Back to Sailing LessonsLEARNING TO SAIL IS LIKE EATING PIZZA
Learning to sail requires feeling the wind, understanding how to trim the sails and boat operation. Learning on a small boat, with minimal controls, is a simple and fast way to master these skills.
Before we can sail we have to feel the wind. Your body has hundreds of small hairs that are perfectly adapted to feel even the slightest breeze. Licking your finger and holding it to the wind is really not necessary. You can also use clues around you, like other boats, flags and moving clouds. Most boats have a windex which is simply an arrow that spins to point into the wind, just like a weather vane on a barn except there isn't a chicken on top.
Now that you have determined where the wind is coming from just know this. You can't sail into the wind. In fact you can sail in any other direction except into the wind. Imagine a pizza. One slice is oriented in the direction of the wind, pull that one out and eat it. Then draw an arrow where the slice was, pointing away from the center of the pizza and directly into the wind. The pizza pie shaped void, where the slice you just ate used to be, represents the area on either side of your arrow that you can't sail.
Now a little vocabulary. If you sail close to the edge of the missing pizza slice, but still on the pizza, you are "close hauled." Meaning you are sailing close to the direction of the wind. If you are sailing roughly perpendicular to your arrow you are on a "beam reach." If you are sailing at an even greater angle away from your arrow you are on a "broad reach." These terms are helpful because they tell you how to adjust your sails.
Imagine you and a friend are holding opposite corners of a bed sheet in a stiff breeze. If you stand with your back to the wind and your friend stands downwind of you the sheet doesn't catch any wind. The wind just passes by. But if your friend takes a step to the side of you the sheet begins to catch wind. If she continues moving out into the wind the sheet billows out and becomes hard to hold. Your sheet is now across the wind and ideally situated for sailing. If you were standing on a raft you would be sailing. Congratulations Huck!
Ok we're finally on the boat. We can feel the wind directly ahead of us and our bed sheet has been replaced with a real sail above our heads. One problem though, we're not moving and our sails are not billowing. Remember the missing pizza slice? The one direction we can't sail is into the wind. So we turn away from the wind. As the boat slowly points away from the direction of the wind the sail catches air and off we go. But to really sail we need to understand how to adjust our sails.
A little more vocabulary. To control the sail there is a line called a "sheet" that attaches to the bottom of the sail to help us pull it into the wind. We "sheet in" or "sheet out" depending on whether we want to pull our sail in or let it out. If your three sheets to the wind you either have three sails up or are just really drunk. Today we only have one sheet and one sail, simple.
Before we can sail the boat we have to find the wind. Remember, you can feel it blowing those little hairs all over your body or you can cheat and look at a flag. Once we know where the wind is, we know where we can't sail. Let's turn just slightly away from the direction of the wind. Now we are sailing with our bow pointed close to the direction of the wind but one pizza slice away. It is time to adjust our sail. Remember sailing close to the wind like this is called "close hauled." So we take the sheet and pull it in close. We are pulling that sail in tight so it can catch some of the wind. If we sail on a beam reach, at about a 90 degree angle to the wind, we need to adjust our sail again. This time we let it out. Again allowing the sail to catch the wind. In both maneuvers we are adjusting the sail so the wind hits the side of it and pushes us forward.
To simplify this even further just remember these two terms: "Up Tight" or "Down and Out" If you are sailing "up" wind or towards the wind, you pull your sail in "tight." If you are sailing "down" wind, or away from the wind you let your sail "out."
To actually experience what I am talking about here you have to get out on a boat. A big part of sailing is feeling the wind and feeling the boat respond to the wind. That's why our sailing lessons emphasize hands on sailing with an instructor.