Today we’re launching a new weekly feature called Sailing Lingo.

The feature is aimed at testing your knowledge of the peculiar and sometimes indecipherable language of sailing. Each week we’ll pose a question and see who can answer it most accurately in the comments on the post. The following day we’ll post the answer to the question and save you some Googling!

Nautical lingo or sailing terminology can seem like an arcane and esoteric language, but it’s alive and well, and often can be found in our everyday vernacular, as you’ll notice in our very first Sailing Lingo post.

We’re starting with the catch phrase: three sheets to the wind. Do you know what the phrase means and how it originated?