Put Her In Irons

Sailing 101 - Day Three, Tack, Tack, and more Tack

What can I say - today’s class totally rocked!

As we left for the class, the rain was coming down in sheets.  Uninspiring, to say the least. Checking weather from three internet sources before we left, we were given three different predictions for the same area.  Rain ending right before class, rain ending right after class, and rain stopping before and continuing after class.  We made a small sacrifice to the rain gods and headed out hoping for the best and knowing that the Pacific Northwest’s weather predictions are a little like what’s behind door number three.

Upon arrival at the docks, the sun and the rain were jockeying for position to see which would stick around for the class.  Now, all this indecision of weather had an upside - wind - lots of wind.  That’s the thing about sailing, wind is your God and without it You are NOTHING.  We are supposed to know which direction the wind is coming from at all times and everything we do on the boat at is in relation to the wind.  Plus the little fact that the boat doesn’t move without it, makes the wind high up on the priority list.

The bulk of the class focused on one sailing maneuver called tacking.  For simplicity, lets just say tacking is a change of direction that swaps which side of the boat the wind is blowing on. This maneuver can allow the boat to sail indirectly to a destination that is directly where the wind is blowing from. While making this turn you must move the bow of the boat directly into and through the wind, so the wind is now blowing on the other side of the boat, and that’s where the trouble begins.  If you make this turn too slowly and hang out with your bow facing directly into the wind, your boat will come to a complete stop. And as we found out from the last post- if the boat isn’t moving, the boat isn’t steering. This can lead to all kinds of quandaries, like being blown onto the shore or not being able to get out of the way of an oncoming boat. But the most dreaded of these is the possibility of being boarded by pirates, shackled in irons and having your booty stolen.  To remind you of this least likely but greatly feared outcome, they have been ever so helpful and given it a special name to describe this.  

You guessed it - in irons.  

Yep, just those two little words. The wonders of the sailing language continue to amaze.  From what I can tell, our instructor exploited this use of this pirate story just so he could use an unofficial sailing word that seems to show itself both at sea and on land -  Arrgh!  Yes, he dropped the “A” bomb and this wasn’t the first time either.

Out on the water the sun began to win over the evening and made for some gorgeous sailing.  There were times when Adrienne was at the helm (steering), I was trimming the head sail and we had that boat flying over the water and leaning over far enough to have the edge rail  of the boat almost touching the water.

All I can say is, I want more!

~ J ~