had the additional chore of erecting a funnel on deck and lowering the screw propeller each time the engine was used. The order ‘Up funnel, down screw’ prompted the ships to be known as the up and downers .

    Under the weather

V
Van
    The word was originally vant , a corruption of the French avant . It was the name given to the leading group of ships in a battle fleet and dates from the 17th century – in the van, up front. Previously naval ship battles had been fought at random and this was the first attempt to organise fleets into divisions.
Veer
    In the nautical sense veer is to slack away a rope. The word takes its wider meaning from fact that when the wind moved aft, relative to the vessel, the ropes which controlled the yards and sails would have to be veered. From this developed the meteorological term, and finally it has come to describe a gradual change in direction of anything.

W
Wallop
    After the French fleet had raised and burnt Brighton on the Sussex coast in the reign of Henry VIII Sir John Wallop was ordered by the king to carry out a reprisal raid. Sir John sailed with his fleet to Normandy where he is reported to have burnt twenty-one towns and villages and to have demolished several harbours. Ever since the name Wallop has been the name synonymous with a beating or good hiding.
Wash Out
    A failure, disappointment – from the early days of signal flags when messages were recorded on a slate and a cancelled message was sponged or washed out.
Wasters
    The word relates to the midship or centre part of a ship’s deck known as her waist . The men who worked this part were generally older, less fit, disabled or landsmen ‘pressed’ into service, men who could not be trusted to work aloft. They were put to work in the ship’s waist mending sails, splicing, cleaning, etc. and because they worked this part of the ship they came to be called waisters . Somewhere down the line the ‘i’ has been dropped and the term has come to describe idlers, no good layabouts.

    Wedding garland
Weather Eye Open
    Keep