Here are some words that you haven’t met in the rest of the book. They are all part of seagoing language.
AHOY—a call given by men on one ship to greet men on another.
AVAST—an officer shouts “avast” if he wants a seaman to stop hauling on a line.
BELAY—to tie or make fast. A belaying pin is a short rod which can be stuck into a holder so that a line can be twisted around it. There were many belaying pins on old sailing vessels, and they made handy weapons at times.
DEEP SIX—when a sailor throws something overboard, he “gives it the deep six.” The expression comes from the days when sailors measured the depth of water with a leadline. The “deep six” was a place on the line which showed the water was six fathoms (36 feet) deep.
FOUL—Seamen use this word to describe anything that has gone wrong or got mixed up. A snarled line is foul. A ship’s hull covered with barnacles is foul. Bad weather is foul.
NORWEGIAN STEAM—seamen say they use “Norwegian steam” when they do heavy work without the help of machinery.