Sailor Mouth Saturday: Pay

The word pay, in the sense of remuneration for work accomplished or yet to come, is dear to every sailor's heart. Dearer still is pay for a prize - the only kind of pay known to pirates. But there are other uses for the word pay at sea, and some have nothing to do with coin in hand.

Pay can also mean the act of caulking a seam on deck. In particular it refers to the pouring of pitch into the seam after the caulking is done. The pitch makes the oakum that seals the seam waterproof. The word pay in this sense derives, according to Admiral Smyth in The Sailor's Word Book from the French word for pitch: poix.

A slight variation on this comes with references to paying a mast or yard or paying a ship's bottom.

In the case of the mast or yard, the wood is anointed with tar or the tallow left over from cooking often referred to as "slush" (thus the nickname for the cook: Slushy). This allows for ease in hoisting and lowering sails and yards, cutting down on the friction and thus wear-and-tear on the rigging. This is a dangerous job, however, as the sailor is dealing with slippery substances while suspended on a bosun's chair. The point was well illustrated in the "Tar Rigger" episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe was obliged to pay a mast aboard the Star of India.

To pay a vessel's bottom (also known as breaming) involves cleaning the entire hull, not by scraping as in careening but by fire. The hull is thus covered with tallow, sulphur or rosin to discourage the fire from actually burning the ship's bottom.

To pay round is to turn the ship's head in another direction. Paying off is "the movement by which the ship's head falls off from the wind, and drops to leeward" to quote the good Admiral. Pay away and paying out mean the same thing: this is the slackening of rope which allows it to run without hindrance. Paying down is the act of lowing heavy articles down into the hold or to a lower deck.

A paymaster is a 19th century naval invention. This individual did the job formerly taken by a ship's purser as part of his duties. It was up to this person to both provision and pay the crew. Paying off may also mean the final payment to officers and crew when a ship is lost or taken out of commission.

A man who speaks "gandiloquently", according to Admiral Smyth, is said to be "paying it out" among his mates; derogatorily, of course. And as all the Brethren know, the Admiral reminds that:

Pay [is] a buccaneering principle of hire, under the notion of plunder and sharing in prizes, was, no purchase no pay.

You can read the lyrics to, and hear the wonderful Corsairs sing, the shanty of the same name here.

Happy Saturday, Brethren! Fair winds, following seas and full mugs to you all.

Header: Make Sail! Photograph via the Under the Black Flag Team on Facebook

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Lob

This is a word, either of itself or as part of another, which one reads a good deal in nautical fiction. There is lobscouse on the table, a loblolly boy in the sick berth, a whale lob-tailing off our larboard bow and that useless lob-cock over there. What is it all about, after all? Let us take a closer look.


Lob, as a stand-alone word, refers to a person aboard us who is of little or no use. He is a right landsman or, as Admiral Smyth puts it, “a sluggish booby.” If we’re truly contemptuous of the fellow, we may go so far as to call him a lob-cock. The Admiral opines in The Sailor’s Word Book that the word lob is the source of the more common lubber. That etymology remains in question but the possibility is there.

We’re all familiar with lobster, which was once the food of servants and is now a dining staple of the 1%. These curious “bugs of the sea” are caught in lobster boats which were once built with a purpose-fitted well in the center to keep the tasty crustaceans alive for the trip home. A lobster toad is an old English name for a type of deep sea crab.

Lob-tailing is the action of a sperm whale beating his tail against the surface of the ocean, causing formidable waves that have been known to founder a whaling boat. A lob-worm, on the other hand, is a type of creature similar to a blood worm with which the Brethren may be familiar from watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Collected at low tide, they both make good bait.

A loblolly-boy was an untrained assistant to a ship’s medical man. Unlike the surgeon’s mate, who usually had some medical knowledge and was in apprenticeship, the loblolly-boy was more of a servant. His duties included bringing men down to the sick berth for treatment, providing food and water for those confined to their hammocks and holding men down during surgery. His appellation probably comes from loblolly, a type of gruel or potable soup that was often fed to those too ill to take meat and bread.

