This page will be a brief description of the style of teaching I will give. It is to be a hands on method, as I learned. This method requires time, and therefore I will lend my boat and my time in order to give any one interested in learning a good chance of succeeding. Boat handling can be best described in my opinion as a series of challenges. Steering a sailboat and trimming sails are difficult at first and then become almost routine later.
There are some simple parts and descriptions to the modern sailing rig that should be memorized so that their function and name are always bound together. Often a split second decision requiring full knowledge of the causes and effects of a particular system onboard can prevent damage or injury. It takes time to understand steering, sail trim, and how they interact with each other.
One book I use is a reference for my students was compiled by North Sails once. I use the comments of the young skippers who were winning races when the book came out years ago. It was asked what was important to them regarding how they learned to sail, and what they believed makes them sail their small boats fast. What they said provides much information for anyone learning to sail, in my opinion.
Lessons are given in the Gulf of Mexico where the boat can be steered in various directions relative to wind direction, without being confined to sailing within a channel. My course concentrates on making the boat move under sail, leaving most right of way rules, chart reading, light or sound signals, and navigation for other cources.
A text I read and have in my possession authored by a member of the American Sailing Association stated in his "fundamentals of Sailing" that any sailing vessel overtaking another vessel has to yield the right of way. My captain's license course notes mention that any vessel moving under sails alone, only gives right of way to anchored vessels or vessels not under command. Both are true at the same time because a sailboat without a motor is essentially the most difficult type of vessel there is afloat to control while manuevering under sail alone. Even vessels restrained by their draft in International waters must yield to a sailboat that is moving subject to Mother Nature's forces alone. That is not to say that you can sail around oblivious to larger vessels in your path. It is just that it will be assumed that you are not in full control of your sailboat and you may be asked to terminate your voyage if you don't show some sea sence when out on the waters. I will also provide information regarding required equipment for small craft.
Mischief has a traveller which allows the boom to be pulled up to the windward site in lite winds during a close reach. The traveller can also pull the boom down to leeward in strong winds to "dump" excess wind from the sail when on a close reach. I will show how to reef the main and how to make adjustments in order to restore a proper sail shape to a reefed in sail. I will give detailed instruction concerning tacking, gybing, comming about, and sail trim while running downwind and sailing close hauled. I will also describe the starboard tack right of way rule and mention that there are additional rules for racing that could be read about or learned in classes and out on the race course
I will explain how a padded jib on a roller furling rig can still provide a reasonable sail shape while the jib is reefed in during high winds. I will explain how balancing the two sails on Mischief by reefing can allow for easier and more relaxed steering in heavy weather.
When I give my students the helm and ask them to sail to windward, I will try to familiarize them with "lifts" and "headers" and "pinching to windward" or "bearing off" when "headed" The wind direction can and does shift which can cause problems like unexpected gybes downwind. However, a wind shift can be beneficial when beating to windward if it happens to be a lift. And it is always good to get in the habit of looking into the direction of the wind for changes in wave patterns or streaks of increased wind which some times show on the water as "cat's paws". It is good to keep an eye on the tell tails or wind vanes for shifts as it is more difficult to feel a wind shift (Perhaps as an increased weather helm during a lift) on Mischief than you would feel on a day sailer. It could help a lot if a sailer could learn to stear up to windward during a short lived "lift" when sailing to a destination if skirting a sandbar off to the leeward side of their course, or just to correct for the sideways drift all sailboats have to a degree when sailing upwind. .
Mischief, despite having a bit more sail area than sloop rigged boats built today still can make a summer downwind sail very unpleasant as the boat speed reduces the apparent wind felt and thus can rob a sailor of the cooling effect of the breeze on a hot day. I therefore try to give the downwind lessons either toward the end of the day or at dusk during the summer time. By having a tiller rather than a wheel, a downwind sail with the sails trimmed "wing and wing" allows the sailor to point the tiller in the direction of the unstable sail which is about to gybe and turn the boat in the opposite direction, refill the collapsing sail and prevent the gybe. The effect of pointing the tiller to the sail having a problem keeping full, immediately corrects the problem without having to think about the direction of the wind and where to steer the boat in order to remain exactly parallel with the wind direction.
