1. Practice getting around on deck until it's second nature,
before heading out.
After a lot of time staring at this particular shape sitting rooted
to the garage floor, all of a sudden we see it bobbing and nodding
in the water like a live thing. And this is a lot more impressive
to those of us who've spent a lot of time seeing it static, than
it would be to a passerby, -or to somebody who bought their boat
from a store.
All of a sudden we must re-acquaint ourselves with the project:
-as a moving entity with a definite performance personality all
its own (and hopefully a nice one). So we sit down on a dock-locker
and drink in this new addition to the maritime world that we've
created.
Ok, that done, we get on board. Every small boat will seem unsettlingly
tender and easy to tip when we first step on board. After an hour
on the boat, it won't seem so tippy, but at first feel, it will
always strike us as alarmingly unstable.
If we've built the boat instead of just buying it, we will have
spent enough time on board to have our footing down and know our
way around the deck without too much tripping. If we've built
the last stages of the boat with it sitting on a sprung trailer,
we'll have an even better "footing sense" of how to
get around it fast without tripping over things. But if we haven't
done either, it wouldn't hurt to take a half hour at the dock
to get a feel for how the boat reacts to our weight when we move
around, -before we head out on the briney.
Different hulls will tip differently when we walk to the side
of the boat. A rounded, deep keel boat will be slow to tip initially
but will keep on tipping until the weight of the keel starts to
resist further heeling. A keel-less boat like the Weekender will
feel different. It will tip faster, but then it will firm-up more
quickly as the buoyancy along the hull sides comes into play.
So where a keel boat will slowly tip, -but then keep on tipping
until we go white in the face, the Weekender will quickly tip,
then just as quickly bring the tipping to a stop, in less than
extreme conditions. So it's a good idea if we spend a little time
at the dock just tipping the boat and making a lot of waves and
annoying other boaters while we build up confidence in our muscles
and balance to how the hull reacts to rolling. It 's just one
more thing we can get accustomed to before our attention is taken
up with the forward-motion thing: sailing.
2. Practice raising and lowering sails, rudder, and motor -while
the boat's still on the trailer.
For complete beginners, it's good also to get a feel for where
the controls of the boat are: -and to figure out before hand what
they do. This can be done (if you don't mind having passersby
stare at you and make salty comments) in the driveway just as
well as at a dock. And also we need to figure out what to expect
if we do nothing and turn everything loose and let the boat do
what it wants to. A nicely balanced boat will have a little "weather-helm"
which means if we turned loose of the steering (hull-control)
and the sheets (sail control), the boat will simply pull its nose
up into the wind and sit there with its sails flapping noisily,
but harmlessly.
This is where sailboats are different from what we've become accustomed
to with motor-powered machines: the louder a sailboat is, the
more harmless it is. The loudness comes from a sail flapping,
which means it's not harnessing the power of the wind. So if we
pull up into the wind to make an adjustment or a crew-change and
the sails become really alarmingly loud, -we just ignore them.
It's when they're quiet and pulling hard, that we need to pay
close attention to them.
There's nothing to say that, after a nice fast tack across a passage
we might not want to just pull up into the wind and let the sails
flap away noisily if we happen to feel like taking a quick break
to gather our wits, when we're first learning our way around a
new boat.
Since a sailboat can't sail directly into the wind, -if we want
to stop a minute, we just point the nose into the wind. When we
point the nose off from the direction of the wind, -then we'll
start sailing if we pull in on the sails.
The rope controlling the bottom of each sail (mainsheet or jib
sheet) is sometimes thought of as the gas-pedal of the boat. But
again, it's different from a motor machine. If we pull in too
far on this gas pedal, we'll begin to lose power. It's like this:
If the nose of the boat is pointing say about 45 degrees away
to one side from the direction of the wind; -then if we do nothing,
the sails will just flap away, trailing out downwind like weather
vanes.
3. Get a basic idea of how a sailboat has to slice across the
face of the wind to work to windward.
When we start to pull in on the sheets, two things will happen:
the boat will begin to tip, and the boat will begin to move forward.
