Beam Ends
A Ship is in imminent danger of sinking when she heels over so far she may not be able to regain her normal, upright position. In this condition, her deck beams are almost perpendicular to the water's surface and she is said, since the 1750s, to be on her "beam ends."
Loss of HMS' Ramillies', September 1782: On her Beam Ends, by Robert Dodd (1748–1815)
A sailor who is on his beam ends is flat broke and at a loss for any prospect to right himself.








