SS Badger

[creepycrank]

Overmod

54light15 Ship's speeds are measured in knots, not miles per hour!

On the lakes they don't use that salty lingo, its miles per hour. I use to sail on LAKE michigan and they use a language all their own  such as "beating to weather" is "on the buck" and off the wind is "on the slide' for "broad reach". Some of those people would go ice boating on Lake Geneva in the winter at very high miles per hour. It might have something to do with the wind velocity in the weather reports was in miles per hour. Most sailrs on Lake Michigan learned to take a marine weather radion with them before going on the lake. You had about an hour to get off the lake after you heard about a squall line going through Rockford.

[54light15]

I sure didn't know that lake sailors used MPH. I learn something new every day. On my ship down in the engine room we generally just used the RPM of the main shaft to guess the speed and up on the bridge, they figured it out. 

[NKP guy]

creepycrank

On the lakes they don't use that salty lingo

Crews on the ore boats frequently come from the Midwest's cities and farms, hence:

*  for starters, they are called "boats" and not ships;  (I'd like to see a ship attempt to launch one of these "boats");

*  the "bow" is often called "up front", (I've even heard it termed "the pointy end"!);

*  the "stern" is "the ass end";

*  a "gunwale" is "the fence"  (well, in fairness it consists of two wire ropes threaded through uprights, so it does resemble a fence);

*  every door to the outside has a screen door;

*  lake depths are often referred to in feet, not fathoms.

 

Two big takeaways from my time on the boats:

1.  Hardest physical labor I have ever done, before or since;

2.  Some of the best food I have ever eaten (and as much as a hungry college kid could want).  Also, Best. Coffee. Ever.  (Served in classic white china mugs.)

 

 

[54light15]

"The pointy end" "The ass end." Now, that's nautical! 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I believe that the bridge was referred to as "the porch".

[Overmod]

I am tempted to point out that a Cleveland Steamer is so called not for its reeking reminiscence of the old Cuyahoga but for its resemblance to a well-rusted whaleback ore boat...