Nelson & His World

My understanding of the phrase ‘bear up’ in modern sailing terminology is that it means to bring the vessel closer to the wind. This has always seemed logical to me as you ‘bear up’ in order to sail upwind. It was a long time before I discovered that in Nelson’s time, ‘bear up’ meant the exact opposite – to turn away from the wind, and to sail large, or more downwind. This caused great confusion for me as I was constantly reading accounts of encounters between ships at sea where a ship apparently did the opposite of what was needed, and yet somehow reached her objective. Even now, when reading such accounts, my mind still struggles to adjust to the correct meaning, and I have to apply immense concentration to make sense of what was going on. (There may be other explanations of my difficulties, but that’s the one I prefer!)

It seems extraordinary to me that (assuming I am correct) a phrase can completely reverse in meaning - it is surely somewhat outside what you would expect in the normal evolution of language? Does anyone know how, when, why or where the meaning changed?

And what happened while the meaning changed? The mind boggles

It seems to have been recognised as a problem - in Falconer's Marine Dictionary (1769 edition), he notes the meaning of 'Bearing Up' as being the same as 'bearing-away', "...to make her run before the wind". However, he then comments that this is recognised as being 'absurd', as people normally say 'up to windward, down to leeward', and continues "...this expression, however, although extremely improper, is commonly adopted in the general instructions of our navy, printed by authority, instead of bearing down or bearing away".

Smyth's 'Sailors Word Book' (1867) has it defined as "to put the helm up, keep a vessel off her course, letting her recede from the wind and move to leeward".

Might this be in any way connected to the fact that in Nelson's time, they were still using helm - and not rudder command phrases? "Put the helm up" had the effect of bearing away from the wind , whild "Put the helm down" made the ship veer closer to the wind?

Besides, I have most often read the phrase of "bearing down on the enemy" which to my knowledge was always connected with attacking an enemy who is actally downwind of the Brits favoured station upwind of their enemy (while the notorius enemy the french often aimed of stationing their ships downwind).

Thanks both for your answers. Yes it is quite logical that it referred to putting the helm up. I'm just very curious about the process by which it then reversed its meaning, and when that happened.

As for bearing down on the enemy - that meant you could 'bear up' and 'bear down' at the same time! But yes, one referred to the helm and the other referred to the course - and I mean the direction, not the sail!