How to Sail - Learn to sail today

today you're going to learn how to sail you're going to learn the language of sailing how to operate a sailboat and we're going to get you out on the water and sail this boat it's easy to think sailboats just must be pushed from behind by the wind but on Modern sailboats the sails work just like an airplane wing producing lift on an airplane the airspeed going faster over the top of the wing creates a low pressure area that sucks to plane up into the air we can use the same principle but turn the wing on its side and call it a sail it makes lift and propels the sailboat under the boat we have a heavy weighted Keel acting against the sideways forces and helping not only to push the boat forward but also keeping the sailboat from tipping or healing when the wind pushes against the sail with the sailboat we want to sail in different directions in relation to the wind so controlling the sail shape and angle to the wind is really important thing has its own language like with any boat front back left right it's bow Stern Port starboard when you look at a sailboat there's a lot of parts and pieces that might not make sense to you at first like the most obvious thing is the Mast that holds up the sails but there's more parts to it let's go take a look the mass can take all these forces without falling over because of these wires called shrouds the higher shrouds go around protrusions that spread the shrouds called spreaders the front and rear bow and Stern wires are a little different they're called the four stay and backstay everything that works to hold up the Mast is called standing rigging all the ropes on the boat are not called ropes they have names depending on how they're used and where they're located most sailboats have two sails a Mainsail and a forward sail or a for sale which is usually a jib sale a jib sail is a sale that doesn't reach back behind the Mast some boats including this one have a Genoa which is larger and reaches back behind the mast the parts of the sale all have names the top of the Mainsail is the head the back part of the sail is the leech you have battens which are plasticky type inserts that help the sail keep its shape the bottom rear corner is the Clue the bottom of the sail is the foot the front bottom corner is the tack the whole front of the sail that goes up the mass is the luff and on the jib or Genoa same thing head leech clue foot Tack and luff the way we get the sails to the top of the Mast are with these halyards this is the main cell of halyard right here we'll clip it on the top of the sail and pull the sail up the Mast the main lines that control the Sails are called sheets so since this controls the main sail and the boom it makes sense that this would be the main sheet the main sheets attached to the boom back here and the boom can swing to side to side so you can get different angles with the sail to the wind these lines here are the Genoa Sheets if it was a smaller sail or a jib they'd be called jib sheets all these moving lines are called Running rigging when we make adjustments to the sales it's called trimming at most points of sale we want the wind to flow over the sail and produce lift the direction the wind flows over the Mainsail is controlled by moving the boom from side to side we control the boom with the main sheet not only can I adjust the boom and where it's located by using this main sheet which is the line that controls the boom and when the sails up you'll see that later I can also control the main sheet with the main sheet traveler by loosening this and then I could pull this side and that would move the traveler over that allows me to get different angles with the main sheet to the sail which I'll explain when we're out there sailing another Mainsail control we have is the boom Vang this allows us to control how much the boom can rise up which affects sail shape another Mainsail control is this line that comes out of the boom right here it goes all the way back to the rear corner of the sail the clue and pulls on it that allows us to change the shape of the foot or the bottom of the sail for the front sail or Genoa on this boat like with the Mainsail we have several adjustments but the General on this boat doesn't have to be raised it stays raised all the time but it's rolled up on a vertical track to roll and unroll the Genoa we have a roller Furler it's also known as the roller furling head sail when the sale unrolls it unfurls it sucks up the furling line into this drum when it's time to furl the sail back up we can pull on the furling line it'll roll it back up and close the sail smaller sails might be attached to a four stay with little Clips called Hanks this would be a hank on head sail instead it's not quite as easy to use but it's less complex the main lines that control this sail are called the Genoa sheets or jib sheets which run back to the cockpit through these pulleys called blocks and if you notice these blocks are on a track that can be moved back and forth the general sheets have so much force on them each side goes back to a winch to give you power that you need to adjust them points of sale a sailboat can sail in all directions except directly into the wind this is called the no Zone area also called in irons it's about a 45 degree area in front of the boat and the sails can't work properly at that angle so it can't be sailed this is the nose Zone where the sails will just flap or luff at a slight angle but still into the wind is called a close Hull sideways to the wind or With the Wind on our beam of the boat is called a beam reach as