Three sheets to the wind
Nautical lingo for someone who’s staggering drunk. Sheets are the lines used to trim a vessel’s sails, and to the wind regers to a sail flapping in the wind due to the sheets being cast loose or allowed to run free. With this, the ship loses momentum and becomes uncontrollable, which is where the analogy to the staggering walk of an inebriated sailor comes to play. As to the three sheets part, it could be a corruption of “ free sheets to the wind” (implying a lubberly handling of lines) or a refrence to how uncontrollable a sail would be with three of its sheets free to the wind.
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Oh, and by the way, if the sailor in question drank too much, he might die of barrel fever. Which meant he drank himself to death. In this case, barrel refers to the storage of alcohol in barrels aboard a vessel.
