Sailing

by E. F. Knight

In the next reach, the river bends round so that we have to put the helm up and run before the wind. The lee-runner is slacked off and all the sheets are eased off.

Further on, the river bends round still more, so that we have to jibe. As the wind is strong, this must be done with certain precautions. First the peak is lowered. Then the runner is slacked off and the helm is put up. The mainsheet must be rounded in quickly till the boom is amidships, and then, as the wind strikes the sail on the other side, the sheet is paid out again. If the boom were allowed to jibe over by itself, and the mainsheet was not thus made to break the violence of the jerk, the boom would be sprung or some other serious accident would probably occur.

When the boom has jibed over, the runner which is now the weather one is set up taut and the head sheets are slacked out on the weather side and belayed on the lee side.

In the next reach, the wind is a little before the beam, so the sheets are trimmed in a bit.

So stiff a squall now strikes us that our lee gunwale and several planks of our deck are under water; so, until it is over, the mainsail is scandalized. Scandalizing a mainsail consists of tricing up the tack and lowering the peak, thus much reducing the area of canvas.

The squall over, we hoist the peak and lower the tack again. The man at the tiller now complains that in this strong wind “the vessel is carrying enough weather helm to pull his arms off.” The cause of this griping, as it is called, is plain enough. When we got under way our sails were nicely balanced, and the yacht steered easily with just a slight weather helm. But we have shifted the second jib for the third, thus reducing the head sail so much that the after sails are producing the most effect, and a lot of helm is necessary to counteract the vessel’s tendency to run up into the wind. (See Chapter III., on the balancing of sails.) We must now restore the proper balance of the sails by reducing the after sail. We can do this either by taking in the mizzen or by reefing the mainsail, and as the wind looks more like freshening than moderating, we decide to take down one reef in the mainsail.

In the first place we heave our vessel to. To do this we slack away our lee foresheet and haul in the weather one, while we flatten in the main and mizzen sheets.

The wind striking the after sails drives the vessel up in the wind; but the foresail being hauled to windward and becoming a back sail makes her pay off. By trimming the sheets properly the head and after sails can thus be made to balance each other, and the yacht will float on the water practically motionless, with her head to the wind, and remain so for as long as we please without any hand being required at the tiller.

We next lower the mainsail on deck, and remain hove to under foresail and mizzen. Having now much less after sail set, we must let the jib sheet flow and perhaps give the foresail a trifle more sheet to prevent our vessel from paying off too much.

And now to take down our reef. If the reef-pendant is not already rove, as it always should be on a short-handed craft, we proceed to reeve it. Fig. 43 will demonstrate how this is done. The boom has a comb cleat on either side of it. As we wish to take down only one reef, we reeve the pendant through the first hole of one of these cleats, a knot at the pendant end preventing it from slipping through. Then we pass it through the first reef cringle and down through the first hole of the other comb cleat.