Set sail

Set sail

Today’s expression is “set sail.” This is a quick one, there’s really only one way to use it, and that is this: to begin a journey on a boat.

Before we get into some examples, let’s start with some vocabulary. A sail is the fabric or the material that catches the wind and propels a sailboat forward. To sail is a verb, and it often means to take a sailboat out into the water and use the wind to move forward.

However, sail as a verb is also used to generally mean, to take a boat trip on the water, even if it’s not a sailboat, even if there isn’t a sail on the boat: you still can say “sail.”

Today’s expression is “set sail.” And that simply means to start a journey on a boat. It has to be a boat. The Icon of the Seas is Royal Caribbean’s newest mega cruise ship and it will be the biggest in the world when it sets sail from Miami in January 2024.

The ship is not yet serving passengers. It only recently completed its first open-ocean tests. It has more tests left. Then it will make the long journey across the Atlantic. Final preparations will be made for the first cruise and then it will set sail in January. It will set sail; it will begin its first journey with passengers.

“Set sail” can also be used as a proxy for “leave.” For example, you might be on a small boat with friends. And you might say, “Tomorrow’s an early day. We need to set sail by 7 a.m.” That was common on my last sailing trip. We were in the Caribbean on a sailboat , a catamaran, that held eight of us. And we would sometimes anchor for the night.

But more commonly, we’d connect to a buoy, like a floating anchor in a harbor, like a parking space in a harbor. And if you pay for the buoy, you usually get some services included at the marina. But the problem is, the buoys are often all taken by mid-afternoon. So the idea was, we would get up early, set sail around 6:30 or 7, then have breakfast after we get the sails up, so that we’d arrive on time at the harbor where we wanted to spend the next night.

You can say, “set sail for” plus a destination. We set sail for Jost van Dyke at 7:30 a.m. That means, we left at 7:30 a.m. and our destination was Jost van Dyke. That’s an island in the British Virgin Islands.

Jost van Dyke cannot accommodate the Icon of the Seas! Not by a long shot. But if you’re on the Icon of the Seas, they might tell you: we’re about to set sail for St. Thomas. That’s a big island and cruise port in the Virgin Islands and it will be one of the stops on the Icon’s route. When the Icon sets sail for St. Thomas, it leaves its port and its destination is St. Thomas.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today’s Plain English. Remember you can find the full transcript at PlainEnglish.com/595. Try listening and reading the transcript at the same time. We make it very easy to do that, just play the audio on the web site and listen as you read the words. That will help you associate the sounds in your ears with the way the words look. PlainEnglish.com/595.

And we’ll be back on Monday. See you then!