Your Sports Page Online: boating

Monday, January 14, 2008

Beginning Your Own Sailing Adventures

The great day has arrived at last you're about to sail the boat by yourself. It's all very well to say, "Don't be nervous," but as with most new things in your life it is sometimes a little hard to get used to a sailboat. It's not that you're afraid of capsizing (you wouldn't be so foolish as to get into a sailboat if you couldn't swim); it's just the strangeness of the feeling in your bones as the boat leans with the wind and the confusing sound the sails make overhead.

One consolation is to realize that if you get confused in a sailboat, it's perfectly safe to let everything go. When you let out the sheet, the wind spills out of the loosened sail. And although the sail flaps away noisily, you quickly realize that the boat has flattened out like an old bathtub and slowed down to a mere drift.

In a sailboat you can just let go. Try it a couple of times, to gain confidence and relaxation. Pull in the sheet and feel the boat tip as you tighten the sail against the push of the wind. Drop the mainsheet and feel the wind spill and the sail loosen and the boat flatten out. Any time that anything goes wrong while sailing, let go of the sheets. This provides time to meditate on the situation.

You sit in your boat forward of the tiller (so that you can swing it freely, to steer) and opposite your sail (so that you can balance the weight of it as well as look at it easily.) You will want to check your sail every few minutes, since its lower third, up next the mast, is like an instrument panel in a car or plane.

This is the area you will check to see if your sails are set right. While it's all very well to stare up at the whole mainsail, for the wonder of it, luckily for your neck the lower part is all you have to keep looking at. Here's how you check the set of your mainsail:

You let the sail out, by letting the sheet in your hand run out, until the sail begins to luff. This means that the sail in the instrument-panel section begins to flutter and bubble. Then you pull in the sail till the luffing just stops; that is the best set for your mainsail.

Remember that this sail isn't, after all, a perfect triangle. If you look at it, you'll see that it is skillfully cut and seamed so that there is a curve to the whole thing. Don't pull in your sail till it's flat; just keep a nice curve in it like a bird's wing.

So much for the general controls for your boat; now let's take a look at how to get started.

Getting Underway

If you are moored at a buoy, the bow will lie into the wind. For an example of getting underway, let's say that there are several boats close to your port side, so you decide to go off to starboard in other words, on a port tack. (A boat is sailing on a port tack when the wind is coming over its port side.) With both sails hoisted, haul in the starboard jib sheet, taking up all the slack. Push the clew of the jib to port; the wind will fill the sail and force the bow of the boat to starboard.

As soon as the boat begins to swing around, let go of the sail and take up on the starboard jib sheet. Swing the tiller to port; this will help push the nose of the boat to starboard. (Unlike the steering wheel of a car, a tiller is moved in the direction opposite to the one you wish to swing the boat.) Then trim the mainsail by taking in the mainsheet until the sail is fairly flat. As the jib pushes the boat around, the mainsail will fill, and the boat will move forward.

At this moment, cast off the mooring and you'll begin to make headway.
Congratulations! You've begun sailing.

Boating Basics For What To Do When Things Go Wrong and How To

About the Author:

Who Else Wants Free Sailing Lessons, Tips And Tricks?! Click here for FREE online Ebook www.freesailinglesson.com/

Article Source: http://www.therealarticles.com

Lighthouses: Explaining The Guiding Light

Lighthouses are the signal stations by means of which mariners determine their exact position. Mariners had once to be satisfied with natural landmarks, from which to obtain their bearings. These often being lacking at points where most needed, towers were built, and eventually lights were placed in many of them. The modern lighthouse represents the scientific development of this same idea, the signaling equipment being the culmination of many years of striving to overcome the limitations of visibility and audibility.

Coloring Of Structures

Color is applied to lighthouses and automatic light structures for the purpose of making them readily distinguishable from the background against which they are seen, and to distinguish one structure from others in the same general vicinity. Solid colors, bands of color, and various patterns are applied solely for these purposes.

Minor light structures are sometimes painted black or red, to indicate the sides of the channel which they mark, following the same system used in the coloring of buoys. When so painted, red structures mark the right side of the channel, and black structures the left side of the channel, entering from seaward.

Light Colors And Characteristics

The colors of the lights shown from lighthouses, and their characteristics or manner in which they flash, are for the purpose of distinguishing one light from others in the general vicinity and avoiding confusion with lights used for other purposes.

The length of the flashes and the intervals between may be accurately timed, and positive identification made by consulting the Light Lists. The colors of minor lights, when red or green, may also have the further significance of indicating the side of the channel which the light marks, red being on the right, and green on the left side entering from seaward.

Fog Signal Characteristics

Fog signals, both at lighthouses and on lightships, sound distinctive blasts. This is for the purpose of distinguishing one station from another. The characteristic of every fog signal is given in the Light Lists, and many of them are also given on the charts. All signals sound on a definite schedule, and positive identification may be made, even when the sending station is not visible, by timing the length of the blasts and the intervals between. With practice, mariners may also differentiate between the signals produced by the different types of apparatus.

Lightships

Lightships serve the same essential purpose as lighthouses. They take the form of ships only because they are to occupy stations at which it would be impracticable to build lighthouses. Hulls of all lightships in United States waters, excepting Ambrose Lightship, are now painted red with the name of the station in white on both sides. The superstructures are white, with the masts, lantern galleries, ventilators and stacks in buff.

All the signals, the masthead light, the fog signal, and the radiobeacon have distinctive characteristics, so that the lightship may readily be identified under all conditions. A riding-light on the forestay indicates the direction that the ship is heading, and as lightships ride to a single anchor, this also indicates the direction of the current.

Present day lightships are built of steel, with either steam or Diesel engine propulsion. Power for the operation of the signals is obtained from suitable auxiliary machinery. Each lightship has a crew of from 6 to 15 men.

Buoys

The primary function of buoys is to warn the mariner of some danger, some obstruction, or change in the contours of the sea bottom, that he may avoid the dangers and continue his course in safe waters.

The utmost advantage is obtained from buoys when they are considered as marking definitely identified spots, for if a mariner be properly equipped with charts, and knows his precise location at the moment, he can readily plot a safe course on which to proceed. Such features as size, shape, coloring, numbering, and signaling equipment, are but means to these ends of warning, guiding, and orienting.

These are all essential aids for any yachtsman.