Sailing cheat sheet

When we write about our sailing experiences, we have to walk a fine line between boring the experienced sailor and confusing the non-sailor. If we're erring in the former direction, we're sorry; if we're erring in the latter, we hope this cheat sheet will help. This information won't enable you to actually go out and sail, but it might help you fake it in a yacht club bar.

Some basic terms

We usually refer to our living accomodations using house-terms rather than boat-terms, not just in our web pages but in our daily speech. We sleep in a bed, not a berth; cook in the kitchen, not the galley; and use the bathroom, not the head. We say "floor" when we mean the cabin sole, even though the word "floor" has a special meaning on a boat (something to do with what's underneath the sole). We also have never gotten into the habit of referring to the boat as "she". But other than that, we try to call things by their proper names.

The house-part of the boat, roughly, is everything belowdecks. Above, there is the cockpit, from which we drive the boat. We move from one to the other via the companionway. The cockpit is shaded by the canvas bimini top above it, and by the dodger in front of it, which also keeps out the spray when we are underway. In front of the cockpit is the deck; the raised part is the coachroof, and the lower parts along the side are the side decks. Things are stored in built-in compartments called lockers, of which the largest is the lazarette which on Windom also gives access to the engine.

There is no "rope" aboard, but there are lots of lines, which look an awful lot like ropes to the uninitiated. Lines which are used to raise sails are called halyards. Lines which are used to control sails are called sheets. The line and the chain which are attached to the anchor are called rode. Lots of lines have special names describing their function, such as the mainsail outhaul, which (unsurprisingly) hauls out the mainsail.

Many lines run through blocks, which when not on boats are frequently called pulleys. We have about twenty-three gazillion blocks on board. They keep the force on the lines in the proper direction, and sometimes add mechanical advantage. Another way of increasing our musclepower through mechanical advantage is the winch. We have four winches, not counting the windlass which is an electrically-powered winch for raising the anchor. When a line needs to be fastened down, or "made fast", we usually cleat it off, i.e. tie it onto a cleat.

Blocks on the left, a winch on the right.

Windom is a sloop, which means that it has one mast, with a single headsail in front of the mast and a single mainsail behind the mast. The mast is held up by a number of cables called stays and shrouds. The mainsail, which we usually just call the "main", extends along a horizontal spar, the boom, behind the mast. On Windom this is a roller furling sail; rather than being stored on top of the boom and raised using a halyard, it rolls up inside the mast and is unfurled by pulling on the outhaul. The outhaul can also be used to tighten the sail so it is nearly flat, or left looser to create a belly to be filled by the wind. The position of the main is controlled in two ways. The mainsheet is attached to the boom; the looser it is, the more the boom can be swung out to the side. The mainsheet is attached to a block on a sliding car on the traveler, a rail running side-to-side across the deck in front of the cockpit, about four feet long, which is used to position the mainsheet. If the mainsheet is very loose, the boom has much more freedom to swing. To keep the boom from swinging back across the centerline of the boat, we have a line called a preventer attached to each side of the boom, which can be cleated off or even winched tightly.

The headsail is also called a jib, or a genoa ("genny"), depending on the sail's size; ours is technically a genoa but we usually call it the jib. We have a roller-furling jib, as do most modern cruising boats, which means that it rolls up around the headstay (the cable connecting the top of the mast to the bow of the boat) like a roll of paper towels. The jib is controlled by sheets running from the free corner of the sail back to winches in the cockpit, one on each side. Usually the jib billows out freely, but when going downwind we often use the whisker pole to hold out the sail and give it shape. The whisker pole is connected at one end to the mast, and to use it we hook the other end around the jib sheet, near the sail. We get the pole into position using a halyard and a variety of other lines. When it's not in use, the pole rests in a vertical track along the front of the mast.

