The Helm
A boat, a breeze, and a chart that means what it says. No score, nothing to win — only trim, stream, soundings, and the slow business of getting to know a rig.
Force 3, steady · no stream · deep water — Trim, the points of sail, and the tack.
under way 00:00
Call the crew before the boat crosses the wind.
The water will tell you what it thinks of your trim; when it matters, you will read it here.
Out to the rail
balanced fore and aft
The Sound
Open water and a kind breeze. Nothing here will hurt you; everything here will teach you.
Work to windward to the North Cardinal and run back to the pin. Watch the luff: ease until it lifts, then sheet until it just sleeps.
Try both tacks. In the lug, feel the difference the mast makes on port.
North Cardinal — Dead upwind of the pin — you cannot sail to it in a straight line.
The Pin — Home. Come back downwind and mind the gybe.
Standing Lug Daysailer
The boat of Plate I — light, quick to answer, and honest about every mistake. She has a good tack and a poor one, and she will capsize if you let her.
Port tack presses the sail on the mast — expect her a shade slower and lower than on starboard.
The board is her grip on the water. Up, she slides; down, she draws a metre.
She is a dinghy. Past thirty degrees of heel you are borrowing time.
10.5 m² working sail · 320 kg all up · hull limit 5.1 kn · draws 0.25–1.05 m
Two winds, two speeds, one bottom
The dark needle is the true wind, over the water. The orange one is the apparent wind — true wind bent forward by your own motion — and it is the only wind the sail ever feels. The faster you go, the further forward it draws.
Speed through the water is what the hull feels; speed over the ground is what the land sees. In a stream they part company, and the dashed blue line on the chart is your real track. The sounding is the water under you; the draft is how much of it you need — and the parts you are handling are the ones drawn and named in the Rigging Atlas.