Chapter 4
MANUEVERING
Steering
A sailor steers a sailboat with the tiller, a stick which is attached to the rudder (a pivoting, vertical, foil that goes through the water). When one points the front of the tiller to the left (port side) of the boat, the boat will steer to the starboard (right side) and vice versa. If you have ever operated a small outboard engine on a motorboat, the steering is set up the same way. Since you will always be sitting on the windward side (side the wind hits first) of the boat (This will be the side opposite the sail.), another relation of how your tiller steering will affect the boat becomes apparent. When pushing the tiller away from your body, the boat will steer closer to the wind, or farther upwind. Sailors refer to this action as “heading up.” Conversely, when pulling the tiller towards and behind your body, the boat will steer farther away from the direction the wind is coming from. Sailors refer to this action as “falling off.” All this is difficult to visualize without being on or seeing a sailboat. The important ideas to come away with here are: the boat turns opposite the direction you move the tiller, pushing the tiller causes you to head up into the wind, and pulling the tiller causes you to fall off the wind.
As if all this wasn’t enough for a beginning sailor, there is one complication. On the boats you will be sailing, you won’t actually be holding the tiller. You will be holding a device called the tiller extension. The tiller extension is a stick attached to the end of the tiller by a universal joint. The single purpose of this device is to allow you to steer the boat from places in the boat where your arm would not be able to reach the tiller. You still want to be thinking about where the tiller is placed though; just use the tiller extension as an extension of your arm, and focus on the tiller.
No Go Zone
A sailboat cannot sail directly into the wind. The closest a sailboat can sail to the wind is about 45 degrees (depending on the boat). This means the angle from a line parallel to the wind and a line representing the course the boat is traveling (We call this the heading) can be at a minimum of 45 degrees. Now there is 45 degrees of “No Go Zone” on each side of the wind, therefore the total No Go Zone is 90 degrees (centered at the direction the wind is coming from). That leaves 270 degrees for us to sail in!
| Tacking A tack is a certain type of turn in a Sailboat in which one takes the heading of the boat all the way through the No Go Zone. This means the bow will cross through the direction of the wind. The first question most new sailors have is how this can happen if we can’t sail through the No Go Zone. It is true that going through the No Go Zone the sailboat will not have any power. This is why we really need speed before the tack. It is our momentum that will carry us through the tack. If we don’t have enough speed, we will get stuck without power in the middle of the No Go Zone. Sailors have a special name for this; it is called being “stuck in irons,” like as if you had iron shackles tying you down. Try to avoid this; it’s not fun. To properly execute the tack, you need to be sailing relatively close to the wind with your sail properly trimmed for maximum speed. Sail trim will be covered in other sections. The first step is to look behind you at about 90 degrees to the heading your boat is currently at. This will be your new course after the tack so it is important to make sure it is clear of other boats or obstructions. Now that you see your new course will be clear, you want to gently push your tiller towards your sail. You don’t want to jam your tiller over, but at the same time you don’t want to give it a wimpy push. If you push it too slow you could get stuck in irons as was discussed above. As your boat approaches the wind, the sail will start to luff. Luffing is what sailors call it when their sail is flapping like a flag. As the sail starts to luff more and more, it will approach the middle and eventually your side of the boat. You need to be ready for this and duck as you see the boom come towards you. You want to switch sides as the sail is switching sides to keep the boat balanced. As you switch sides there are a few key things you need to do with your hands and body to keep yourself from getting tangled up. The first step in crossing the boat is to move your back foot across the boat as to turn your torso forward. Then you must take your hand that you are holding your sheet with and put it behind your back as you shift your weight to the middle of the boat. The next step is a behind the back pass, switching the sheet into your tiller hand. With both the tiller and sheet in one hand you now sit on the other side of the boat as the sail fills on the opposite side it was on when you started your tack. Now with your free hand grab the sheet from the hand holding both the tiller and sheet. You should now be sailing on the other side of the wind than you were before. Tacking Demonstration: Click to Play |
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Jibing Like tacking, jibing is another useful sailing maneuver. During the tack, the bow (front) of the boat turns though the wind to make a directional change. The jibe, in simple terms, is the opposite of a tack where the stern (rear) of the boat turns through the wind. |
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Jibing Demonstration: Click to Play