we bear off and head downwind we're on a broad reach directly downwind is called a run or running the points of sail on the other side are exactly the same but since we have a port and a starboard side of the boat we're either on a port tack or a starboard Tech we're either sailing upwind or downwind and if we have to sail directly into the wind since the nose zone is there and we can't do that we will tack back and forth on port and starboard tax to get to our destination now let's go put all you've learned into practice and go sail this boat all right so we're out on the water and we're motoring along using the diesel power of this boat you can hear the motor running so what we want to do is we want to motor into the wind so I can raise the Mainsail and then we'll start sailing and turn off the motor all right so now we're headed into the wind in so that the sail can go up freely but so first thing we'll be able to take the sale ties off we made sure that everything out here is free there's no lines caught anywhere and everything's ready to go up you want to look up at it when you're doing it make sure it's not getting caught anywhere and everything's going up smoothly put a couple wraps on the winch here and I'm gonna give it a few cranks with my winch handle clean up this line you don't want to have any lines laying around that could possibly fall back into the water get caught on something else or go in the prop and stop your engine all right so now we're motoring into when I'm gonna get rid of these sail ties we're motoring into the wind but the sails up so I'm going to go ahead and tighten the main sheet bring it in a little bit and then I'll go ahead and turn the engine off and we'll be sailing foreign okay now we're sailing along with the Mainsail gonna bear off a little bit turn the autopilot off I really just don't want to go any closer to shore okay so now we're sailing along on the Mainsail and we have the main sheet here that I can control and release and it goes up to the boom and it controls the swing of a boom As I push this way it gets hard to push and because the mainsail's got wind against it which is propelling the boat forward so if I loosen this and you see what happens to the boom there it goes out or I can pull this in and bring the Boom in another way we could keep the boom from rising up and making the sales too much shape in it would be like uh this boom bang here we could tighten this real tight and keep the boom pulled down or we could let it loose and let the boom rise up and give more shape to the sail so this is yet another control to control the boom itself another way we can control the shape of the sail is with the Mainsail out haul so if you look at the sail right now this is what's called a loose footed main because it's not inside this track there are sails that have things that will hold this inside the track this particular sails a loose footed one so you see that shape there well on a day like this where the wind's not real high we want a lot of seal shape so that's good but let's say it was really windy where the sail was too powerful and we want to flatten it out a little more we would pull the Mainsail out haul so I have these controls here sticking down and one of them this one here the center one will move the cable on the back of that sail pull back of that sail back so this cable is the is the Mainsail at home so by pulling this sail back here it'll flatten the inside of the sail of the foot of the sail and make the sail flatter so that's another control to make the shape of the Mainsail different so now that the Mainsail is up what if it gets too windy and we don't want as much wind Mainsail we might want to do what's called reefing the sails and that just means making the sale smaller we're having less sale area out for the wind to hit so for this purpose we have a couple adjustments to the sail now you'll notice down here there's what's called a Rams Horn and this is like hooks that stick out on each side and they can grab these Rings okay so right now the sail is fully lifted it's as high as it can go and it's as big as it can get if we want to Reef the sail I'm going to loosen the the Mainsail halyard and let the sail come down a little bit so it's for first reefing point which is right here okay let's get it around the Rams Horn and then raise it back up and if I was out on the water I would make this a lot tighter probably but for the purposes of this I'm just going to tighten it there okay and then I have these lines that go back they're called out halls and which is the blue is the reefing line we have here first Reef so I tighten that and I clamp that here and then these ties will tie the sail so I grab the other side of it and I would probably do this from the other side but you can grab it here and you can tie these to tie this sail up so it's not so big here so so let's say that it's even windier and the sail's still too big and it's it's too much force on the boat we want to reduce the Sailor sail area even more we'll go to our second reefing point so again we'll loosen the halyard we'll lower the sail and this one's on the other side tighten back up okay now we're on the second reefing point so now we've reduced the sail area quite a bit by taking a lot of the bottom of the sail away and so in higher winds it wouldn't have as much effect on the boat we could safely Sail Without causing too much healing or damaging our gear this could be cleaned up a lot if we were out sailing we would do that but that's what it looks like when you Reef the sails yeah all right so we're sailing along with