Regional Verbiage

[Swfla]

My boating history is Florida based. Anchorage = Anchored in a protected water, usually free but can be a fee. Moorage = Tied to a mooring ball, usually a fee. Dockage = Tied to a dock, marina or private structure, usually fee based.
I've gotten used to the word moorage = dockage as used here. Was wondering if this is nationwide usage or regional, etc?
I no longer own a copy of Chapman's.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings.
I get the same sort of thing when people call the saloon a salon (beauty parlour). It's just that people don't seem to use the correct terminology. Might be regional.

 

[Swfla]

Yes, that's a mispronunciation. Another term for that is cabin. I did read that power boaters prefer cabin and sailors prefer saloon.
I also read that "to moor" is tying up to something, dock, ball, piling. Didn't find any explanation about moorage though. If someone has a copy Chapman's and some free time to post....

 

[Nomad Willy]

Greetings.
I get the same sort of thing when people call the saloon a salon (beauty parlour). It's just that people don't seem to use the correct terminology. Might be regional.

Many words have multiple meanings and unless you call the large cabin on a cabin cruiser a bar or tavern you call it a salon. And of course salon also has multiple meanings.
Cabin is indeed probably the only correct word for what we’re talk’in bout.

So we have three choices.
I choose salon and RT calls it a saloon. But you know what the sound of .. oo is?
oo as in Coot, kangaroo, Boo, loo, too ....
But I only call the main cabin a salon on TF. Elsewhere it’s main cabin.

 

[HiDHo]

Moored, the act of securing a vessel to a mooring ball or dock and even anchoring.
Moorage the fee charged.

 

[Hippocampus]

Mooring field-where you are usually charged and mooring balls are in place.
Anchorage - a defined area where it is legal to anchor. We have often anchored outside a anchorage. (You can’t carry too much chain )
House-all closed contained structures above the deck. Salons can be part of the house or on sailboats and diesel ducks not part of the house. For most sailors the saloon is not the cabin. It’s common for it to be below the deck. Cabins are on power boats. Not a term that used by sailors except to talk about berthing areas. So aft cabin or forward cabin regardless of its above or below the deck. Houses are on sailboats. Pilot houses are obviously above deck as are dog houses. Aft decks aren’t, even when enclosed, as the enclosure can be removed.
It’s interesting to hear different people talk about floors when they mean soles and ceilings when they mean overheads. Happens across the spectrum. Also how people mangle “roadway”.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

According to the Coast Guard, to fully pass an inspection, you need to have a copy of the "rules of the waterway" aboard your boat. There are a couple other things required that the average boater is not aware of and probably does not have on board. Things like bouy definitions, horn signals, overtaking, being overtaken protocol, lighting, flotation registration, etc, etc.

These are all covered by "Chapmans" and I carry one to just point to the book and say "Got it Covered" if it ever comes to an official inspection.

pete

 

[menzies]

There are a couple other things required that the average boater is not aware of and probably does not have on board.

pete

What are you basing that on?

 

[MurrayM]

Mooring balls are rare and free in this area, yet moorage rates are what you pay for a slip or berth in the marina.

Chuck (channel) is a word I don’t hear much these days, as in, “I’m going down the chuck this weekend”.

Where does ‘tombolo’ come from? It’s the drying strip of land that becomes exposed near lower tides between a small islet and a large island or larger land mass.

 

[Tingum]

I was taught that a saloon had a water source and sink where a salon did not.

 

[menzies]

We use fairway all the time. Anyone else?

 

[MurrayM]

...Where does ‘tombolo’ come from? It’s the drying strip of land that becomes exposed near lower tides between a small islet and a large island or larger land mass.

A tombolo is a sandy isthmus. A tombolo, from the Italian tombolo, meaning 'pillow' or 'cushion', and sometimes translated as ayre, is a deposition landform in which an island is attached to the mainland by a narrow piece of land such as a spit or bar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombolo

 

[Swfla]

I read that saloon is also a large gathering cabin on a cruising type ship. But saloon is the only spelling that will give you the kangaroo sound.
When people talk about searching for moorage here, they're invariably looking for a dock which is dockage. That's simply definitions of words and their proper use in the English language. But, as I said earlier, the English language and it's rules are often ignored or even unknown to the user. Let's take 5 geographic areas of USA NE, SE (dockage) mid west, sw, and NW. I gave the typical noun for SE as I learned all my boating language in FL. Anyone from those other regions care to chime in as to which word most folks in that area used to describe renting or leasing a dock slip?

 

[Shrew]

The term Mooring being specific to a "Mooring Ball" seems to be more specific to the US or North America. It seems that much of the rest of the world refers to this as a "Swing Mooring".

 

[rsn48]

"Chuck" means water, hence "salt chuck" means ocean or sea. From Miriams:

"salt chuck
nounDIALECT•NORTH AMERICAN
noun: chuck
the sea, or an inlet of the sea which flows into a lake or river."

Skookumchuck inlet, a place you want to know what you are doing when transiting. Skookum is slang for large or big, so Skookumchuck is big water:

"Gunkholing" is used more in the PNW, coastal BC and the Alaska Pan Handle simply because there are more locations do this.

