Chapter 11

We Go Aboard

Sailing is a mighty safe sport but now and then something happens to damage your boat or some other craft. In most of these cases, the trouble occurs as you are either getting underway or coming in for a landing. You have no brakes and no reverse gear, nor can you sail directly into the eye of the wind. You can, if you use your head, provide & makeshift sort of brake and you can even go astern a bit under certain conditions. To get along properly, it is vital to plan your moves from pier side or mooring before you cast off. Otherwise, you'll find yourself booming down on the rest of the fleet or sailing kerbang onto a sandbar.

One of the most difficult maneuvers is to get away from the side of a pier or float. In fact, it may be impossible unless you have the boat towed out or can row or paddle her into a position where you have maneuvering room. Suppose you are lying against the front of a float and the wind is blowing directly sideways. Ahead of you, a large boat is also made fast to the float so that you cannot go ahead for any appreciable distance. You are bottled up and there is nothing you can do about it without changing your position. You may be able to turn the boat end for end at the float so that you will be able to go ahead. All is still not perfect. As you raise your mainsail, the sheet will have to be slack or the boat will capsize. This means the boom will swing across the float until you can haul your sheet and get the boat moving. All this may be possible if the float is deserted and has no projecting uprights at the ends. The expert will be able to get away from there, but the novice is in a situation where getting towed into the clear is the only logical answer.

Getting away from a mooring is easier if there is plenty of room in the area where you move first. Even that takes planning. Study the direction and force of the wind and think over the possibilities. As you lie at the mooring, you will swing so the bow is facing into the wind unless there is a strong tidal or other current. Should the latter be the case, you must remember that when you get the sails up, you are going to swing around and face in the opposite direction. When that happens, you find yourself the center of a half-circle of boats moored so closely together that your chances of slipping between them is rather slim. Astern, you have more room but how are you going to get back there? You cannot drift, for the current is running the wrong way and will send you into the craft that lie to windward.

Careful planning will solve that problem. With your sails down, but all ready to be quickly run up, you take a spare line, attach it to a stern cleat, carry it forward on the outside of all rigging, and attach it to your mooring by passing one end through the mooring ring. Carry the end back and make fast at the stern. Now cast off the original bow line and the boat will swing around so her stern is facing the wind. Ahead, you will have clear water and plenty of room to maneuver. If you are alone, the next step will keep you busier than a juggler in a swarm of bees. See that everything is all clear, hold the end of your new mooring line between your knees, or in your teeth, and cast off plenty of mainsheet. Get the sail up in less time than it takes to think about it; speed is the essence in this maneuver. The instant the sail fills, you will be on your way. Let the end of the mooring line go and pray that it will run out smoothly through the mooring ring. If it fouls on its way, a great many things are going to happen when the surging boat comes to the end of its tether and none of them will be suitable for your book of memories. You may take the mast out of her, break the boom, yank out your stern cleat, get pitched overboard, or accomplish all those things at once. If things go right, your mooring line will slip clear and can be gathered up when you get your breath—before the first motorboat crosses your stern and fouls the trailing line in its propeller. Your boat will be sailing before the wind and, if you planned it right, the boom will be off on the correct side so that you can steer to clear all obstructions and bring the wind over the side of the boat.

The good skipper will spend many minutes planning a getaway that may, by itself, take no more than a few seconds. The sad things that might happen would be caused by ignoring the relative strength of wind and current, by not passing the new stern mooring line outside of all the rigging, by forgetting to cast off the original forward line, by not making sure that the stern line will clear itself when you let go, and by starting off with the boom on the wrong side so that you must jibe to get the wind, over the proper side to enable you to clear other craft.

A book as big as a Mack truck would not be able to tell you what to do under every possible contingency. You must learn to plan every move from pier side, anchorage, or mooring out to where the boat is enough in the clear so you can go into any maneuver that conditions require. Remember that your boat must have some speed on her before she can be steered. A skilled hand in a motorboat can turn his boat around without going ahead more than a few feet. Sailing boats have no such abilities, so you must allow more room for maneuvering than would be the case with a power-driven boat. Also, your speed will be rather slow during changes of course. If another boat is approaching, wait until she is out of the way before you cast off.

Perhaps this little experience will show the importance of planning each move. A small sailboat was lying at the front of a long float belonging to a canoe club. The club members were getting ready for their Sunday picnicking. Boxes of lunch, cushions, paddles, canoes, and various other impedimenta of the strong-shouldered gentry were piled along the edge of the float. The sailboat skipper decided to get away from there with the wind blowing squarely toward the float. When he hoisted his mainsail, the boom swung across the float about six inches above the planking. Too late, the master mind at her helm discovered his situation. He swept the float clean from end to end. For the next week, he was busily engaged in diving for heavy equipment and in paying damage claims for the wrecked stuff. Bum planning results in that sort of thing.

Some sketches will explain a few of the simpler maneuvers. In Fig. 1, you are lying against a dock with the wind coming from dead abeam. You cannot sail out of such a position with any degree of surety. In Fig. 2, the boat has been dropped back around the side of the dock. Now if sail is smartly handled at the same time someone gives your bow a shove to port, you can sail away with no trouble at all. If your boat has both jib and mainsail, you could probably trim the jib far enough to starboard so your head would pay off far enough for the mainsail to fill. This would obviate the manual shifting of the bow. Another trick would be to get all set with the sails. Run a line from the dock corner to your stern. Cast off the bow line and take up on the stern line enough to swing the bow out from the dock Ooops! You made the stern line fast. Don't worry, Cap'n Zack will build a new stern on her for little more than Mom's refrigerator was to cost.

Take a common situation such as Fig. 3. You are Boat A and you want to get out of there. You can't get away on the port tack—the shore is too close. You cannot go ahead on the starboard tack—before you got away on her, she would make so much leeway that you'd pile up on Boats B and C. Dropping back is a problem for Boat D lies directly to leeward. Here's how to do it. Carry a line from your stern to the mooring. Let go the mooring line and let the boat swing stern to the mooring. Get your sails ready for a quick hoisting. If you have a jib, get it up and then sheet it to port and cast off the end of the mooring line at the same instant. The jib should pull you ahead between Boats C and D. As you clear them, get the mainsail up on the _ starboard tack. Swing around the sterns of Boats B and C, luffing when you are to leeward of them unless you have plenty of sea room to maintain the starboard tack. This maneuver will be tougher to accomplish with a catboat for you will have to start running the instant the sail fills. It is really very easy for a guy with six pairs of arms.

Now we'll say that you are lying in a typical boat basin where each craft has its own coop. You want to get out of there in spite of the fact that the wind is blowing head on (Fig. 4). Here is where diplomacy is more important than seamanship. You hail the first motorboat and ask, humbly, to be towed out where you can have some sailing room. It is a simple little thing—provided the guy you ask is not the same chap you called a "stink boater" the day before. If he is, then you're going to stay in there all day unless the wind changes or you can row her out or drag her bodily along the front of the slips. We thought we would put that one in lest you become objectionable to the waterfronters who love the unrefined smell of refined petroleum.

So far we've briefly considered sailing away from a mooring and sailing away from a dock or float. There's one more situation that'll often arise and so should be mentioned. That's sailing away from an anchor.

The procedure is simple. Haul in on the anchor line until it is almost straight up and down and then let the boat fall off on either tack, close hauled. As she gathers headway, she will overrun the anchor, which should break it loose. If it is stubborn, sag back and go off on the opposite tack. A few such yanks should break out the most stubborn anchor.

When getting underway, set the mainsail first as shown at left. The only exception to this rule is when taking off down wind. Then it may be more convenient to set the jib first as at right.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...