the Mainsail out right now and we have uh we're at a close Hall which so the wind's coming from like right over there so we're real close to the wind so the nose zone is over there and that's our brake pedal for the boat so if we want to slow this boat down we would just steer a little bit over into the wind the sail would start to luff or make a bunch of noises because it's just flapping like a flag and the boat will slow down to zero so that's kind of our Brake Area to slow down and I'm gonna bear back off starboard and gain a little speed here alright so now we're cruising Along on our Mainsail we have it up successfully and I have the autopilot on to help us out while we do this so now we want to deploy our Genoa it's going to unroll off the roller furling and because we're on a beam we're on a close haul the wind's coming from right up there and blowing back here the Jenna was going to go off on our port side of our boat so that port side is going to be the working side and that's the working sheet and the other side is going to be the lazy sheet this isn't really going to be used but it'll just drape across the bow of the boat there so I'm going to go ahead and unhook my furling line This is the line that's going to get sucked up into the drum up on the bow there and Susie whenever you're ready go ahead and get out the Genoa ready yep all right so it's going to start to unroll see my furring line going in here comes the sail [Music] and Susie's going to now trim the Sail by tightening it up wrapping it around the winch and giving it a couple cranks because we're at a close haul we want the sail pretty tight in all right so now now we're speeding up we were only going two knots on the Mainsail and we'll probably hit more like four or so on both sails I'll secure my furling line here all right so now we're sailing along with both the Genoa and the main Sail Out we're going 4.2 knots we've sped up because we have both sails out and this isn't our fastest point of sale that'll probably be a beam reach which we're going to turn off onto now but we're on a starboard Tech because the wind's coming over the starboard side of the boat so we're going to now bear off to Port a little bit so that we can head in that direction and we'll have the wind right on our beam then and we'll be on a beam reach so I'm going to turn off the autopilot and as I bear off air off in this direction here I'll go ahead and grab the main sheet and loosen a little bit and then once we get moved over Susie can loosen the uh working side of the Genoa sheet now it's probably good next time all right we just completed our we bare beared off to our port side so now the wind is directly on our Beam on our on our starboard beam so we're just basically 90 degrees to the wind and we sped up to 4.5 4.6 and uh now we're just cruising along now this is a real comfortable point of sale because it keeps the boat you know pinned over because of the wind so it doesn't like rock in the waves today is a pretty light wind day we only have about six or seven knots so we're not going super fast but it's about the most pleasant day you could pick for sailing all right well let's try and experiment a little we're on a beam reach so the wind's coming right on the side of our boat on the beam in the boat and let's try letting the sails out a little more we're doing 4.8 knots so part of the sail trimming is just playing around to see what see with what works to see what works I'm gonna let the main sail out until it starts to Flap a little bit or looks like it's not filling with air and now it's just kind of flapping so I'll pull it in just a little bit and what does that do for our speed 4.6 and you know at 4.7 so that really slowed us down a tiny bit so I'll sheet that back in a little bit all right now we're back up to 4.7 4.8 and Susie why don't you try letting the general sheet out a little bit let's see what that does if we can get a little another half a knot or something so there's an old saying in sailing which is when in doubt let it out like let a little Sail Out um you know it increases the sail shape and increases your speed but in this case it didn't really do anything for us we're still at about 4.8 but we're dipping in now you don't know because the wind changes also that's what's called Sail trimming and you do that to kind of make adjustments it's not important on a two-hour day sale but on a four day trip it could make you arrive a day sooner if you do it all right so now we're sailing Along on a nice beam reach we're both comfortable because even though the waves are hitting us right in the beam the Sails are keeping the boat nice and stable so we're not rocking but now we're going to Bear off even more into a broad reach in the broad reach the wind will come from our over our shoulder here and fill the sails we'll no longer use the sails for Lift like we did like an airplane wing now we're just going to catch the wind and have it push the boat let's see what happens so now for this go ahead and turn the autopilot off again and I'll start to Bear off I'm going to look up at my Windex up here all right so now we're on a broad reach and the wind is coming over our shoulder here now so now we just want to kind of catch the wind so we want to ease this Mainsail the Geno is probably good like it is because it's still catching smoke we can try and let it out Susie why don't we try and let some of that out and see if we can get the Genoa to fly out a little more as we slow down to about four knots on this point of sale foreign up to the bow here look at this so we've slowed down considerably