Boat talk: the words the test uses

Tomasz is twenty-nine and came to Canada two years ago. Back home he drove his uncle's boat every summer. He can dock, he can read the water, and he's steady at the wheel. But his practice questions are full of words like starboard and abaft the beam, and he never learned them in English. The boat is easy. The vocabulary is the problem.

So here's the question. Which words does the test expect you to know? The test is in English or French, so these are the words to learn, whatever language you think in.

Start with directions. The bow is the front of the boat and the stern is the back. Facing the bow, port is your left and starboard is your right. The Collision Regulations colour the sidelights to match: red on the port side, green on starboard. A handy trick: port and red are the two short words, so they go together.

Now phrases the Collision Regulations define. A boat is underway when it isn't at anchor, isn't tied to shore and isn't aground. A power-driven vessel is anything moved by machinery. A sailboat is a sailing vessel only while its engine is off. Once the motor is running, even with the sails up, it counts as power-driven. Restricted visibility means fog, mist, falling snow, heavy rain and the like.

Next, vessels others must keep clear of. Not under command means she can't manoeuvre because of some exceptional circumstance. Restricted in her ability to manoeuvre means her work limits how she moves. Constrained by her draught means she sits so deep she's tied to the deep water. And engaged in fishing means nets, lines or trawls that limit how she moves. Trolling lines don't count.

Abaft the beam means behind the widest part of the boat, toward the stern. If you come up on another boat from more than twenty-two and a half degrees abaft her beam, so far back that at night you'd see only her white stern light, you're overtaking her.

Two equipment words from the Small Vessel Regulations. A sound-signalling device is a pealess whistle, one with no little ball inside, or a compressed-gas or electric horn. A reboarding device is a ladder, lifting harness or similar that helps someone climb back aboard, and no part of the motor counts. And a personal watercraft is a water-jet boat with an enclosed hull and no cockpit.

On the water. Say you're trolling for pike along an island shoreline, engine ticking over. Trolling doesn't make you engaged in fishing, so you're a power-driven vessel like any other, and a sailboat under sail has priority over you. Tie up at a friend's dock and you're no longer underway. Push off and drift with the engine off, and you're underway again.

Let's change one fact. The sailboat drops its sails and starts its engine. Nothing about the hull has changed, but now it's a power-driven vessel, and the power-boat rules apply between you.

The mistake boaters make is assuming any boat with a rod out is engaged in fishing and gets priority. A trolling boat is just a power boat. Priority goes to boats whose nets, lines or trawls actually restrict how they move.

Here's the rule, in one breath. Bow is front, stern is back, port is left and red, starboard is right and green, and learn each defined phrase exactly, because the test uses the regulation's words.

This week, walk your boat, or any boat at the dock, and name bow, stern, port and starboard out loud. Then say which colour light goes on each side. Next time, your boat's paperwork.