The more we pull in, the more it will do both. If we move our
weight toward where the wind is coming from, then we can pull
in more without too much tipping, -and go faster. But if we pull
in too much in a hard breeze, most of the sail power will go into
tipping, and not so much into making us go forward faster. -So
pulling in more, doesn't always mean going faster, like stomping
on a gas pedal harder makes us go faster.
Since we ourselves have spent a lot of time sailing land-yachts
where we sail almost all the time close-hauled on the "apparent-wind"
we happened to build up the bad habit of pulling in too hard on
the sails in water-borne boats. We constantly have to keep reminding
ourselves to ease out of the sails a little to go faster (and
we see a lot of beginners making the same mistake). Generally,
as far out that you can let the sail fly and still keep its shape
will get us a good forward speed with minimum tipping. Lots of
time we'll have everything hauled in tight, with the boat heeled
hard over and thinking we're really flying because of the drama
of the situation. But if we'd just ease up a little and let out
on the sails, in many situations the boat will suddenly stand
up straighter and make better time forward, with a calmer demeanor.
If the winds happen to be very light, and if we're sailing to
windward, many times we'll want a little extra angle of heel to
help her make progress up into the wind. With a keelboat, the
deep keel does the job of vectoring the hull up toward the direction
of the wind. But since the Weekender doesn't have a deep keel,
it relies on the shape of the chines at the hull sides to lift
us to windward. She's a very respectable performer to windward
and generally makes it around an upwind point as well or better
than most boats in the harbor. But we have to make sure she's
heeling some or she won't do it. In normal breezes, this comes
naturally and happens whether we pay attention or not. But if
the breeze is too light to tip us, we sit on the downwind side
of the boat to make her heel. Then she takes off.
IMPORTANT POINT:
Another difference between keel boats and the weekender is hull-direction
to windward. A keel boat will point the way she's going, while
the Weekender will sometimes not face her nose as close to the
wind, -but will be able to reach a windward point just as well
as a keel-boat pointing closer at the wind direction. This is
because the chines are pushing the weekender up to windward, even
though she's may not be pointing quite as high as the boat running
next to her. Since the most important thing is actually reaching
a point to windward, not just the way the boat faces it nose,
-we learn not to try to keep her nose pointed as closely to the
wind as the keel-boats have theirs pointing. We'll still beat
them out the harbor a surprising amount of the time. Another by-product
of this having-our-nose-off-more-to-leeward-while-sailing-to-windward
is in the set of the sails. On a weekender we catch ourselves
pulling in the sails too far sometimes, not realise that even
though we're making good windward progress, the boat isn't facing
so much to windward as a keelboat, so we don't need to pull in
the sails so tight. In fact, we can be slowing out speed and increasing
the slide off to leeward by pulling the sails in as tightly as
we might on a keel boat. We constantly remind ourselves to let
the sails out until they flap, then haul in a little to make a
nice full shape; -and things speed up right away.
We've learned over the years that, even thought she may do things
a little differently than some boats, she's a very respectable
performer, -if we let her do things her way. In a keel-boat, when
we take out on a tack from dead stop, -we simply point the boat,
set the sails, and it moves out. With the Weekender, it's more
like a catamaran: we often let her run off the wind a few seconds
to build up speed so that the hull shape can start doing its job
of lifting us to windward. Since she's light and a fast accelerator,
this is usually done in just the first few seconds of a particular
tack. The Weekender is not as different from a monohull keelboat
in sailing technique as a catamaran is; -but it does take its
own style of handling.
Downwind is a little different. When we're going up to windward,
we can't point a sailboat directly toward the wind, so we scoot
along at an angle until we get off to one side from where we want
to end up, then we zig back to the other side of the wind direction,
zigging and zagging as we work toward where we want to go: "tacking
to windward".
Downwind we can point the boat in any direction away from the
wind. But oddly enough, going directly downwind in some boats
can be a little dangerous. They can develop what they call the
"Death Roll", since the wind is no longer heeling the
boat to one side or the other. Also, the sail sometimes doesn't
know which side of the boat it prefers when going ddw(dead downwind)
and if it decides (through a direction change or windchange) to
switch sides, it can do it very fast, mowing down anything or
anybody who gets in its way. That's why we usually zig-zag downwind
even though we don't really have to. It 's a habit we picked up
with landsailers, and it keeps the sails happily on one side or
the other. And since the boat picks up a little apparent wind
when angling across the wind direction, we can end up going enough
faster to make up for the longer zig-zag course we're taking and
get there sooner.