Short blurb on gunkholing: Gunkholing in BC Offers Unlimited Explorative Opportunities

 

[BandB]

Wifey B: Quite a few European builders have gone to land and home labels. They don't use Stateroom or Head or Galley but use Bedroom, Bathroom, Toilet, Shower, and Kitchen.

But then apartments and homebuilders and motorhomes have ditched traditional terms with functional terms like "Sleeping" and "Relaxing" and "Eating" and "Gathering" to describe rooms.

 

[Shrew]

"Chuck" means water, hence "salt chuck" means ocean or sea. From Miriams:

"salt chuck
nounDIALECT•NORTH AMERICAN
noun: chuck
the sea, or an inlet of the sea which flows into a lake or river."

Skookumchuck inlet, a place you want to know what you are doing when transiting. Skookum is slang for large or big, so Skookumchuck is big water:

"Gunkholing" is used more in the PNW, coastal BC and the Alaska Pan Handle simply because there are more locations do this.

Short blurb on gunkholing: Gunkholing in BC Offers Unlimited Explorative Opportunities

I think one of us has overlooked the scope of the OP's question. I didn't walk away with the assumption that they wanted to build a compendium of regionally specific nautical terms.

 

[ScottC]

A random selection of Swedish nautical terms for your edification and delight...

• sjövärdighetsbevis = certificate of seaworthiness
• Kustbevakningen = Coast Guard
• samlastningsstation= container loading station
• kock = cook (No, RTF, you don't need to supply a picture for this...)
• sex = six (Ditto, RTF)
• kiss = pee (Ditto, yet again, RTF)
• bekvämlighetsflagg = flag of convenience
• bränslemängdgivare = fuel gauge sending unit
• styrinrättningen = helm
• sjöräddningstjänst = sea rescue service
• sjömanskap = seamanship
• prick = spar buoy (No, RTF...)
• ångfartyg = Steamer
• styrbord = starboard
• babord = port
• port = hamn
• kvalitetsklassningsprogram= condition assessment program for tankers
• bog = bow (but careful! bög = slang for gay)
• akter = stern
• akterut = aft
• växelströmsgenerator= alternator
• fart = speed
• fartyg = vessel
  

 

[Hippocampus]

It was wicked bad. We went through the cut to the riff and hit schoolies under the blues.

 

[AlaskaProf]

We use fairway all the time. Anyone else?

Yes. When I back out of my slip, I go down the fairway until I depart the marina into the channel (which in my case is called, somewhat confusingly, The Hylebos Waterway).

 

[AlaskaProf]

"Chuck" means water, hence "salt chuck" means ocean or sea. From Miriams:

"salt chuck
nounDIALECT•NORTH AMERICAN
noun: chuck
the sea, or an inlet of the sea which flows into a lake or river."

Skookumchuck inlet, a place you want to know what you are doing when transiting. Skookum is slang for large or big, so Skookumchuck is big water:

"Gunkholing" is used more in the PNW, coastal BC and the Alaska Pan Handle simply because there are more locations do this.

Though most of my boating is Western, from Mission Bay to Homer, I've always thought "gunkholing" was an Eastern regionalism, referring to shallow, mud bottom coves, such as I've encountered in Chesepeake Bay.

Anyone?

 

[kthoennes]

We use fairway too. And when we're coming back to the slip off the river, when I pass the breakwater we're back in the "yacht basin." Somebody made fun of me last summer for using that phrase but I don't know what else you'd call the enclosed, protected area where all the slips are stacked inside a surrounding breakwater.

 

[Sabre602]

Funny, I never heard it while exploring east coast waterways...only after I moved out here.

 

[johnrupp]

Gunkholing is used in the Chesapeake Bay region. Especially amongst the sailing crowd. Yacht basin is also used at a number of Yacht Clubs.

John

 

[Hippocampus]

In some places where’s there a bay and then a harbor near the center you hear of “the roads”. The roads referring to the portion of the bay where it’s possible to anchor and harbor defined by where’s there’s piers, slips, docks and marine services. Have heard this usage in English Harbor, Rodney Bay and have read this usage referring to Plymouth. Must be a British thing originally I guess.

 

[rslifkin]

We use fairway too. And when we're coming back to the slip off the river, when I pass the breakwater we're back in the "yacht basin." Somebody made fun of me last summer for using that phrase but I don't know what else you'd call the enclosed, protected area where all the slips are stacked inside a surrounding breakwater.

I'd probably just call it a basin.

 

[MurrayM]

Funny, I never heard it while exploring east coast waterways...only after I moved out here...

Never heard of gunkholing until I read it here on TF, so it's not a north coast BC word...must be a Washington State thing?

 

[AlaskaProf]

Funny, I never heard it while exploring east coast waterways...only after I moved out here.

FWIW Al Cummings came to Seattle from Washington, DC. Might have brought the term with him.

 

[psneeld]

Gunkholing has been around for the 45 years or so I have been reading popular US boating magazines not matter what part of the US the article was about.


Usually cruisers don't limit themselves to one region over a lifetime...so it's a work that may not be popular, but not unheard of.

 

[AlaskaProf]

Anchored in 18 feet of water over mud in Penn Cove this morning. Definitely a gunkhole