Basic Keelboat
Taking sailing lessons? It’s a constant learning curve for all of us. Here’s how I started.
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Classroom
Saturdays in the Basic Keelboat classroom, we learned special words for all things sailing. A boat’s front was the bow and the back was the stern. Port meant left, as in P-O-R-T (four letters) = red (its color) W-I-N-E (four letters). Port red wine. Excellent. Starboard was green, not-port. Absinthe.
A floor was a deck. A mast was a pole that extended straight up from the boat’s center; a boom attached to the mast at a right angle and held the sail. Ropes were never ropes; they were lines or sheets. Sheet, if attached to a sail. Otherwise, line. Rigging meant everything that held the sails in place, wires and fastenings and lines.
Vocabulary, I could do.
What gave me trouble was imagining the purpose of a halyard or stanchion or chainplate. Descriptions of unfamiliar mechanical operations called for me to pay attention but when I tried hard to focus, my brain’s blood vessels constricted. I was asleep in minutes.
Stephen, possessed of the confidence of a privileged White male who was always the smartest guy in the room, absorbed facts and figures effortlessly. When something caught his interest, like machines or processes or boats, he remembered every detail.
The red star marks the location of the Spinnaker Sailing school in San Francisco Bay.
Sail Training
At the dock, four students prepared a seven-meter sailboat under the supervision of our instructor, Bob. We guided the mainsail up a groove in the mast. We fitted on a rudder to comply with our directional commands via a tiller. The tiller was a stick at the stern that you pushed to steer the boat the opposite direction.
No, not very intuitive.
We secured the mainsail to the mast, top and bottom. We hanked a nylon jib onto its wire forestay at the bow. In reality, others did those jobs while my attention wandered. I specialized in work that didn’t involve mechanics, like making sure we all had Personal Flotation Devices (formerly known as life jackets).
Bob and Stephan and I and another, younger couple piled into the cockpit. Somebody untied our lines and pushed us away from the dock.
The afternoon breeze skipped across the bay, filled the sails. The little boat shot forward. Salt mist stung my face. Wind rushed toward me like freedom.
I was hooked.
Wind Compass
After a few Saturdays my vast new knowledge occasionally made me feel competent. The wind compass resembled a clock whose big hand was the bow of the boat, forever pointed at twelve. I’d memorized the points of sail and —in theory— knew how to set the jib and main for each. If the wind was coming over the bow at roughly eleven or one o’clock, the boat was close-hauled; ten and two was a close reach; three and nine, a beam reach; four and eight, broad reach; and five to seven o’clock —meaning over the stern— a downwind run. If the wind was coming from between eleven and one, sails flagged uselessly and the boat stopped, in irons. An epic fail.
Figure taken from The Complete Sailor by David Seidman.
Maneuvers
We practiced maneuvers on the bay. The first was tacking, turning a boat through the face of the wind when it was blowing at the front half of the boat. First came the captain’s call to prepare the crew. Bob demonstrated, “Ready about?”
The crew working the jib’s control rope —not rope, sheet—would respond, “Ready!”
“Ready!” We practiced heartily.
“Helm’s alee!” Bob called.
He explained that the call meant the captain was swinging the tiller arm, the signal to begin easing the tension on the jib sheet. That’s when the boat begins to turn. Between eleven and one o’clock it slows, so you have to start the turn moving fast enough for momentum to keep on pushing until the sails catch again on the other side.
At the twelve o’clock mark the boom, no longer hindered by physics, is free to slice across the cockpit at temple level. Everyone should duck.
Once the boom reaches the other side, the main fills again. The boat speeds up. Designated crew leaps to the opposite side, wraps the jib’s other sheet around the winch, and pulls hard. The jib, too, fills from the new side. Three wraps around the winch and the sheet is made fast. Like magic, we are sailing a different direction. Easy-peasy. Each couple would take turns being captain or crew.
Photo taken from Spinnaker Sailing website.
Ready About?
When my turn came to be captain and Stephan designated jib-sheet handler, I was jittery.
There was a lot to think about: enough speed to begin the turn, how far to push the tiller in what direction, turning too far, the boom hitting the instructor and knocking him into the bay, how to get him out since we would have to take three more courses before we learned man overboard procedures, and you could get hypothermia in this water not that it was very deep.
The wind gusted and the boat gathered speed. Bob and the other students crouched on either side of the boat, keeping an eye on the boom.
So far, so … wait, no.
Not so good.
Thirty meters ahead a freighter was taking on a load of gravel. We were lining up to t-bone its steel hull. I wanted out of there. Now. I called for Stephan to ease the starboard jib sheet. “Ready about?”
He didn’t answer. The freighter’s hull looked three times the height of a house, even by Portola Valley standards. “Ready about?”
“Uhm, no.”
No? Incorrect response. I glanced over at the righthand winch. Stephan was fiddling with the sheet, oblivious to our danger. Bob watched him, saying nothing. I looked back at the ship. Fifteen meters.
“READY ABOUT?” My fingers twitched on the tiller. I hated his dawdling perfectionism. What was I supposed to do?
“Just a second.” He was meticulously undoing a kink like he had all the time in the world..
“No, Stephan.” Panicked, I shoved the tiller, hard. “Helm’s alee!”
Photo taken from Spinnaker Sailing website.
Helm’s Alee!
The little sailboat began its swing to port. The boom slid across the cockpit at temple level and everyone in its path ducked as instructed. At the bow, the little jib did its best to follow, but the sheet attached to its corner didn’t have enough slack for it to reach the port side. It snapped and slacked like an angry whipcrack.
Up at high noon, the windless jib thrashed in confusion. Before it could fill with wind, the mainsail wavered. The boom slammed back across the boat. We all ducked. Like a runner caught stealing base, the boom slammed back to its original position. This time the crew didn’t duck. They cowered.
The mainsail could have cared less which side the wind came from. I watched, mortified, as it filled from the wrong side. The boat stopped. We were backwinded, sloshing helplessly. Two sheets to the wind. In irons.
I glared at Stephan. This was not my fault. He had ruined my chance to feel like I was good at something. Stop it, Christine. You sound like a sixth-grader.
Before Bob demonstrated how to wiggle the tiller to get the boat moving again, he addressed Stephan.
“When the captain gives an order,” he said quietly, “it’s an order. Not a request.”
No one ever talked to my husband like that.
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We all get nervous, make mistakes and carry on. Believe in yourself. Keep learning. It gets better.
Fair winds,
Christine
Do Tell
What was your first big sailing mistake? How did it change you?