And then we come to lobscouse. Though it sounds like it might, this stew-like dish contained no lobster or for that matter any seafood at all in most cases. Usually made of pickled or corned beef or pork, it was an all in type of dish that was a wonderful way for the cook to use long-kept and perhaps questionable vegetables like potatoes and onions. Admiral Smyth tells us that the stew’s name came from the term lap’s course, which he calls “one of the oldest and most savoury of the regular forecastle dishes.” Anne Grossman and her daughter Lisa Thomas have another thought on this odd word’s etymology, however. In their Lobscouse & Spotted Dog they argue for a Viking origin of the word, sighting the Norwegian lapskaus, Danish labskovs and Low German labskaus – all forms of stew – as their proof. I like the ladies’ idea better, frankly. It may be, too, that even the Admiral’s lap’s course has its origin in one of the Nordic words. But that is the wonder of language; the more we know, the more we find out.

Header: Moonlit Night by Aleksey Savrasov via Old Paint

Tools of the Trade: Work at Heights

The bosun’s chair, which on the face of it sounds rather fancy, is nothing of the sort. In fact it is another example of necessity being the mother of invention. Working at heights while either at sea or in port is par for the course aboard ship. Since work can be done better with both hands free, clinging to rope or cable while addressing regular maintenance or unexpect repair in the air would be inconvenient at best. To say is would also be dangerous hundreds of feet up is probably overstating cases. Enter the bosun’s chair.


This is no more and in fact no less than a plank of wood suspended from a series of ropes or cables usually passed over and through a block and tackle to facilitate raising and lowering. The plank is usually fitted out with hooks or other appendages for hanging materials needed for any task such as buckets, brushes, rigging, etc. The sailor simply clambors onto the chair and is then raised up to the appropriate height and tied off.

Historically a man’s mess mates would be responsible for raising and lowering him safely in the device. Modern bosun’s chairs differ from their ancient counterparts very little other than to sometimes be fitted with controlling apparatus that can be used by the person in the chair themselves. This alleviates the need for others to hoist a person up and down. This modern form of bosun’s chair is quite popular with window washers, particularly on mammoth sky scrapers.

The bosun’s chair was also used to move people unfamiliar with seamanship on and off ships. In this instance it was sometimes referred to derogatorily as a “lady’s chair”. Much like using the lubber’s hole when climbing up onto a top, being hauled over the side on a bosun’s chair was only tolerable for a true sailor if he were sick or injured. O’Brian repeatedly has his doctor insensed to the point of fuming for being forced into a bosun’s chair in his Aubrey/Maturin novels. “Am I not a sailor,” he barks red-faced as he is being safely ferried off the ship. “Am I not an old salt?” The response is of course, “Old salt you may be Stephen, but you are clumsier than a drunk monkey on a ladder.” If anyone knew how to shut the beloved doctor up, it was Captain Aubrey.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I offer this video from the Tar Rigger episode of Dirty Jobs. Mike’s struggles with the bosun’s chair are amusing but not at all uncommon. Those things are squirrely, let me tell you.

Happy Labor Day to all the U.S. Brethren! Take a load off and have a pint of grog on orders (just don’t do it in a bosun’s chair, mate).

Header: Using a bonsun’s chair aboard training ship Prince William via Wikipedia

Sea Monsters: Repelling the Repellant

Back in November of last year I did a post on sea lampreys. As you can tell simply by glancing at the picture above, these are some truly unsettling – if not down right nauseating – fish. Sometimes called “vampire fish”, they feed by attaching their multiple rings of sharp teeth to the body of any meaty animal and literally sucking the flesh and blood from its bones. Usually the victim is a fish and the sea lamprey simple stays attached until its prey dies. Then it moves on to the next victim.


The real problem with these ugly critters is that they belong in the ocean but will infest inland waterways and devastate the indigenous fish populations therein. This has been the case particularly in the Great Lakes regions of the U.S. and Canada where they migrated up the Welland Canal in the early 20th century. Here they have almost wiped out the lake trout population and thereby closed a number of fisheries on both sides of the border.

Though efforts to sterilize the lampreys, as seen on Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel, has had a modicum of success, new research may hold the key to running these monsters out of Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan all together. And all it takes is the doubtless stomach churning scent of dead, decaying lampreys.

According to an article in USA Today’s print version, scientists at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission took a page from local fishermen’s books. The fishermen would slice up lampreys that were accidently caught in their nets and throw them back in the water. When they returned to their fishing site days later, they were not troubled by lampreys for weeks after the slaughter. A little testing proved that sea lampreys will literally flee from the smell of their dead relatives.