Points of sail

Sailboats are powered by the wind. When the wind is behind them they are pushed by it, when the wind is more forward they are propelled by a combination of lift from the curved sails, the forward component of the wind's force on the sail, and the resistive force of the water against the boat's keel. Pushing is less effective than the other forces, so we need more wind to go downwind at the same speed than to go upwind. Of course, there is a limit to how close to the wind a boat can sail. It depends somewhat on the windspeed and on any current effects, but in general Windom can sail up to about 60 degrees off the wind direction. A little closer than that, and we are pinching; we can sail, but the sails will be inefficient and our speed poor. Much closer, and the sails begin to flog, which is noisy and bad for the sail, and they may catch the wind from the wrong side, or backwind, which is bad for our speed.

Sailing close-hauled, or into the wind, the sails are set on the downwind, or lee side of the boat, but close to the centerline.The main is centered (or even set slightly upwind, using the traveler) and the jibsheet is cranked with the winch until the sail is sheeted in as tightly as possible. The boat will heel -- tilt sideways away from the wind -- from the force of the wind on the sail. If we are out in open water, we will also be crashing into the waves. Not fun.

If we turn a little more away from the wind, so that it hits us more or less sideways -- on the beam -- we are on a beam reach. The sheets are eased, which means that the sails are less tightly pulled in toward the center of the boat. The main is angled out instead of tight to the center. The boat heels less. Turning even further downwind puts us on a broad reach, which is usually the fastest and most comfortable point of sail. With the wind about 120 behind us, the sails are well out to the lee side and we are hardly heeling at all.

Another turn away from the wind will have us running downwind. On a run, the boat doesn't heel, but it will roll from side to side as variations in the waves strike the hull. The main will tend to blanket the jib, stealing its wind and causing the jib to slacken and flop. We solve this problem by running wing and wing with one sail on each side of the boat, both sails set as wide (perpendicular to the boat) as possible. This works best when the wind is directly behind us and there are no waves shoving us around; in open water, or slightly off the wind, we set the jib on the upwind (or weather) side, using the whisker pole to hold the jib and keep it from collapsing. We will also tightly winch down the lee side preventer, so the boom won't swing across the boat when we roll. But there is only a narrow range of relative wind direction where we can sail like this without catching the wind on the wrong side of one or the other sail, backwinding the sail.

If the sails are set on the left, or port side,then the wind is crossing the boat from the right, or starboard, and we are sailing on starboard tack. Vice versa for port tack. Wing and wing is considered starboard tack if the wind that hits the main goes over the starboard side of the boat. There are two ways to change tack, and which we do usually depends on what point of sail we are on. Bringing the bow of the boat through the wind (so that we briefly point directly into the wind) is tacking. Bringing the stern of the boat through the wind (so that we briefly point directly downwind) is jibing. In both cases, the jib sheet which is controlling the jib is cast off, and the opposite one pulled in on the other side of the cockpit. We usually tack when we are already fairly close-hauled, so the main will be mostly centered and can take care of itself. Jibing is more complicated because this is done when going downwind, so the main will be way out to one side and will need to be centered for the jibe, then let out on the other side. Otherwise, the boom will swing across the boat with great force and possibly break something. Jibing gets even more complicated when we have the whisker pole out, as we can't just flop the jib from one side to the other but have to roll it in, swap the pole to the other jib sheet, and then roll it out again.

When the wind gets windier, we reduce our sail area, or reef the sails. Since both sails are roller furling, this is generally a simple matter of partially rolling in the sails. The opposite of this heavy weather is light air, and since we can't roll out the sails any bigger than they are, if we have really light air we either ghost along slowly, or start the engine. Unless there is absolutely no wind and no waves, we always prefer to have at least the mainsail up while underway because it steadies the boat and counteracts any rolling motion, as well as adds to our speed. If the wind is too light to make the speed we want, or our course is too much into the wind to sail and we don't have the time or inclination to tack upwind, we motorsail, usually with only the mainsail up. We may have to power-tack from one side to the other in order to make a course directly into the wind in this case.

We hope this helps you understand what we're talking about when we "talk sail".