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To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors' language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don't be taken aback to hear that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.

The phrase is these days more often given as 'three sheets to the wind', rather than the original 'three sheets in the wind'. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan's Real Life in London, 1821:

"Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind."

Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just 'one sheet in the wind', or 'a sheet in the wind's eye'. An example appears in the novel The Fisher's Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:

"Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure."

Robert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:

"Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober; "

Copyright © Gary Martin, 1996 - 2009

Heh! I may have lost a sheet or two. :laugh:
Gordon

The halyard raises the sail, and the sheet controls its angle of to the wind.

And when all the sheets are 'in the wind', then you're out of control.... :laugh:
Gordon

You're drifting aimlessly, at the mercy of wind and wave alike!
DPH

Here we go again! Gordon and his sheep fascination flying around in his toons.  :rolleyes:

And a foursome no less. :laugh:

The "Shear" lunacy.

Can't pull the "Wool" over my eyes with this one.

Gordon you are "Baaaaaad!"

You're just trying to get my goat! :laugh:

Gordon

Maybe he was hoping that you'd be 'Taken A'back!'
DPH

Could be....
Gordon
 

No not trying to get your goat Gordon. But speaking of goats let me remind you...

What would you get if you crossed a goat and a sheep?

An animal that eats tin cans and gives back steel wool

Gordon I was told in a PM a few minutes ago, that you are the only person on the planet that can answer this "burning" question...

If a sheep is a ram and a mule is an ass.

Then how come a ram in the ass is a goose?

That's 'cause geese have ASSfectations!!

I thought a goose was more of a poke. And there's a pig in a poke!
Gordon