The researches are currently trying to isolate the specific chemical that causes this “alarm response” in the lampreys. Though the work is, as one scientist is quoted in the article as saying, “…[not] easy … especially if ventilation isn’t good…” it could lead to the return of edible fish like the lake trout. To quote Mike Siefkes, the researcher in question, again, “… hopefully, it’s the smell of success.”

If you happen to subscribe to usatoday.com, you can visit their site and see video of the repellant being tested. If you do, leave a comment and let us know how that looks. The picture at the header (via Wikipedia) is enough for me, thank you very much.

And on a final “fishy” note, a hearty thank you from me goes out to all who voted for “The Horror: A Tale of Dismemberment” at the 49 Writing Center’s site. My bloody yarn won their Ode to a Dead Salmon Bad Writing Contest. That’s what I get for using “spongiform encephalopathy” in a sentence.

Sea Monsters: Trouble With Jellies

Clicking around the Cracked website, as I sometimes do when life hands me lemons and I need a really good laugh, I found this article: 6 Animals Humanity Actually Made Way Scarier. Questionable grammar not withstanding, most of the logic in the article is pretty sound. Cougars are really losing habitat, making them more likely to have dangerous encounters with humans. Wolves really did crossbreed with coyotes in the northeastern U.S., creating a powerful predator that is blithely unafraid of human populations. I’m not going to argue with that. But the first animal on the list needs to be looked at, and its actually threat analyzed, a little more closely.


The piece is particularly concerned with giant Nomura jellyfish, found largely in the tropical Pacific, and box jellies which are common in the waters of Australia. Both creatures, which are nasty for very different reasons, have seen a decided upswing in population since the beginning of the 21st century. As the article notes there are three pretty clear reasons for this explosion.

The number one reason is ocean warming. Say what you want about climate change, the warming of ocean waters around the globe is a documented fact that has been occurring without cessation since at least the last decade of the 20th century. For reasons we don’t quite understand, jellyfish in general respond to a warmer environment by breeding more and swimming closer to shore. Other factors are pollution, particularly by agricultural fertilizers which encourage growth in plankton, and overfishing of certain jellyfish predators. All bad news on the face of it and the cause of everything from enormous “jellyfish blooms” off the coasts of places as diverse as Australia and Ireland to the complete shutdown of fishing operations in Japan and desalinization plants on the Black Sea. Even the Bering Sea – yeah that “vast Bering Sea” – has seen large trawling nets break due to huge swarms of heavy jellyfish attacking the catch within.

So is it really that bad? Are we doomed to be stung mercilessly by veritable herds of virtually invisible box jellies? Or have our precious Omega 3 fatty acids ripped from our mouths by 450 pound Nomura monsters? In a word, no.

Even though some jellyfish predators have been overfished, others are either doing just fine or coming back strong. Those delightful Opilio and King crabs that you see being hauled up in traps on “Deadliest Catch” are in great shape numbers-wise due to smart conservation and they will happily chow on just about any jellyfish that gets within range. Likewise Blue Swimmer crabs delight in feasting on box jellies around Australia and particularly the Philippines where the highest percentage of deaths by jellyfish sting are reported yearly. Another common predator of the box jellies was once endanger but is now, thanks in part to the large numbers of one of its favorite snacks, growing in population: the sea turtle. Sea turtles, legendarily a delicacy to seaman around the world, are completely immune to the sting of even the most venomous box jellies, Chironex fleckeri and Chironex yamaguchii. Even these guys are no match for the hungry terrapins.

So while cyclical “blooms” of jellyfish will doubtless continue to be a problem worldwide, it may be a little early to panic. Simply minding the good advice on the Australian sign above is probably your best bet, and just in case, put some vinegar in your beach bag. And don’t forget to say thank you next time you run into a crab or a sea turtle.

Header: Sign at Cape Tribulation, Australia via Wikimedia Commons

Booty: Tripping On Bourbon

About a year ago I did a post about the famous New Orleans bar and ancient landmark Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. The misspelled and misnamed Creole cottage is no less of a must-see for owning a bogus legend. The Laffite brothers may never have even set foot in the place and they certainly did not operate any kind of business out of the building. But NOLA likes to mix her metaphors and remake herself continuously. It’s all part of being a past-her-prime courtesan, you have to imagine.

