Baking and banks

Baking and banking means "come to dinner!" In the nautical language of the past on the ship.

“ Back ” is a table on board, so “Aufbacken” means: setting the table for dinner. Correspondingly, the "back shank " is the team that bakes, that is, the team that sets the table and serves.

“Banking” means that the fires under the coal-fired steam boilers are set up in such a way that they continue to burn without supervision until the next morning. The furnace is freed from the slag . Embers are covered with fresh charcoal and the air supply is adjusted so that the embers eat their way through the fresh charcoal so slowly that the next morning the fire burns immediately when air is supplied and, also very important, that the boiler pressure does not drop too far.

These designations are only used in the navy as well as on sailing and other sports boats. In the German Navy , “baking and banking” is a common command on board. In civilian seafaring, this means “dinner” and “machine ready, machine will be on standby in thirty minutes”.