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a) They refer to left and right, not front and back (which I believe would be "forward" and "aft"). b) With the possible exception of "forward", if you hear on
by caconym_ 5y ago
a) They refer to left and right, not front and back (which I believe would be "forward" and "aft").
b) With the possible exception of "forward", if you hear one of these words you always know it's specifying a direction relative to the direction the boat is pointing, which is not true for "left" and "right".
- dan-robertson 5y agoOften just fore instead of forward, or a particular pronunciation like for’d for “the front of the boat as opposed to in front of the speaker”. Lots of other jargon too for other directions or places (leeward, windward, amidships, athwartships, etc) but that is all much less common than the four listed above.
- mypalmike 5y agoWindward and leeward are still commonly used in my experience. Also, there's a fun additional distinction for forward and aft, which is that they tend to refer to locations within the vessel. Ahead and astern are used to refer to locations outside of the vessel. After about 8 years of sailing fairly regularly with various crews, I still get many of the terms mixed up. For instance, stanchions and shrowds are terms that are useful, but they never seen to come to mind when I need to communicate them.