September 21, 2012
Liking needing a driver’s license to rent a car, I need to qualify for renting a sail boat. This means taking lessons until I can handle a boat reasonably. For Center for Wooden Boats, where I have been taking lessons, “check out” is the equivalent of driving test. I need to know how to tack, jibe, get out of the iron, and getting in and out of the dock — yes, lingua franca for the sailing universe.
For my boat, there are only three things to maneuver: ropes (called sheets) to control two sails (main and jib) and the tiller to controls the rudder. How hard can it be? All I have to learn is to read the wind.
And reading the wind is all sailors do. The whole lingua franca is about describing the wind, the boat, and the sails (or the sheets, the ropes that connect to the sail). My coaches are all very sensitive and aware of the wind. They describe the wind in very accurate terms, for both the direction and the strength. To “tack,” you began with a upwind position (wind blowing against the heading of the boat) and you steer the boat across the eye of the wind (meaning the wind is dead ahead, like a person staring at you). To “jibe,” the boat was going downwind, and you steer the stern of the boat across the eye. From the helmsman’s point of view, tacking means pushing the tiller “leeward” (downwind) and jibing “windward” or “to the weather.”
The “driving test” consists of getting the boat out of the dock, sail in a big circle (and therefore face the wind in all conditions) and getting back to the dock.
I am now officially a beginner sailor.