Mark Denny's Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing

Just stumbled upon Mark Denny's (the author of Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing) website.

It's not much of a site (so far), but the images on his page for Float Your Boat! are both pretty and informative.

As for the book, it's such an easy, enjoyable read for the scientist and the non-scientist, for the 'landlubber' and the experienced sailor. Denny has found the perfect balance between the technical and historical information.

Highly recommended if you love the water (as I do).

Here are a few other great nautical terms that have become common expressions, as written by Denny:

• Fly by night: Unreliable, temporary. A large sail that replaces several smaller sails and requires little attention. Used when sailing downind at night.
• Plumb the depths: Sink very low. Sailors used a plumb line (i.e., a rope with a lead weight at one end) to guage depth in shallow waters.
• Doldrums: Gloominess, stagnation. From Old English dol ("dull"); equatorial latitutdes where low winds often becalmed sailing ships.
• Cut and run: Make a hasty retreat. Cut the lashings that held sails to yard-arms. The sails would unfurl quickly and draw wind, thus enabling escape from an enemy ship fast-approaching or one identified as an enemy ship only when very close by.
• In the offing: At hand, likely to happen. Since the sixteenth century, "offing" has meant the area of sea visible from shore. So a ship that appears in the offing is about to make port.
• Three sheets to the wind: Very drunk. A sheet is a line used to trim a sail. If the sheet was damaged, it blew in the wind and the sail billowed. A ship with three sheets in the wind would look bedraggled and would stagger uncontrollably.
• Skyscraper: A very tall building. Originally a triangular sail at the very top of a mast, set to catch a light wind.
• Binge: Heavy drinking session. Originally a verb describing the rinsing out of a cask (in which liquids were stored aboard ship) prior to refilling.
• Barge in: Intrude suddenly. Flat-bottomed barges were notoriously difficult to control and frequently bumped into other vessels.
• By and large: Overall, on the whole. Sailing into the wind is referred to as sailing "by the wind," whereas a "large wind" is one almost from astern. So a ship that sails "by and large" performs well in all directions.
• Pooped: Exhausted. A ship is pooped when her high stern section (poop) is swamped by a following wave.
• Under the weather: Unwell, run down. A sailor's watch on the weather side of a ship would expose him to wind, rain, and spray.
• Footloose: Free to travel. An unsecured foot line permits the lower edge of a sail (the foot) to flap freely.
• Stranded: Left in an inconvenient place. A ship that had run aground on a beach (strand) was said to be stranded.
• Pipe down: Be quiet. The last call of the bosun's pipe, at the end of the daya, signaling lights out and silence.

Click here to read more about the author (and to contact him directly).