Three Decker

magical_misfits

While doing a little research on the HMS Victory which is playing the part of the witch ship Domineer. I learned something new. Let me give you some back ground. I read many historical novels. Mostly eighteenth century naval. Hornblower and Bolito to name a few. I often read things like “we will wear ship, Mr Bush. Thing is I had no idea what it meant. I have sailed small boats up to about 28 foot but have never heard anyone talk about wearing ship. That it is a course changing maneuver is clear, but what was happening never got through my thick skull. Going about I understood just fine but not wearing ship. While sailing small craft we used the term “jibe” for sailing before the wind and turning taking the stern through the eye of the wind to put the wind on the other side of the boat. A pretty exciting thing to do in a quick little boat. An uncontrolled jibe can be very exciting and often disastrous. Many a head injury from head meeting boom. I don’t think I ever saw the word Jibe in my books. So when I wrote the dialog for this strip it occurred to me that I didn’t know what “wear ship” meant. In short it is a jibe for square rigged ships. Never too old to learn something new. Or in this case, something very old.

Fri, 30 Sep 2022