How did the Head get it's name?

The toilet on a sailing vessel is called the head, but how did it get it's name?

What you may not know is unlike modern sailing vessels, the big sailing vessels of the past - because of the way they were rigged - could only sail with the wind. In other words, the wind must be behind them.

It was not until the invention of modern rigging that sailors could sail in almost any direction, except directly into the wind. In fact, out of 360 degrees, only 60-100 degrees of direction are not sailable in modern sailing vessels, as there would not be enough wind in the sails for forward progress to outweigh the pushback from the wind. This area of water directly into the wind (the red wedge shown below or A and B) is called the No Go Zone. Given this diagram, I would presume the only direction the older rigged sailing vessels could sail would be the 60-100 degrees in the D and E direction. 

 Points of sail for modern sailing vessels

So back to why the head is named the head. Well, as you can imagine the head of a sailing vessel could get pretty stinky. In their ultimate wisdom, ship designers put this area down-wind and as far away from other areas as they could, thus because of their direction of travel ... At the head of the ship.

The other benefit to this location was, because the head would empty directly to the sea, the chutes were regularly cleansed by sea-water that washed up into the openings while the ship was at sea.