Ah, summer! And a tropically warm one, so what better choice than to spend all day, every day, on a small boat on a tiny Dutch lake (man-made, as is everything around here) learning how to sail? Some of my clearest memories from my youth are of doing just that on the very much not man-made and perfectly enormous Lake Michigan (which program I was one of the first to join and which it appears is
still active more than forty years on). What I did not expect was that I, too, would learn something more about sailing from Felix's attendance, namely the Dutch nautical terms he brings home. My English sailing vocabulary, after so many years, is reduced to little more than "port" and "starboard," so no surprise some of them are new to me, but I'm pretty sure I never knew the English word for "
klapgijp" (and it appears Google Translate doesn't either) which is the moment when the boom flies around unexpectedly because of your poor handling of the boat and almost or possibly actually does hit you in the head.
I've spent most of the summer indoors in front of this computer feeling jealous of Felix. His joy and this useful word are my payback.
It's jibing. And this blog title is misnamed, where did you eat breakfast today?
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ReplyDeleteInteresting similarity between the (British) spelling of "gybe" and the Dutch "gijp" btw. And, for that matter, between "a clap" (as in "a clap of thunder" meaning a bang or a boom or a crack) and "klap". Fyi - "a jibe (US) or gybe (British) is a sailing maneuver whereby a sailing vessel reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, such that the wind direction changes from one side of the boat to the other", ie gybing is the opposite of tacking -- you tack upwind and gybe downwind -- but either way, you try to avoid getting hit in the head when the boom swings across the boat :-D
One minute video on gybing: https://youtu.be/dMb6UEZ0pvE
ReplyDeletePS. Learning how to sail is part of my plan for this year... hence the (possibly inordinate) interest in "klapgijp" :) Mxo