4. For your first sail, work up a flight-plan in your mind
to give yourself maximum margin for error.
Sail sort of upwind on your first leg, so if anything goes wrong,
you can always drift back, readjust, and take off again. Keep
tides in mind too, and sail against it at first so you can drift
back if needed.
So now we have a plan how to calm the boat down if we want to
take a little break from the excitement, -we know how to keep
things calm going down-wind, and we have a feel for the motion
of the boat. Now it's time to raise some sail and make some wakes.
We always try to point the nose into the wind before raising the
sails. If we're new or rusty at his, we'll pull the boat on the
trailer pointing is nose into the wind, -and we'll raise the mast,
then raise the sails too, just to get the lines run out nicely
and for a little practice before we do the same thing on the water.
We'll raise the mainsail first when the nose is pointed into the
wind. If we have to raise sail without the nose pointed into the
wind, we'll put of the jib first. The idea is to put up the downwind
sail first so the boat weathervanes harmlessly. If we try to put
up the upwind sail first, she'll do a quick 180 just to set things
right.
So we raise the main, checking to make sure the mainsheet is free
so the sail can blow anyway it wants until we're ready for its
power. Again, if it's blowing hard, we pay no attention to the
noise it's making. We coil up the loose ends of the halyards so
we won't be tripping over them, -and so we can also drop the sails
anytime we want to.
We check to make sure both the front of the gaff and the back
ends are pulled up tight. Later, if we're heading for a long downwind
run, we may well loosen the line to the back end of the gaff (the
peak halyard) a little. But this is fine-tuning we'll deal with
after everything is well under control.
5. Pick your day's conditions.
It's your boat and your trial-sail, so don't let others pressure
you into heading out when you don't feel like it. With a nice
steady 12-knot breeze we've seen a girl master the sailing of
a Weekender at her eighth birthday party. Other days, with sharp
gusts and an ugly steep chop, no one in their right mind wants
to go sailing in any boat. So wait, if you need to. It won't take
long 'til you won't have to be so careful about conditions.
With both sails up, we start to think about pushing the nose off
away from the dock so the boat can catch the wind at an angle,
so we can pull in on the sail sheets, so we can go sailing.
OK, now we're moving. It will seem fast at first with any wind
at all. But we'll soon get used to this and be looking for more
speed. But right now we take a second to take stock with a quick
360 look around. What's the traffic like? Which way is the wind
coming from? Is the rudder pulled down all the way hard? Is there
a water current we need to keep in mind? In short, we size up
any threats to us if we keep on this nice comfortable tack. Since
we haven't got a feel for the boat's speed or its tacking capabilities,
we play it real safe on the first part of the first sail.
We sail to windward so that if anything goes wrong we can always
drift off back downwind to our starting point. Also this will
let us practice tacking in this particular boat so we get it to
where it's second nature before we start trying something fancy.
We keep to the windward side of the channel to leave us maximum
maneuvering room if we need to make adjustments or (heaven forbid)
make a tacking mistake. And we are VERY polite with the other
traffic, giving the right-of -way to all bigger craft, even if
the point is debatable. When approaching other boats, we try to
keep a steady course so it's as easy as possible for them to guess
which way we're headed. (We can go "head-hunting" and
driving everybody crazy with our racing tactics on a later sail
when we've got the feel of things).
Now we try a tack when the coast is clear. The Weekender is usually
very easy to tack, but any boat can get stuck in irons, with its
nose pointed in the wind, -if the skipper really works at it.
If we ever find ourselves stuck between one tack and the other,
we wait a few seconds until we build up a little backwards speed.