I will give some of my observations and opinions concerning our local weather, cold fronts, thunderstorms, and give out a handout dealing with weather, describing how "clocking" and "veering" wind directions possibly could be used to determine the direction a major low pressure area may pass relative to the observer, the dangers of the South East quadrant of a major storm while it passes, and the Buys-Ballot law regarding the location of a high pressure area being to the left and ahead of the predominant wind direction preceeding a major storm, in the Northern Hemisphere. This is due to the fact that a high pressure area feeds a low pressure area and as the high rotates clockwise out of its center, it proceedes to feed into a counterclockwise inward spinning low. If Caught in the path of the feed wind, with your back to the wind, expect the storm to be in front of you to your left and the fairer weather to be behind you to your right, not a bad idea to stear to the left of the wind direction to leave a storm behind, or if you have to run with the wind, then stear to the right as well.
One might notice a counterclockwise wind shift called a "backing" of wind toward a particularly active bunch of rain clouds. this might indicate they are approaching, have an established low pressure area in their center, with the potential for cyclonic activity, in my opinion. Likewise if the bunch of rain clouds, with the same chacteristics, are leaving, the wind direction could be unbent and revert back to its prevailing direction, shifting back in a clockwise manner called "veering", in my opinion. If these observations take place about 5 minutes before the the clouds arrive, a huge impact of the low pressure center perhaps as a water spout, or as a downdraft, they may serve as an alarm against the emminent danger of being caught unprepared in such conditions.
A downdraft is an air column which hits the water after travelling upwards 10 miles, cooling off and tumbling back to earth resulting in the 45 knot sudden winds that preceed the rain. this often occurs in one of the typical anvil shaped afternoon clouds that come rolling along the coast almost daily during the summers around Fort Myers Beach. While these do not have any counterclockwise circulation in them as a waterspout would, never the less, getting caught in a downdraft is like being in a short lived hurricane during the summer. Best to recognize when they are approachihng, when they are most likely to occur, in order to avoid encountering one unprepared, hatches open, sails up, and no life jackets worn or readily available. When out in the Gulf in the summertime, along with the visual signs, darkening clouds, lightning,approaching rain on the leeward side of a huge cumulus raincloud having a large dark anvil shape, I would also look for a wind veer or backing, and I would know that may be a squall with a circulation pattern.
One last bit of information I might want to give would be a way to guess your distance from shore by using landmarks, right angle geometry, and a speedometer. Imagine your boat as a clock with noon being the bow, six oclock being the stern, and viewing a landmark on shore about 2 o'clock ahead of the beam. Now imagine the clock as a compass face comprised of 360 degrees, divided into 12'th so that each hour on the face is 30 degrees. You have a way of keeping time, so keep track of the number of minutes or hours it takes to pass by this shore mark until it is lying at 4 o'clock behind the beam. You have now covered the distance of the base of a large equal sided triangle and also 60 degrees or the top angle of the triangle. And if you know your speed and have your time, now you also have the distance of the shore side of an equal sided trangle also having equal interior angles of 60 degrees. Using the Pythagorean Theorum, the sum of the square of half the base (known) plus the square of the trangle's height or distance from you to the shore(which is unknown)equals the square of the distance from you to the first mark you passed or of the entire base since all sides are equal. So the square of the distance from you to the shore will be the square of one side of the trangle divided by the square of half a side. Let's try it in real life. At 12:00 pm I observe a landmark at 2 points off the starboard bow or about 60 degees, and I observe 4 knots on my speedometer being fairly steady. at 2:00 pm I observe the same landmark now 4 points off my starboard bow or about 120 degrees away from the bow. My distance along the shore must be about 8 nautical miles. the square of 8 or the longest side of the right triangle minus the square of 4 being the base of the right triangle equals the square of distance from shore. 64 minus 16 equals 48. The square root of 48 is a little under 7 miles. thats about our distance from shore.
I no longer own Mischief and have not lived on the water since 2006. It was a decade of fun and have no regrets about sailing for a living. It was a blast. If you have a boat and want a guide out on the waters of Pine Island Sound, let me know. I'm your huckleberry.
