Nautical Phrases, Maritime Sayings, Boat and Sailing Poetry & Writings
This section of our boat website can be added to by anyone. There's an extensive list of boating terminology and nautical phrases that have unwittingly been used in everyday English language for centuries. We'll list many maritime sayings here and reproduce some literary works of the boating flavor for your enjoyment...
Probably one of the most well-known maritime literary works was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and called "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
Here's some more...
"A Mariner's Escape" By Barry Edward McCrimmon, boting enthusiat, Frankston Victoria
Stirred by some ancestral urge
That races in the blood of me
As I fix my bearings and set my course
And sail to eternity
To cast off this earthly realm
To be freed from these bonds of flesh
To set sail in command of this helm
In a solar wind that can only refresh
To seek out new islands of the mind
To search where man has never explored
To leave frustration and doubt behind
With only faint hope and charity on board
In a spacious sea vast but quiet
In an eternal wind fair through eternal night
I'll know when my port's in sight
When a distant star beacon floods my soul with light
My Fondest Dream
Is the smallest of wishes
A wind on the beam
And away from the missus!
Barry McCrimmon
Greater Luff Hath No Mariner
Oh, when fair wind blow
And the blue waters stir
Just set sails and go
And have faith in her
Ready to sail when I slip her
Welcomes me on board as her crew
Allows me to be her skipper
Her mate and helmsman too
My eye shows a picture of she
As seen by no other man
Spellbound by some witchery
Enslaved by her will and command
All women are jealous of her beauty
Friends jest at how much you care
But to sail her is a loving duty
In the quest of clean and salty air
For she is a nautical mistress
And she steers an exciting course
Always shielding me from distress
With a strange and mystical force
Because when nature's wild extremes
Swamp all my stregth and fervour
She won't burst her sails or seams
If you just have faith in her
So when I weather and fade out
Don't bury me under the ground
Under sail I wish to be laid out
To voyage round and round and round
Barry E. McCrimmon, boat owner & sailor
