Sea of Thieves Galleon Callouts
This is a reference guide for different terms relating to a Galleon in Sea of Thieves.
Diagrams
On directions
When referring to things close to the ship, like floating debris or swimming pirates, refer to them using the terms front, back, port, and starboard.
When referring to things far away from the ship, mainly other ships in the horizon, but also shipwrecks, islands, etc., refer to them using the cardinal directions on your compass.
Common orders and terms
- “Full canvas”
- Lower all sails.
- “Half mast”
- Refers to having the sails about halfway raised.
- “Manage sails”
- Rotate all sails so they catch the wind better.
- “Shoreleave”
- When you’re given shoreleave, it means you’re allowed to do whatever in the island you’re parked at.
- “Broadside” (verb)
- Broadsiding a ship means firing on it from the side. It’s important because cannon fire has to be coordinated and uninterrupted to win damage trades.
- “Windward” and “Leeward”
- The direction the wind blows in and the one opposite that, respectively. In the context of directions, wind and lee are also good.
Notes
This is intended for gameplay and is not entirely accurate to real life nautical terms. For instance, the hind mast is actually called a mizzenmast.
We use port and starboard instead of left and right with regards to the ship because it’s faster. “Left of us” is the same as “portside” because you’re saying us to refer to the ship.
You’re better served using two dedicated terms for those directions. That way, when someone says “to the left”, you can look to your left knowing that if they meant the ship’s left they’d have said “portside”.
In some situations, you might still use “left” and “right”, for instance if you say “turning left” this is fine. What else would you turn besides the ship?
See also Wikipedia’s Glossary of nautical terms and the Galleon page on the SoT wiki.