Would you please dongle the jimmy

June 2003

By Tom Snyder

Sometimes when one is invited to go aboard another person’s boat (let’s call him Lance) one discovers that Lance is a nautical know-it-all, a seamanship showoff, a boatyard boaster, an aquatic attention-seeker. Boats are fun, but even on a beautiful boat on a beautiful day, one of nautical banter bradaggios can be a goodwill sink. And that goes double if one happens to be new to the water.

A helpful guest might ask, “Lance, where would you like me to store these bumpers?” An honest mistake, and not deserving of the reply, “Hey, those are fenders, not bumpers, and you will stow, not store them.” It’s just no fun to have a boating companion repeatedly pull rank that way. (Of course, it would be perfectly fine for Lance to talk that way to a family member because family members expect to be abused aboard their little captain’s boat.)

There is, thank the Lord, a way for well-meaning novice guests to stand their ground, even to fight back. Needless to say, I am not suggesting that any guest should actually bone up on sea-speak. It is not worth the effort, because after hours of study, you might proudly refer to a cockpit hatch as a lazarette, only to be told that technically that name applies only to the aftermost hatches. Where’s the satisfaction there? Nowhere.

A better way is to fight fire with fire. I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but you will be best served in regards to Lance if you make up your own nautical terms. This is not as crazy as it seems. You must follow a simple two-part technique. And learning a technique is going to be a lot easier than learning hundreds of thousands of words on the off chance that you can avoid mis-naming a ditty bag.

Part one of the technique depends upon choosing a proper noun or nouns that have meaning only in a very different context. Imagine you are on a boat and you feel ready to give Lance a little jolt. A reciprocal taste of medicine. A slight market correction. Here’s what you’ll do:

Relax your mind and think of a world far away from the world of boating. Let your consciousness stream. OK. What’s not a boat? OK… a city! What’s in a city? OK… streets, buildings, stores. A store! What’s the name of some foofy old store in a city? Bang. Shreve, Crump and Lowe. Now, let’s jump ahead to part two.

Part two of the technique is more concerned with how you execute your new nautical term. You must always look toward a vague general area of the boat, perhaps, somewhere in the rigging, and with knowledgeable distain, put the word ‘damn’ (or darn if you are a Quaker) in front of your new term.

You might open the lazarette, gaze deep into its contents and say, “Look at those damn (darn) shreve crumps.” Then just leave it there. Walk away, figuratively speaking. Let the shreve crumps do their work. Lance will never ask you what they are, nor will he ask you to repeat the term. Usually Lance will mumble agreement that the shreve crumps fully deserve to be damned.

If you end up enjoying your first shreve crump, wait a while. Maybe later, as Lance is paying out some anchor rode, you can scratch you head and suggest that you’ll be lucky if the weather doesn’t pull a damn (darn) Steinway. I hope you realize that you need not have the slightest idea what you mean. Because Lance will indicate non-verbally that he was just thinking the same thing. He may even use the term cautiously. If he does, smile at him.

After sailing, take a casual look in the bilge and grudgingly allow that those are some damn (darn) good looking gross points. There is no end of fun here.

Remember, however, that you are now in possession of a powerful weapon. Like nuclear energy, it can be used for good or ill. There is no need to direct such horsepower against a guy, such as myself, who justifiably freaks out when passengers aboard my boat announce that they are going downstairs. This is a different situation because hearing “downstairs” on a boat is just plain annoying. I’m sure you can see the difference. Good luck to you.

Tom Snyder sails out of Peaks Island, Maine.