11 basic sailing & nautical terms

Before you start planning your sailing holiday for the first time, there are some basic sailing & nautical terms you will have to learn. Nautical terms are mostly about the parts of the boat and directions of the boat, so you’ll know while sailing when skipper mentions it.

Let’s begin with the parts of the boat. The sailboat consists of front and back side of course. In sailing terminology, the 1. AFT, also known as STERN, is a back of the boat, so if someone says to you that something is in aft, you should know he/she means that it is on the back of the boat. Just the opposite is 2. BOW or the front of the boat. The bow is important in terms of saying something is left of the bow – 3. PORT or something is right of the bow – 4. STARBOARD. As it can be very confusing while sailing, Port is always left-hand part of the boat when you are facing the bow and Starboard is always the right-hand part of the boat when facing the bow. On a sailboat the 6. BOOM is a horizontal pole which extends from the bottom of the mast. Adjusting the boom towards the direction of the wind is how the sailboat is able to harness wind power in order to move forward or backwards. 7. RUDDER is a flat piece of wood, metal or fiberglass, located beneath the boat and used to steer the boat. Sailboats control the rudder via wheel. 

As for directions of the boat there are several nautical terms that you should know. First one is 8. LEEWARD, also called LEE, which is a direction opposite to the way the wind is currently blowing. Just the opposite of Leeward is 9. WINWARD, which is a direction in which the wind is currently blowing. Winward is one of the important sailing terms to know, because sailboats tend to go in direction in which the wind blows. In sailing terminology 10. JIBING is the basic sailing manoeuvre which refers to turning the stern of the boat through the wind so that the wind changes from one side of the boat to the other side. This is a less common technique than tacking, since it involves turning a boat directly into the wind. 11. TACKING though is just opposite of jibing and it includes turning the bow of the boat through the wind so that the wind changes from one side of the boat to the other side. The boom of a boat will always shift from one side to the other when performing a tack or a jibe. 12. UNDERWAY is a nautical term describing the state of a boat. A boat is not underway when it is anchored, made fast ashore (tied to shore) or aground. A boat underway (or under way) is a boat free to float around without restrictions. But, a boat being propelled through the water becomes a boat 13. MAKING WAY. Once the boat is moving, we can consider it to be making way (whether movement is coming from oars, sails or propellers).