The side lights should be kept clean and the lamps properly trimmed. Use signal oil in them. After lighting the lamps below place them in the lanterns, and let them burn for some minutes with the door open. This will dry out the moisture and allow it to escape. If you don’t do this, your glass will cloud with watery vapor. The cause of these lights refusing to burn is generally want of air, owing to overheating. The gas inside preventing the fresh oxygen from entering.
Working forward at night:
If you send a man forward of a rough dark night, put a light line around him and have it fast aft, or else have another hand hold it. This should always be done if a headsail is to be taken in, as more men are lost off the bowsprit than from any other spar.
Lookout:
Always at night, if sailing in waters frequented by other vessels, keep a good lookout. If two men are in the watch, have one forward whenever you get among other craft, as it is difficult to keep a close watch to leeward from the cockpit. The helmsman should keep a lookout to windward and astern.
Watch tackle:
A watch tackle or Handy Billy is most useful contrivance, and should have a place on every cruising boat. It is made of a single and double block, both having hooks, or else the single having a hook and the double an eye. For a small yacht, blocks carrying a 15-thread rope are heavy enough. When stretched to its best there should be at least 15 feet drift between the blocks. This tackle saves oceans of labor, and makes the heaviest job light. If your anchor sticks, Handy Billy will bring him to terms. If you get aground, he will give a strong pull on the warp to get you off. If the bobstay breaks, or a shroud parts, he will help to keep the mast in while repairs are being made. You want good, strong blocks, as there is a tremendous strain when all the beef is on this tackle. Keep Handy Billy in a safe and easily accessible place, and he will pay you well for his lodgings.
Tack, which:
This is something that many men get sadly mixed on, and consequently are frequently violating the rules of the road. A vessel is on the starboard tack when her boom is on the port side and the wind is blowing on her starboard side. She is on the port tack when the boom is on the starboard side and the wind is blowing on her port side. Not only are there men sailing who in an emergency cannot tell the port side from the starboard, but who do not know their right from their left hand. One day I was watching a sergeant drilling a squad of recruits. He said to me, “would you believe it, half these men don’t know their right from their left hand.” Upon my questioning this, he suddenly commanded them to raise their right hands, two lifted the right, one the left, and the other three looked doubtfully at both for some seconds before raising the right one up. You can always know when you are on the starboard tack in this way: Standing at the helm and facing forward, if your right hand is on the side from which the wind is blowing you are on the starboard tack. When I was a boy, and even to-day in an emergency, I always tell my right hand by thinking which hand I would throw a stone with.