THE CUT OF HIS JIB

The jib is the sail that extends from the foretopmast head to the jib boom or bowsprit. A sailor could judge the performance of a sailing vessel by its appearance, its cut, and then function. This is comparable to saying " you can judge a book by its cover" - in this blog I take a look at this aphorism taking torn jeans into consideration.

My wife, who's opinion I value greatly, says that you can often judge a book by its cover. She then often adds a codicil to that statement by affirming that it isn't always true and you do get some surprises. Let us examine this from a somewhat nautical angle and let you form your opinion.

I see someone in jeans with holes in them and I am immediately irate. I revert to type according to my wife. She can tell the temperature is rising and takes appropriate action to get me calmed down. I usually see someone in these jeans as some numpty who still has the cradle marks on his arse, someone who hasn't done a decent day's work in their life. I usually see weedy legs, a wan pimply face, a wastrel. And if the person happens to be a woman well I cannot write what I think. I really have this thing about "designer" jeans with holes in them. Boom! a switch is flicked. I suppose an explanation is required.

I guess jeans had not properly come to the United Kingdom when I went to sea in 1954. I had 2 pairs of blue overalls. But then I went to America and was introduced to proper jeans. Denim serge, the cloth of jeans, had been developed in the French town of Nimes, and dyed with indigo to make it worklike. The Genovese sailors adopted this and made the trousers called jeans . Denim is very much like sail cloth in manufacture so it was a natural. And so it spread to America worn by sailors, and then slaves, and then cowboys and miners. Get the picture? Hard working rugged individuals who needed a rugged pair of trousers.

Right now back to the 1950s when a lot of lads like me went to sea intending to learn and ultimately gain command. We sailed in 1955 at the princely sum of £6/16/8 per month and usually heading across the Western Ocean to load for Japan in one of the ports in the Chesapake Bay area in the USA. When we arrived there we would get an advance on wages and all troop up to the chandlers to buy jeans for work and khaki shirts and slacks for off duty. I almost forgot, when we provisioned before sailing from Europe we would go forward to the foc'stle store and get all the best remnants of sail cloth, denim, and similar material to stow away. This would be reserved to repair your jeans; torn jeans were not acceptable, dangerous, and signified a waste of space not wanted on voyage.

And so the jeans became the working gear for us as it had been for countless other seafarers. Yes they could be weathered, stained with paint, but never ripped and torn. They were carefully patched. Loose clothing can get caught in deck machinery or running rigging, wires, and ropes.

It was not acceptable for the apprentice to go ashore in jeans, you had to present yourself to the Captain dressed correctly not working gear. Take a look at picture of my shipmates in the 1950s ashore in Australia and you will get the idea.

I really do not like the cut of his jib when I see the person wearing jeans with a hole or torn. I see a tosspot with gel in his hair saying, in so many words, that they do not care, that hard work is nonsense, that they have money to waste, that they have no respect for society. I can accept cargo trousers, Bermuda shorts, and similiar aberrations in fashion but the message from torn jeans gets me irate.
Am I an unreasonable man? Possibly but then I am 74 next month and so being grumpy about some things is to be expected.