All that said, it’s time to talk about another place in New Orleans that at some point in the 20th century claimed the Laffite mythology as its own: The Old Absinthe House. It’s one thing for a proprietor of a bar to hang out a sign that includes Laffite’s name – all be it misspelled (again):That's his privilege as the owner. Plus it draws in the tourists; after all this is Rue Bourbon. It is quite another thing for “experts” on the Discovery Channel, with PhDs after their names no less, to tell their viewers that the gimmick may be a fact of history.

I had not experienced “American Treasures” on Discovery so I was thrilled to be on vacation this week and be able to sit down to their New Orleans episode last Tuesday night. The show now follows the most consistent show on Discovery since “Mythbusters”, “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe, so it’s clear that Discovery is trying to give it a boost with the classic coattail routine. “American Treasures” is hosted by two archaeology professors who travel the country examining various artifacts. In New Orleans, a trumpet which allegedly once belonged to Louis Armstrong and the origin of the famous absinthe fountains at The Old Absinthe House were under the microscope. See clips here.

When Dr. Kirk French and Dr. Jason de Leon pulled up in front of the OAH, French in voiceover talks about the legendary Green Fairy that once inhabited the place and how Jean Laffite and Andrew Jackson “got wasted” on absinthe here while they “plotted their victory at the Battle of New Orleans”. Interestingly, there is no “… but that’s just a legend” added to that little gem of information. While I am no “doctor” nor yet an expert on absinthe, I am capable of research and so, Brethren, allow me to elaborate.

According to Stanley Clisby Arthur’s Walking Tours of Old New Orleans (first published in 1936) the building at 238 Bourbon Street which is now the OAH was originally built by a pair of Spanish merchants in 1806. They dealt in “… imported foodstuffs, wines and other goods” from their native Spain. The merchants, who were related by marriage, willed the business to their children but it was ultimately taken up by one of their wives’ nephews in the 1820s. The property, which was also a home, became a shoe shop in 1838 while the proprietors continued to run an epicerie, or grocery, across the street at 301 Bourbon. In 1861 the place, still run by the original owners’ extended family, was made into a coffee shop. After the Civil War, in 1870, pure luck saw the hiring of a famous bartender, Cayetano Ferrer, who brought his secret recipe for absinthe frappe with him and by 1874 the place was called the “Absinthe Room” around town. The fountains featured on “American Treasures” came over from France to dispense cold water for the frappes and they, like the morphed name Old Absinthe House, stayed even after absinthe was outlawed in the early 20th century.

The place is now listed in city guides like Frommer’s and Lonely Planet as “Jean Lafitte’s Old Absinthe House” but there is no reasonable connection between Triple P’s favorite racketeer and the old Juncadella mansion. Even “American Treasures” tripped on their own spurious claims when the absinthe expert being interviewed for the show pointed out that absinthe did not come to NOLA until the 1830s. In fact, it did not become widely popular in the city – which was really its only place of widespread use in the U.S. – until the 1870s. No matter how you slice it, Jean Laffite would have been incapable of “getting wasted” on absinthe, either at the OAH or anywhere else in the New Orleans he called home.

While the doctor’s off-handed comment may have seemed jocular, I think a bit more caution should be taken by “media experts” in all things historical. There are enough misunderstandings and misrepresentations about the Laffites and the Baratarians as it is. Unless, of course, you’re planning on opening up a bar on Bourbon; then the gloves – and possibly at some point other pieces of clothing – are definitely off.

Pictured: 1950s postcard featuring The Old Absinthe House via Card Cow and the OAH sign today

Movies: Rum On TV

Just to clarify before we start, Triple P doesn’t really have a “TV” title so we’re stuck with Movies.

I had an informative piece all thought out for today and, as I settled in last night to do a bit of research for same, all that changed. My habit on Tuesdays, nay indeed my chiseled-in-stone must do, is to watch “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel. I don’t watch episodic TV at all and, aside from football during the season, I don’t really have any shows I just can’t miss (although “Deadliest Warrior” on Spike might actually be one if I’m honest). That said, I don’t miss Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs”. So imagine my surprise – and delight – when last night’s episode was all about making rum.

And not just any rum, Brethren, but a rum named after the infamous “Rhode Island Pirate” Thomas Tew. The label features Tew’s menacing flag (above) and the rum’s manufacturer, Newport Distilling Company, is itself in Rhode Island. Find out more about them at their website.

