QUESTION:
1) Definition of ' Displacement ' not found.
2) Where is the best source of tech terms such as rode,LWL, LOA and other specific sailing terms?
3) What does ' IMHO' and ' nm' stand for?

ANSWER:
Nautical Nomenclature, http://www.andrews.com/kysc/terms.html gives you most of the terms you're looking for.

Here's another site with sailing terminology: http://www.boatingchannel.com/cgi-bin/start.cgi/articles/sailing_news_test2.html?my_article=sailingterms

Here's LWL and LOA defined (Length at Water Line, Length Over All): http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Length+of+Water+Line though I found it a bit difficult to navigate - you needed the definition, it seems, to find the acronym. I didn't search Google for nautical acronyms - that might have been another option.

And on the bulletin boards you're visiting, IMHO stands for "in my humble opinion". I usually leave out the H (not that I'm not humble, just lazy, perhaps), and go for IMO. "nm" after a posting heading on a bulletin board means "no more", in other words, clicking on that heading, there's nothing posted in the body of the post.

Buzz words, most of them. learning them won't make you a better sailor, but it will help you make sense of some of the information you see.

I hope this helps.

Jeanne