Russian Sailing Terms

[Foswick]

This might be a long shot, but I'll ask.

I have a friend who barely speaks English (Ukrainian and Russian) and wants to learn to sail. Of course, he wants to learn the English terminology, but I thought it would be fun for me to learn the Russian terminology. (I should mention that I speak Russian fairly fluently, but don't have a lot of specialized vocabulary in some areas ... like boats.)

Some things, I can look up because they translate literally. But, there are a lot of terms/phrases you won't find in a dictionary - or at least they are hard to pinpoint to make sure you actually have the term you are looking for.

Does anyone here either speak Russian natively or is otherwise familiar with the jargon?

I am looking for things like:

• Sheet out/in!
• Ready about!
• Prepare to gybe!
• Gybing! or Gybe ho!

I did find this, which is gold, but missing a few terms/phrases: https://icdept.cgaux.org/pdf_files/English-Russian-Glossary-Nautical-Terms.pdf

My best "guess" for the phrases I listed are:

• Sheet in: Выбирай шкоты
• Sheet out: Пусти шкоты
• Ready about: Готовы к повороту
• Prepare to gybe: Готовы к повороту через корму (but, this can't be what people actually say ... too long)
• Gybing: Поворачиваю через корму or maybe just Поворачиваю?

 

[duncan14]

I'm just starting with sailing and definitely not an expert, but I recently found a great set of youtube videos from "Gleb Semerenko".

While it's not exactly what you are asking for, I thought it may help your friend. You can also listen for the terms while watching the videos.
There are about 30 detailed video lessons. They are pretty good and Gleb is using Russian terms (which in fact, historically are Dutch terms) while explaining boat parts, maneuvers and so on. I myself started with English ASA courses and the Russian terminology was new to me. So learning it was part of the fun watching these videos.

 

[Foswick]

These are brilliant, Duncan! Thank you. This is a wealth of terminology. He gets into commands at around Lesson 10, but this pretty much covers everything. So helpful!

 

[Foswick]

In case anyone stumbles across this thread and cares, in the video, he uses:

• Ready about!: Подготовьтесь к оверштаг! but I've also heard Приготовится к повороту оверштаг!
• Prepare to gybe!: He says it really fast, but I'm pretty sure he says something like: Приготовиться к повороту (через?) фордевинд! ... which is really long, but OK
• Tacking or Gybing: Поворот!

 

[twodzusfittings]

There an App for that!

 

[Foswick]

There an App for that!

Computers don't do jargon very well. I have tried a bunch of different sources and none of them gets it right. These are phrases that a native speaker won't even know, unless they are sailors.

 

[pgandw]

Having sailed for 2 days with a French speaker (little to no English), I found it very time consuming to get things straight. On the 2nd day, I decided to spend about 30 minutes going over the nomenclature for each line, and my expectations. That helped a lot, but it was only a 19ft boat. I've had similar problems with a non-sailing English speaker, so spending a half hour plus really is important, even if my guest didn't want to.

Fred W
Stuart Mariner 19

 

[Foswick]

Yeah, but honestly, it isn't much different than having a non-sailor on board. It is that blank stare when you say, "We're going to tack to port, so you need to ready the windward winch to take up the jib sheet she comes about." That is a perfectly concise directive, that is absolutely meaningless to the non-sailor. So, teaching a brand new sailor, it doesn't seem to matter much that they don't speak the language because nobody does, at first. The blank stare is pretty much universal.

I mean, I'll have to explain everything in non-nautical terms anyway, which I can do without too much difficulty. And, although I am personally interested in learning the Russian terms, doing so won't really help much since he doesn't know those either.

 

[LLoyd B]

Reminds me of an earlier post I read today about crew that jumped ship someplace around Seattle. Had a couple of those myself and they weren't Russian but they did not want to learn sailor.toska