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