I knew I had made the wrong decision within about a half an hour. BANG...SPLASH... the wave sweeps over the boat and now there is no part of me that is dry. The boat is healed over so much I have one foot on the cockpit wall to be able to stand. I have to much sail on her. In the harbor I had made a decision that could make this a miserable day. I had chosen to keep more sail on her as opposed to shortening sail, called “reefing”, in hopes to gain speed and arrive at our destination sooner. One of the things I like most about sailing is making the boat work at maximum efficiency. This is a hard thing to do, and I had passed maximum efficiency and had gone beyond. Now I was cold and wet and not having fun. How a sailboat operates and rides can be broken up into three categories. Too much sail, not enough sail, and just right. This determines how the boat will ride and how fast or slow you go. But most importantly it determines wither it is a calm, comfortable, safe ride, or a wet, bumpy, white knuckled, unsafe ride. The goal is to choose the right combination of sail for the conditions. The balance between sail, wind and waves is like asking a beautiful women to dance for the first time. It is a delicate thing to do, can be hard to achieve, and if you do not learn how she likes to dance, you won't be easy to dance with her again.
Having too much sail up on a sailboat can be dangerous and is always uncomfortable. The worst case point of sail is when you have to travel up wind. This is called “beating to weather” and the reason it is called “beating” is because it beats you and the boat up. Because a sailboat cannot travel directly into the wind it must travel back and forth, zig-zagging, up wind and into the waves to gain ground. Doing this requires the sails to be positioned pulled in tight to the center line of the boat. By doing this it makes the boat lean or “heal” over more. If you have to much sail on the boat will heal over so much that it is hard to stand and is very uncomfortable. Also, because you are going into the waves, the sea has a tendency to smash into and brake over the boat. This makes the ride very wet, and after having the salt water sting and chill your body for a couple hours, it can get a little old. Another draw-back to this point of sail with too much sail is that it is very hard on the boat. The forces placed on the boat with the sails and crashing into the seas can stress equipment and cause it to brake, and that is never a good thing. The greatest risk with having too much sail is that the boat may be “knocked down” this is when the boat is forced on it's side or “beam ends” at ninety degrees or more. If this happen the boat can fill with water and go down or break the mast. This is the worst case scenario.
Having not enough sail can also make the boat very uncomfortable as well. This can be a tough one to fix. If you have too much sail you can usually reef the boat when it becomes uncomfortable. When there is not enough sail it can be hard to add sail once you are under way. It is a common mistake to shorten sail too much. With big wind and sea it is easy to take in too much sail. The problem with this, with either big wind or light breezes is, it that it is hard to get anywhere. The boat has to move, and the sails make it move. If there is too little sail you run the risk of staying out longer in bad weather and subjecting yourself to greater danger. With the lack of speed and progress under too little sail the weather may deteriorate and you can place yourself in a worse situation. If the wind is moderate or light, and you don't have enough sail, the problem is that you miss out on making the boat work efficiently and you just don't get anywhere. One of the greatest risks of having not enough sail is a situation with big seas and little sail up. Doing this causes the boat to get pushed up over waves and drop off the back of them. This is caused by a lack of speed and momentum. If you keep your speed and momentum the boat will carry through the wave an not loose much speed. This is dangerous because it causes the boat to surge, the waves suddenly slowing the boat for a moment. This surging can cause damage to the boat by suddenly and repeatedly shock loading components and causing them to break. Also the surging can cause people to fall and is very uncomfortable because you are always fighting to keep you balance.
Having just the right amount of sail can be one of the most wonderful experiences you can witness. There is where knowledge and experience come into play. Understand what your boat will do, in different conditions is an art form all in itself. With just the right amount of sail the boat will move the water in the perfect combination of beauty and science. Understanding the science can create a beautiful thing. Keeping the boat safe an comfortable is one thing. But to combine that with speed is something all in itself. Most sailboats have more than one sail and by balancing these sails you can make the boat act differently in different conditions. Adding sail to the front of the boat and shortening sail on the back of the boat will drive the bow into the water. This is better for sailing with the wind at your back, and makes the boat go faster. Adding sail to the front and back of the boat, but taking sail out of the middle of the boat can make the boat ride comfortably in heavy weather while maintaining speed. Taking sail off the front and keeping sail on the back of the boat is best for “beating” into the wind. It allows the boat to ride over the waves somewhat and keeps them from smashing into the boat.
The perfect balance between sail, wind, and seas is a hard thing to achieve. But when it is done it is magical. Harnessing the wind to slip over the water is graceful and majestic. It is amazing to think that man has been sailing for centuries and only until modern times did someone do the math and figure out how a sailboat moves. Before that, it was hundreds of years of trial and error. To be aboard a boat that is traveling fast, under perfect trim, is a thing to behold. It is a symphony. Many things working in unison to achieve something beautiful and amazing. But, if one of these things, such as a sail, is off or hits a bad note, it is noticeable and undesirable. Like a poorly played symphony, a poorly operated sailboat can cause people to leave and never want to come back.
"to gain ground"
ReplyDeleteUh oh, you will get drummed out of the yacht club for such lubberly talk....
I can't take this yet because of two problems, one to think about for the future but which you don't need to do anything about now, the other a problem you need to fix in a rewrite.
The problem to think about next time: after the first graf, you stop describing your own experiences directly and begin using 'you.' That makes the writing much less immediate and compelling. It's always tempting to go the 'you' route because it's easier to write that way because your mind is not generating so many visuals and memories as it does with 'I.' But the writing really suffers with 'you' in the long run.
The thing you do have to rewrite is the last graf. Right now, grafs 4 & 5 are (I am not going to say 'convering the same ground' or 'plowing the same field) tacking back and forth without making headway. Same material.
You might combine part of graf 5 in your current graf 4. You might drop current 5 completely and try a different tack altogether. Or you might try cutting the repetition in current graf 5 and see whether that reefed sail is what you actually want.