The terms involved in sailing sound more like the names of kids who went to New England boarding schools than they do mechanisms you need for a sport: Tiller, Rudder, Boom, Hull, Halyard; the list goes on. But the best sailing term, and one that sounds less like the name of someone with a library named after them, is the spinnaker.
A spinnaker is the sail that you put up on a boat only when you’re going downwind. It’s like a big soft bucket that collects air and pushes the boat along. Whereas most sails are not very brightly colored, spinnakers always have cool designs on them, and when it comes to the US sailing team’s spinnakers for the Olympics this year, they are not messing around.