Nautical affairs

I notice some nautical affairs picked up from the story at reference 1, first noticed first time around at reference 2. More than three years ago now.

First, we have the fishermen working their boats out of the harbour (Concarneau in Brittainy) with a single oar over the back - that is to say godiller with a godille. Rather to my surprise the English word for this seems to be sculling, or at least that is what both Bing and Linguee seem to think. I thought there was some more obscure word for it - a form of rowing which is much easier and effective than you might think. And while back in 2016 I thought that this was fine for the France of 1931, today I am rather surprised. I thought that Yarmouth, for example, was all steam drifters (for herrings, bloaters and kippers) and steam trawlers (for cod) by then.

Second, in the margins of sculling, I discovered the mizzen mast (misaine) of a top sail schooner was the mast in front. Whereas I had always thought that the mizzen mast was the mast at the back, typically of a square rigged ship such as, for example, the Victory. It seems that the word, in both English and French, has the same root as the Italian mezzanine and is to do with being shorter, rather than to do with being at the front or the back.

Third, we have the word rade for anchorage. I immediately associated to Dover Roads which I thought was the anchorage to the north of Dover between the Godwin Sands (where King Harold's father used to graze his sheep, well before the Conquest) and the mainland. Another pair of nautical words with a common root.

But searching for Dover Roads fails to find anything relevant. I check OED and road is indeed an old word for an off-shore, shallow water anchorage, possibly a place where one rides at anchor. Perhaps also a place where you charged visiting boats for overnight stays. I check with Bing again, to find that it knows all about Margate Roads, which is indeed an anchorage, around the corner from Dover. Check with Ordnance Survey to find that the anchorage to the north of Dover is called 'The Downs'. Not 'The Roads' at all.

Memory playing tricks again. Sometimes it gets it, sometimes it doesn't.

PS: I have also learned about the Îles des Glénan, to the south of Concarneau and visible from the la pointe de Cabélou, a place visited by Maigret in the course of his inquiries. The islands being about twenty kilometres to the south. Rather surprised that I have not heard of them before - or at least that they did not stick in there during the three years since the last reading.

Reference 1: Le Chien jaune - Simenon - 1931. Volume II of the collected works.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/puzzle.html.