Be careful though. There is a definition of "freeze the balls off a brass monkey" that is blatantly incorrect. The story goes that cannon balls would be stacked on a brass frame and when the frame got cold it would shrink and the balls would roll away. Such an arrangement would never work at sea. The rolling of the ship would overbalance the stack in any weather and you would have cannon balls rolling every which way.

That phrase may have come from land batteries though. With the possible exception of a view through too much rum the land generally stays pretty stable.

Some common phrases that have come ashore from the sailing navies: son of a gun; take a different tack; top man. I know there are a lot more out there. C'mon gang join the fun.