Of course there were many an off-handed reference to pirates and piracy but what struck me the most was Mike and his crew’s willingness to drink like pirates. The company also runs Coastal Extreme Brewing Company and Mike and his colleagues sampled their Newport Storm Beer to kick off the morning. Sure, it was 8:30 in Rhode Island but damned if the sun’s not over the yardarm somewhere, mate. This was all done under the auspices of a specific brewer’s privilege which evidently dates back to Colonial times and whose name Mike mentioned more than once but your humble hostess didn’t bother to write down. Leave me a comment if you know what it’s called; I’ll make a note of it.

Update: Triple P's good friend Timmy! tells us the right to drink beer while working at a brewery is known as "The Sternewirth Privilege", so now we know. Thankee, Timmy!

At any rate, as the day wore on Mike began sampling the rum and became – for lack of a better phrase – a very happy pirate. Of interest to pirates of the New World, though, is the fact that the folks at Newport Distilling Company are bringing back an old tradition of rum making in Rhode Island. In the last half of the 18th century Rhode Island could count over 20 rum distilleries within its boarders at any given time. Thomas Tew is hand crafted, made with molasses and aged on site in oak barrels just like the kind of rum its namesake pirate would have been accustomed to. While Thomas Tew rum is not currently available outside of its home state, the company hopes to change that within the next couple of years.

Here are four videos from the show over at Discovery’s website (the "Alcohol Pop Quiz" is particularly funny). Waste a few minutes today watching the way rum used to be made, and then raise a tankard to our ancestors and those who are keeping the old ways alive, by land and at sea. Oh and raise one to Mike and his crew as well. They’re clearly good and game lads one and all.

Sea Monsters: Dirty Fish

So I settled in to watch Mike Rowe and “Dirty Jobs” last night, as I always do of a Tuesday round about this time of year. At the same time I’m reading a fascinating NYT article that I’ve already made up my mind is going to be the basis for today’s post and then the horror begins. Mike is once again in a situation about which there is very little to envy but this time it features a bona fide sea monster that could certainly turn your stomach if not take a bite out of you.

At the header is a creature known as a sea lamprey. Sometimes they are just called lampreys. They are a simply structured, prehistoric fish (no kidding, that is a fish) that are related to the delightfully named and nicknamed hagfish, known as slime eels (Mike’s done a job with them, too). Lampreys feed by attaching their round, cone-shaped mouth to their prey and just gnawing away at whatever they stick to. The teeth are fairly sharp and the suction created by the shape of the lead digestive orifice allows them to stay put indefinitely. Or at least until their prey dies and the lamprey moves on.

The lampreys are, for the most part, Atlantic Ocean fish but they don’t seem too picky about environment. A little research this morning turned up stories noting sailors sometimes had problems with them when swimming or wading in Atlantic waters. It seems that in years after a population boom the lampreys could have trouble finding enough food for their burgeoning populations. Hungry, and decidedly undiscriminating aside from their preference for live meals, the lampreys would attach themselves to human beings and begin to gnaw. Pulling them off left the victim with a chunk of meat gone and the potential for serious infection.

These animals aren’t exactly good for the environment, either. Though they pose no threat to any specific Atlantic species as far as population is concerned, their eating habits can be devastating if they work their way into inland lakes and rivers. This is exactly what happened in the Great Lakes of Canada and the U.S. in the 1920s. A huge population of trout existed in the lakes at the time and was the source of a multimillion dollar fishing industry that employed thousands. When a canal was built to allow ships to pass from Lake Ontario into Lake Erie (ironically, for ease of shipping trout) sea lampreys used the canal as a gateway to all the Great Lakes. They devastated the trout population to such a degree that by the start of World War II all but one of the fisheries had closed and the lakes were virtually devoid of the trout, though teaming with lampreys.

Attempts to restock the lakes with trout have for the most part failed. But biologists continue to study the problem and catch and neuter the lampreys, which is what Mike Rowe was helping out with last night. On a bright note, lampreys hate human spit. Even a small amount can make a tank full of them literally jump up and even out or the tank. Something for the biologists to work on. And something for you to remember if you ever see one coming for you, mate. We'll return to our regularly scheduled posting tomorrow.