Then we throw the rudder over hard so the rear of the boat turns
up into the wind, the bow falls off the wind, and we can pull
in on the sails and tear off again. No harm done, but again, -with
a Weekender it's very rare to mess up a tack. If we're squirreling
around wanting to make lightning-fast tacks for fun, we let her
build up maximum speed, then we quickly turn the jib loose (so
it's no longer holding the bow away from the wind) and we pull
in way too hard on the mainsail boom, -just as we whip the rudder
over. She'll shoot through the eye of the wind, -and we quickly
pull in the jib, then the mainsail.
For tacking to a roughly equal angle to both sides of the wind,
we usually ignore the jib altogether. The club-foot jib control
of the Weekender will take care of everything by itself. In fact,
most of the time we simply steer the boat on its zig-zag course,
and the sails will take care of themselves, -unlike most sloops
where the jib sheet has to the unhooked from one side and pulled
in on the other with every tack.
OK, we've survived the first few tacks with ease. We've worked
our way up to windward a ways so we might as well swing around
and try some downwind sailing. She makes this turn easily and
all of a sudden, -things are much quieter. Going downwind we've
not only subtracted the boat speed from the windspeed to make
the breeze seem less, but we've also made the waves seem much
smaller because now we're going with them instead of punching
through them.
If we're looking for Viking spray-in-the-teeth excitement, we'll
work to windward. If we get tired of this, we can usually change
the mood dramatically by turning downwind. There are those who
stick by the motto "Gentlemen don't sail to windward,"
(meaning you let the crew handle that and only take over when
things calm back down, downwind).
Downwind, generally the sails are let way out to catch the wind
like a galleon. Now we'll try a jibe, which is a zig-movement
like a tack, -only done downwind with the breeze behind us. Since
the boom was let way out to catch the wind, when it comes across
the boat to catch the boat from the other side, it will be completely
loose if we let the lines stay slack. This often means it will
slam across from one side to the other, and this is why jibing
is thought of as dangerous. It doesn't have to be.
The main "danger" is the boom that's uncontrolled and
let to slam to the other side. With a boat as small as the Weekender,
all we have to do is grab the boom before it wants to cross over,
and pull it across manually and under complete control. On a larger
boat, we can pull rapidly in on the mainsheet to pull the boom
into the center of the boat, the let it out to the other side,
also under control.
The boom is only a threat if it's allowed to roam around loose.
And the advantage of small boats is that we can manhandle the
boom just about anytime we want to by simply grabbing it.
OK. We're getting to be pros. Upwind, downwind, in milady's chamber,
we've got this sailing business well in hand (as long as we always
keep the wind direction, and traffic direction clearly understood
in the back of our head). We try making a couple windward points
and checking how we stack up to other bigger boats. Damned respectably,
and sometime we can even make a bigger boat skipper start fiddling
with his sheets, trying to change his sail set so he can shake
this pesky little sloop off his tail.
6. Once things are under control, we can start to run "drills"
to learn how to manage the boat in various conditions.
The beaching-drill, the dousing sails-drill, the raising sails
at sea drill, the see how far you can tip the boat by sitting
in the wrong place-drill (this really demonstrates how well the
boat recovers and builds confidence for all kinds of sailing in
the Weekender).
Suddenly we're hungry. And since this has been a moment-by-moment
action-packed adventure, we wouldn't mind beaching her for a picnic.
What do we do?
Sail toward the beach, and when we're getting fairly close we
untie the rudder lanyard, holding the rudder in its down-position;
-but we don't turn it loose yet. When the rudder floats up to
its raised-position, it will be like an old-style 19th century
rudder (which means "not very effective"). It will work,
but the boat won't be as happy as it is with the rudder down hard
and the gaff peak up hard. So we hold the lanyard in our hand
so we can feel when it starts hitting the bottom. Then we just
sit looking casual as everybody on the beach waves to warn us
that we'll wreck our keel on the beach if we come in there. Sailboats
like this just don't sail right up onto the beach.
Well, we can't blame them. They've probably never been around
Weekenders. As the keel slithers to a gentle stop in the sand,
we turn all sails loose, walk forward on the deck and drop lightly
from the bowsprit onto the dry sand without wetting our Gucci
sailing shoes. Then we usually sidle up to the prettiest bathing
beauty and ask where the nearest bathroom is. Small boats have
their disadvantages too.
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