Terms and Definitions

[JimJohnston]

An email today received from Garmin included a list of nautical terms together with their definitions. I'm not sure that I agree with all of the definitions provided. What say you? For example "Underway" is not "another word for drifiting". "Astern" is not the 'back of the boat'. I suppose I shouldn't complain too loudly but I would have thought Garmin would have done a better job.

http://https://www.garmin.com/en-US/...20E-Newsletter

[TrentePieds]

The Garmin people are not seafaring men, they are IT nerds :-)!

You are quite right, the terms you cite are misused. " Being under way" is a state of being, i.e. the state of being not made fast, i.e. of being neither at anchor nor secured alongside. "Drifting" is but one of the many possible states of "being underway".

When something is said to be "astern", that something is aft of the vessel AND not aboard it. If something is located aboard the vessel but further aft than, say, the funnel, that something is said to be "abaft" the funnel. The word "abaft" ALWAYS denotes a RELATIVE position aboard the vessel.

But let us not expect the impossible from techno-nerds :-)!

TrentePieds

[denverd0n]

I don't expect the impossible from techno-nerds, but no one forced them to publish this list of terms. If you don't know the terms, and are not willing to do the research to get them right, then you should simply not publish such a list! It's not that hard.

Hence, I DO blame Garmin for publishing an inaccurate list. Either don't publish it at all, or go to the effort to get it right.

[TrentePieds]

It's a big world, and only a very few of its denizens have even the slightest comprehension of seafaring, of its history and of why "sailorspeak" developed the way it did and has the vocabulary it has :-)

What you and I can do - gently - is present the sailorman's lexicon to people who arrive among us in this forum heavy with ambition but light on terminology. They WILL learn :-)

All the best to you :-)!

TP

[grantmc]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

The Garmin people are not seafaring men, they are IT nerds :-)!

I guess that seafaring woman couldn't fit such words and definitions in to their pretty little heads.

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

You are quite right, the terms you cite are misused. " Being under way" is a state of being, i.e. the state of being not made fast, i.e. of being neither at anchor nor secured alongside. "Drifting" is but one of the many possible states of "being underway".

Actually a definition of underway is found in the Collision Prevention Legislation: underway means that a vessel is not at anchor, or made fast to the shore, or aground. But that legislative definition doesn't necessarily prevent others holding a different view. Any lawyer can explain that reality of precise word meanings in law, take as extreme examples the words murder and abortion.

Definitions of word meanings often defer from their common usage. Language is fluid and meanings and understandings may differ between any two individuals, particularly if they're separated geographically or say if one person is abaft the funnel and the other afore the funnel. Spellings, meaning and words are often localised. For myself I'd never considered abaft to mean anything other than astern of the vessel. The idea of abaft the funnel is strange to me (and in stating this I am not putting myself up as the arbiter, but just expressing my understanding).

Just to extract from the Oxford English Dictionary: Today’s OED offices in Oxford and New York are a hive of lexicographical activity. Over 70 editors work on updating the text of the dictionary ... Every three months the entire OED database is republished online, with new words added for the first time and older entries revised according the exacting standards of modern historical lexicography.

Garmin, with customers all over the world, like many firms with such a presence, presumably needed to fill their newsletter with material and thought 'here's a stocking filler'. Perhaps they've even achieved an objective, as here we are in effect promoting the company. And their newsletter was news to me, so I've just subscribed. +1 for Garmin.

So is a vessel being towed underway or is it just abaft the beam? What if rafted alongside?