Free Salty Dog Talk by Bill Beavis Page B

a good watch. It took an extra effort for the lookout to train his eye on the weather side of the ship as it would mean his having to face the wind, the spray and the rain. From the weather side however, always came the first sign of a change (in the weather).
Wedding Garland
    Surprisingly the custom of the bride carrying a bouquet of flowers comes from the sea. It was traditional when a ship came home to hoist some greenery at the mast – a symbol, the men had come home safely to the good earth. Then gradually it became a signal for the women to come aboard. Later it signified nuptials and a garland of flowers was flown from the mast top whenever a crew member was about to be married. Garland comes from the Greek meaning a collection of flowers.
When My Ship Comes In
    A phrase that once had legal value as shown in this extract from Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty 1536 ; ‘I promys and me bynd to pay within … daies after the save aryving of the said good ships into the River of Temys, the port of her right dyscharge’.
Whistling for a Wind
    To hope for the impossible. It was the sailor’s superstition that he could call up the desired wind by whistling, a belief still current amongst some yachtsmen. Yet whistling on ships has been either forbidden or discouraged for many years. There are a number of reasons; it can be confused with orders piped on the boatswain’s call (or whistle); it was said to be the signal for the commencement of the Mutiny of the Nore 1797; and because it is generally felt that whistling brings too much wind – a storm in fact. It is held to be unlucky for actors and stage hands to whistle backstage.
Wide Berth
    From the term to give a wide berth which ordered the helmsman to steer well clear of a rock, a shoal, or whatever danger presented itself. Hence a generous margin.
Windbag
    Originally the nickname for a sailing ship, it has somehow come to mean a talkative or boastful person.
Windfall
    Some English and American landowners were prevented, by a clause in the title of their estates, to either fell or sell timber as this was reserved for building ships for the Navy. However, this did not include trees which were blown down and so a windfall came to mean a financial blessing, an unexpected gift of money.
Wreck
    Figuratively somebody in poor mental or physical shape and another example of the sailor’s delightful habit of likening ships to the human condition. It is interesting that quite a few of these centre around shipwreck which cannot say much for the company he was keeping. Derelict , for example, a ship abandoned by her crew and borrowed to describe someone who floats on a sea of misery. Stranded , another example, comparing the lost and helpless with a ship run aground on the strand or sandy shore. On the rocks describes a rather more serious condition: a ship will very rarely be saved once impaled by rocks. (Nothing to do with ice in the drink – which, incidentally, was a term coined by airmen bailing out over the sea.) Left high and dry is another reference to grounding, so is touching bottom as the economy does now and then. Hard and fast describes a ship hard aground and fast that she cannot be moved, a term which still means inexorable today.

    Wreck
Write Off
    An insurance term meaning a total loss and that the item, or group of items could be ‘written off’ the insurance policy. Insurance is a business which began at sea as a gamble between Mediterranean bankers and merchants. The banker would suggest that a particular shipment would arrive safely and stake money to this effect. The merchant, or shipper, in effect claimed that it would not and was also prepared to put up a sum of money to back his belief. This later became the premium.

 
     
     
    Published by Adlard Coles Nautical
    an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
    50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
    www.adlardcoles.com

    Copyright © Bill Beavis 1991

    First published by Adlard Coles 1983
    Reprinted 1985,