Top guest
As a top guest or top guest , literarily also Toppmann , one referred to an experienced sailor whose workplace was in the masts. In traditional shipping today, this is the name given to the sailor who heads the watch and reports directly to the officer on watch . Depending on the mast to which a sailor is assigned, there are the designations Voroppgast , Grosstoppgast and Kreuztoppgast .
etymology
Gasten (singular: guest ) is the designation for crew ranks in the German Navy , Topp is the nautical word for "top of the mast". The original meaning of the word Toppgast is “sailor whoclimbsinto the masts ”.
Literary
In the novel Billy Budd , Herman Melville tells the fictional fate of a pre-stop guest on an English warship at the end of the 18th century.
References and comments
- ^ Herman Melville, Billy Budd, translated 1938 from the American by Richard Moering , Diogenes, Zurich, 1981, ISBN 3-257-20787-5