The Book of the Sailboat: How to rig, sail and handle small boats

by A. Hyatt Verrill

Very few amateur sailors will ever need to go into the details of dead reckoning, but it is often convenient to be able to determine roughly where you are and you should strive to become so accustomed to your boat’s speed under various conditions that you can guess very closely how far and how fast she has sailed. You should also study the charts of your vicinity and learn all about the tides and currents and should be able to judge of the leeway you are making, as well as to form an accurate idea of the weight of the wind or the speed at which it is blowing. All these things are a part of knowing how to sail and handling a boat and they will come in mighty handy sooner or later.

Many a race has been won by a man or boy knowing the currents and tides and taking advantage of them. If you are out in a fog or in darkness your knowledge of winds, currents and other conditions will enable you to steer a true course and reach port, whereas, if ignorant of these simple matters, you might be compelled to drift about for hours until you could see your surroundings.

Until you have tried you can have no idea of how much you can learn about such matters or what a keen sense of location and direction you can develop. The fishermen on the coast of Maine and other parts of New England know the currents, winds and tides of their waters so well that thick fogs or the darkest nights have no terrors for them. I have seen a Maine fisherman sail his schooner straight for the rocky, reef-fringed coast through the thickest fog and drive into a narrow harbor entrance as surely as if he was following a well marked lane of buoys. Yet nothing could be seen and the roar of surf was deafening and to make a mistake of a hundred feet in his course meant certain death and the loss of the vessel.

These men don’t know how they know where they are or how they are able to find their way blindly on these dangerous coasts when nothing can be seen. They will tell you it’s “by the lay of the land,” although the land cannot be seen, or they may say they “smell where they are,” but as a matter of fact it is owing to their intimate knowledge of conditions and surroundings which has become such a part of their daily life that they are perfectly unconscious of it.

Of course the amateur sailor can scarcely hope to become as expert as these old shellbacks who have spent their lives knocking about in boats, but you can readily learn the bearings of certain places, the location of certain tide-rips and the direction and flow of certain currents in the waters where you sail and these will all help to guide you when sailing in darkness or in fog.

Fog is perhaps the greatest danger that menaces sailors along the coasts, for a thick fog not only hides all objects and surroundings, but when something is seen it is often so distorted, so spectral or so unusual in appearance that it is hard to recognize the most familiar landmarks. Moreover it is next to impossible to judge of distance in a fog and an object, seen dimly through the mist and apparently far away, may be close at hand or again something which looms seemingly near may really be far away. Sound also is distorted by fogs and even old hands are often woefully deceived as to the direction and distance of sounds heard through fog.

Sometimes, too, a fog may settle low and high objects may be visible above it, or again it may lift and hide all objects above a certain height and yet leave things close to the water within plain sight.

In most places the approach of fogs may be readily seen, but quite frequently a fog will come on very suddenly or a light mist may suddenly shut in as a dense fog, while in some places fogs almost always occur at certain seasons or at certain hours and can be expected at such times.

If a fog is seen approaching, or a light mist commences to thicken up, always try to make port before it becomes dense. If you have a compass make a note of the direction you must steer, look about for vessels that may be in your course and note the direction of the wind, the waves and the courses other craft are sailing, if any can be seen.

If you have no compass note the direction of the waves and wind as compared with the course you wish to take, pick out some prominent landmark or beacon for which you can steer and when the fog shuts in guide your course by the waves and not by the wind, for a wind often shifts about when the fog arrives.