How to Sail a Boat
If you fasten the bottom of a kite to the ground, you will find that the wind will do its best to blow the kite over, and if the kite is fastened to the mast of a toy boat, the wind will try to blow the boat over.
In sailing a boat the effort of the wind apparently has but one object, and that is the upsetting of the boat. The latter, being well balanced, is constantly endeavoring to sit upright on its keel, and you, as a sailor, are aiding the boat in the struggle, at the same time subverting the purpose of the wind to suit your own ideas. It is an exciting game, in which man usually comes out ahead, but the wind gains enough victories to keep its courage up.
Every boat has peculiarities of its own, and good traits as well as bad ones, which give the craft a personal character that lends much to your interest, and even affects your sensibilities to the extent of causing you to have the same affection for a good, trustworthy craft that you have for an intelligent and kind dog or horse.
A properly balanced sail-boat, with main sheet trimmed flat and free helm, should be as sensitive as a weathercock and act like one—that is, she ought to swing around until her bow pointed right into the "eye of the wind," the direction from which the wind blows. Such a craft it is not difficult to sail, but it frequently happens that the boat that is given to you to sail is not properly balanced, and shows a constant tendency to "come up in the wind"—face the wind—when you are doing your best to keep her sails full and keep her on her course. This may be caused by too much sail aft. The boat is then said to carry a weather helm.
Weather Helm.—When a boat shows a constant tendency to come up in the wind.
Lee Helm.—When a boat shows a constant tendency to fall off the wind—that is, when the wind blows her bow to the leeward. This is a much worse trait than the former, and a boat with a lee helm is a dangerous boat. It may be possible to remedy it by adding sail aft or reducing sail forward, which should immediately be done.
In spite of the fact, already stated, that the wind's constant effort is to capsize a boat, there is little or no danger of a properly rigged boat upsetting unless the sheets are fast or hampered in some way. When a sail-boat upsets it is, of course, because the wind blows it over. Now, the wind cannot blow a boat over unless the boat presents some surface larger than its hull for the wind to blow against, and the sail is the only object that offers enough surface to the breeze to cause an upset.
Fig. 130—Close-hauled. | Fig. 131.—Before the wind. |
Top view of boats, showing position of helm and boom. | |
If the sheet is slackened, the sail will swing around until it flaps like a flag and only the thin edge is presented to the wind; and a boat that a flag will upset is no boat for beginners to trust themselves in. True, the boom may be very long and heavy enough to make it dangerous to let so much of it overboard, but this is seldom the case. A good sailor keeps his eyes constantly on the sails and trims them to take advantage of the slightest favorable breeze. In place of losing control of his sail by letting go the sheets he will ease the tiller so as to "spill" part of the wind that is, let the forward part, or luff, of the sail shake a bit. Or, in case of a sudden puff of wind, he may deem it necessary to "luff"—that is, let her shake—and slacken the sheets too.
Trimmed Flat.—Sheets hauled in until the boom is only a little to the leeward of the helm ([Fig. 130]).
Close-hauled.—Sheets trimmed flat and the boat pointing as near as possible to the eye of the wind. Then the sail cannot belly, and is called flat ([Fig. 130]).