Controlling the Sails: Free Online Sailing Lessons

Video Transcript

Once we understand steering the boat, we’re also going to need to learn how to control our sails. Our sails are the engine that drives us, a sailboat is actually the ultimate hybrid vehicle, in that once we get ourselves out in the harbor and we can turn off our motors; we’re going to use the wind power to make us move. The big sail on the back of the boat is called the mainsail and the line that controls it, pulls it in and lets it out, it’s called the main sheet. On this particular boat its blue and it runs through a series of pulleys in the back of the boom towards the stern of the boat and it’s controlled in the middle of the boat. When I pull the line in, I have a series of purchases that allows me to have more leverage than if it was just one line. I can pull the line in, I may not want to hold on to it all the time and I can clean it off by just pulling it down through what is called a cam cleat. A couple cams will open up and grip the line, now I don’t have to hold on to that line. On a smaller boat, a dingy that can tip over, it’s important not to cleat your main sheet off because a gust of wind can come and tip you over. A Colgate 26 won’t tip over, on a blustery day though you may want to be able to let the main sheet out to spill some air out of the mainsail if the boat starts to lean over too much. To review, if I want to let my mainsail out, I lift the blue line up out of the main sheet up out of the cam that will allow the sail to run out. If I want to pull it in I can pull that line in and if I want to cleat it out, I just pull it through the cams and it will grip the line. The mainsail is this bigger sail in the back of the boat and as its name applies, it is the mainsail on the boat. It’s the sail that’s going to give us the most power and be the most important to us when we’re sailing. We have a smaller sail up forward that’s a jib and we’ll talk about that next.

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