Learn How to Sail

How do you sail on the lifted tack? Some of you probably know and some of you probably don’t even know what the lifted tack is. To tell you the truth, the lifted tack isn’t really the point of what I am telling you (it’s just the title). To learn to sail, you have to know the basics of the boat. I will be describing a 420. A 420 is a widely used, one-design, high performance racing sailboat. Its name comes from its length. A 420 is 420 centimeters in length (14 feet). Other such boats are the Laser, Laser Radial, Optimist (sometimes called opti), V15, Snipe, 505, 470, Sunfish, FJ (Flying Scot Junior), Penguin, Comet, etc. A 420 has three sails.

The first sail is the main-sail. Every boat has this. It is usually the biggest triangle-shaped sail found behind the mast (the big metal pole standing vertically in the middle). Connected to the mast is the boom. This is found near the bottom of the mast perpendicular to it. The main-sail is connected to this. The next sail is called the jib. It is another triangle sail connected from the middle of the mast to the bow of the boat. The last sail is the spinnaker, which is a beetle shaped sail (we could go into this later). This sail is only up when you are pointing below 90 degrees to the wind. Sails are controlled with lines called sheets. The sheet for the mainsail is connected to the boom, and the sheets for the jib are connected to the jib. When you pull on the sheets, the sails come in. If you let out on the sheets, the sails go out. If you want a better picture of this boat, go to http://www.teamvanguard.com/ (this is Vanguard’s homepage). Click on Club 420 under “performance boats”. At this site, you will find information on some of the other one-design boats I have specified.

So before we get the boat moving, you have to know how to control it when it does move. To steer the boat, you use the rudder. The rudder acts as a jet engine and a brake. It essentially makes water on one side of the rudder move fast and water on the other side move slow. When you turn the rudder, it forces the water away from the stern (to one side). This pushes the stern the opposite way. It also slows down the side that pushes the water. This also helps turn the boat. To turn, you push or pull the tiller (the pole connected to the rudder) in the opposite way that you want to go. If you want to go to the right (starboard), then you push the tiller to the left (port). When you turn the boat, you can either tack, or gybe (that’s how it’s spelled). A tack is when the bow of the boat crosses the direction that the wind is coming from. A gybe is when the stern crosses the direction of the wind. There are other ways to turn the boat, but they are more advanced.

So now you know the bare basics. You will still have to learn sail-trim to get the boat moving.