May Your Sails be Tight...

Hello All,

Joy here once again with a few more tidbits and sailing terms for those of you who are interested in learning. Keep in mind that I’m no expert…I’m still learning myself, but it’s a lot of fun so I wanted to share what I’m learning with all of you.

I’m going to try and keep this one relatively short (I know I tend to get carried away). In the last post we talked about terms used to describe the basic parts of a sailboats, and the directions ON a sailboat so this time I’m going to talk about what makes a sailboat move.

Yup, you guessed it… wind.

Chris will correct me here by pointing out that the boat actually moves through the water thanks to the difference in air pressure that is created when the wind moves over the sails… but that gets complicated, so ….back to wind.

First we are going to talk about how to describe the wind as it relates to the boat itself. For instance, if a sailor says the wind is “abeam” it means that the wind is travelling across the beam of the boat, which is it’s widest area (so the wind is travelling across the center of the boat from port to starboard or vice versa)

This can also be described by saying “we’re on a beam reach“. A beam reach is the fastest point of sail simply because the wind is aiming directly at (and therefore pushing) the full width and height of whatever sail or sails are up.

If a sailor refers to being “close hauled” it means that the sailboat is sailing as close to the wind as possible. A sailboat cannot sail directly into the wind, it must sail at at least 30 degrees to the wind (depending on the type of boat).

The easiest way to know where your wind is coming from (aside from feeling it on your face) is to look up at the top of the mast where there will generally be a wind vane. The piece that spins with the wind is shaped like an arrow. Below the arrow is a piece of metal with a v that branches off at the back. If the tail of the arrow is within the v at the back, the boat cannot sail on that heading.

This is called being “in irons” (because the v is made of iron) … in order to continue forward, the sailors in question have to adjust the heading and then change the sails to take advantage of the new angle of the wind. This is known as Tacking or Gybing. (more info on this was on the first post)

A Broad Reach describes when the wind is coming between the stern and the side of the boat at approximately a 45 degree angle. This is the easiest, most natural point of sail. If the wind is directly behind you, it is known as downwind sailing (sometimes referred to as running before the wind). The best way to take advantage of a tailwind (as its known), is to adjust the sails outward from the mast, one on each side and therefore present the largest amount of sail to the wind. This is known as Wing on Wing sailing.

It is interesting to note once more that early explorers had no choice but to follow the course of the wind and/or, wait for the winds to change in order to get where they were going.

Square-rigged ships, such as the one that Colombus used had sail which could only be adjusted a little bit in each direction, so all of their sailing was basically downwind.

Here is a simple diagram to help those of you who (like me) work better with visual information. The pink shaded bit shows the area I referred to earlier as ‘being in irons”

Alright…is your brain melting yet?

Mine is…. so I’m off to soak in the pool. I will leave you with a short sailor’s prayer that I think says it all…

May your sails be tight.

Your cork be loose,

Your rum be spiced,

and your compass be true!

Toodles for now and Pura Vida