you can see our speed kind of went down but what's happening is the wind is coming from back there off our corridor and it's blowing just directly through here so the Mainsail kind of blocks some of the Genoa it's catching some there kind of flapping and then the Mainsail is catching some also you know when you're more downwind you kind of might even want to take take the Mainsail down to give the more air to the big Genoa but it just depends on the size of sales on your boat and I want to make a point that this boat has a really big Genoa and a pretty small Mainsail so we favor the Genoa to get more wind when we need it all right now we're sailing along here on a nice broad reach this is a pretty uncomfortable point of sale like the waves are hitting us back on the quarter here it's making the boat kind of wallow and turn back and forth and it just doesn't feel good this is a good way to kind of if you're not real don't have your sea legs it kind of gets you a little bit so I'll be glad to get off this point of sale but you know it should be said that sometimes you don't get a choice because you're you have to sail in a certain direction if you're a day sailor and you're just having fun on a sailboat well you can pick to be comfortable and not go out when it's cold and sail in nice weather if you're going somewhere in your boat and you have to sail that direction then you're just stuck with whatever you get so we're going to go ahead now and bear off directly downwind or very close to it so now you can see that Jenna was being blocked by the main the wind's coming right behind us so the Mainsail is catching the wind and pushing us forward but ideally we would swing this Mainsail to the other side and attach a line going up front called a preventer that would prevent the boom from swinging back and then we would have the main on this side and the Genoa on this side that's called wing on wing and that would give us a nice big sale area with both sails so in this situation we're really not doing much because we're blocking all the wind from the Genoa things we could do when we're directly downwind is put our whisker pull out we have one it's a pole that sticks out and makes the sail stick out real far off the side of the boat so that it can catch more wind and that's another downwind technique now we could keep sailing this whole circle and do all the points of sale on the other half of the points of Circle of points of sale but they'd all be the same just on the opposite tack so instead of a starboard attack would be on a port attack with the Wind now what about tacking and jiving attacking and driving or we've all heard of that even if we're not Sailors maybe not jiving but definitely attack tacking or may have heard someone say Jive hoe but yeah so what if we want to sail off in that direction that's the direction we need to go and we have a two-day sale in that direction is our you know we're headed to Key West and we need to go that way but unfortunately the wind's blowing from right in that direction so we can't do that we have to tack back and forth so we'll sail in this direction for a while and then we'll sail in that direction for a while and then that and then that will tack tack tack and we'll keep tacking back and forth whether we're on a starboard attack or a port attack depending on which side of the boat the wind is hitting so you're ready to attack okay now we're sailing upwind on a close haul again we have the wind coming right on our bow on the on the bow of the boat there just in this direction we have the sail sheeted in tight again so to perform attack basically what has to happen is both sails need to go from our starboard side of the boat to our port side of the boat so we're going to turn through the wind so we have a little speed built up we'll come and we'll turn and we'll end up going that way and then the sails have to swap sides now with the Mainsail it's pretty easy because it will just swing over by itself to the other side but the Genoa this big sale has to come through and this then goes from being the lazy sheet to be in the working sheet and that turns into the lazy sheet whereas now it's working you ready to do it Susie all right so I need to make sure my lazy line here is ready to just run free I don't want to release it just yet because the sail would go flying out all right prepare attack ready to attack all right so I'm steering us through the wind here as soon as this Genoa loses let's see the man just go over by itself our boat speed will pick back up now the Sails are on the opposite side of the boat and we're sailing the opposite tack pretty cool so if we have to sail through the wind when we're going downwind we'll have to do a jibe jiving is when we turn the boat with the wind behind us and the wind ends up on the opposite side of the boat jiving can be a little more tricky because the Mainsail can fly over uncontrollably it's called an accidental jibe so you just have to be careful when you're doing a job and make sure the Mainsail and the boom are controlled with the main sheet once we're done sailing we'll get rid of the sails you can roll the Genoa in or the jib in if it's on a roller furling or haul it down if it's on Hanks and then head into the wind to bring down the main thanks for joining us today to learn how to sail make sure you check out our YouTube channel adventures in Paradise to see all of our sailing adventures

Channel: Adventures In Paradise

Views: 48,870

Keywords: sailing, sailboat, how to sail, lean to sail

Id: 5Yw_QMOHXVA

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022