Although English is officially the language used in maritime communication, there’s a whole other vocabulary you have to pick up to be effective in the sailing world. And, just to make it all the more confusing to the newcomer, whilst there is a swathe of new words and phrases to learn – which sometimes makes the sailing language just sound like jargon to an outsider – they’ve also repurposed a lot of common words…

So, here are a few of the words with different implications on land and at sea.

Boarded
– land: I weekly boarded at school and loved it
– sea: they were boarded by customs; it was very scary

Tack
– land: I used a thumb tack to hang my painting
– sea: we put in a tack to change course by 120 to 180 degrees, for instance to avoid hitting the shallows

Mouse
– land: the cat left a dead mouse on my doorstep
– sea: we mouse the end of lines (ropes) with cord to stop them fraying

Heads
– land: they bowed their heads in respect
– sea: no toilet paper down the heads, please

Reef
– land: there is apparently an amazing reef off Australia
– sea: a reef, or three, reduces the amount of sail you have up and increases control of your yacht under heavy winds

Knots
– land: we brush our hair before it knots
– sea: nautical miles per hour are knots, seven to ten knots for instance is a very respectable speed for a yacht, thirty five knots is common for a fast ferry

Clutch
– land: one tends to take a nice clutch bag to a wedding
– sea: a clutch (sometimes jammer) is used to take the weight of a line

Wobble
– land: after one too many wines I felt a wobble as I stood
– sea: we carry out a wobble every morning before starting the engine, ie we check the water, oil, belt, bilge, look around, and ensure we have water coming out the exhaust

Because no-one wants engine failure, at land or sea.