I thought for the non-sailors among you, you might like a bit of a reference page for all this sailing talk, as, let’s be honest, all the names are a bid random and don’t make much sense. There’s also a bit of a benefit for me writing this, it’s a good test for me to see how much I can remember and it’ll make me go and look up the bits that I don’t. I hope it helps a bit both with names and with processes as I suspect that later on in my blog, when we’re at sea, I’ll be wittering on about what sails we’ve changed and how many sail changes we’ve done in x minutes etc, etc and I’ll probably be feeling quite proud about it or frustrated so this is your chance to get the jist of what I’m on about. Enjoy…
PORT Left – ‘any port left?’
STARBOARD Right – no aid memoir but it’s the only side left!
BOW Pointy bit at the front.
STERN The back of the boat.
SUN DECK Behind the wheel area at the stern of the boat where you can stand, relax and enjoy the view, sadly no G&T’s!
SNAKE PIT A shallow pit in the middle of the boat surrounded by winches therefore all the tail ends of the ropes fall into it.
HALYARD A bit of rope that is on the top of the sail that you use to raise it.
SHEET Another bit of rope that attaches to the corner of the sail to stop it flapping about.
WINCHES Wind the ropes around these and turn with a winch handle to help raise the sails (winching the halyard) or stop them flapping (winching the sheet).
COFFEE GRINDER A big winch on a pedestal which two people can use to help raise really big and heavy sails.
PIN RAIL A small metal bar to clip the ends of the halyards to, to keep them tidy.
JACKSTAY Piece of webbing attached to the deck of the boat that you clip your safety line to, to stop you falling in.
STAYS Bits of wire that run from the deck to the top of the mast that the sails attach to.
HANKS Metal clips that are on the front edge of each sail which attach them to the stay – making them ‘hanked on’.
SAIL TIE Little bits of rope which keep the sails from getting messy. It’s good to always have one or two in your pocket.
GUARD RAILS A few rows of wire around the edge of the boat which stop you falling overboard.
HEADS Toilets, ours have a shower curtain door – nice!
GALLEY Kitchen
SALOON Seating area – sadly no cowboys or a bar!
GHETTO The main sleeping area.
GIMP LOCKER The ropes live in here.
DONKEY Engine
LAZERETTE Storage place where all the smelly stuff lives.
WET LOCKER Cupboard full of soggy kit.
GIMBELED When the cooker top swings with the motion of the boat.
SAIL NAMES
Mainsail – the one that attaches to the mast and the boom.
Spinnaker/Kite – the one that you see on racing yachts with the logo on it.
Yankee – a big sail.
Staysail – also a big sail, but not as big as the Yankee.
Stormsail – a little one.
Wind seeker – does what it says on the tin.
BITS OF THE SAIL
Head – Top of the sail.
Luff – Long front edge, the one with the hanks on it.
Foot – Long bottom edge of the sail.
Tack – the corner between the Luff and the Foot.
Leach – Long edge at the back of the sail.
Clew – the corner of the sail between the Foot and the leach.
Tell Tails – Little flappy tabs that tell you if you have enough sail tension.
Jobs that get done…
Just as the names for bits of the boat are little confusing to say the least, I thought I might as well explain some of the jobs on the boat:-
MOTHER WATCH Two people spend the day cooking, cleaning and making coffee.
SAIL FLAKING Folding the sails to put them away.
RIGGING THE BOAT Setting up all the sails and ropes for leaving to go sailing.
TACK Putting the front of the boat through the wind.
JIBE Putting the back of the boat through the wind.
TRIMMING Altering the tension on various bits of sail to gain more speed. This happens almost constantly when racing to gain as much boat speed as possible.
REEF Reducing the size of the mainsail by folding down some of the material. Usually when it’s getting a bit scary – a bit like needing to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, it’s best to do it the first time you think about it.
MAN OVERBOARD Not something you want to happen. The chances of survival are fairly slim as the sea is usually too cold and with the boat moving quickly and high seas it can be very hard to find you. So we practice time and time again what to do in a man overboard situation; Keep your eye on him, throw in a dan boy (floating tall stick thing), radio a mayday,turn the engine on, ‘smoke’ (drop) the sails and tie them down, everyone else clips on to stop them going in too, get the rescue kit, bring the boat around to pick him up. There are a lot of jobs to do and all need to be done very quickly to give the MOB the best chance.
SAIL CHANGE Taking down one sail and putting up another one. No mean feat when the sails are bigger than tennis courts and they are below deck on the ghetto floor. Once you’ve man-handled the sail up from below you then have to unpack the new sail from the sail bag, take the old sail down, unhank it, hank on the new sail, winch up the halyard and winch in the sheet then flake the old sail into its sail bag. Phew!
ENGINEERING Maintenance checks on the engine just like you’d do on a car.
So, if you’ve made it through reading all that and are a non-sailor, you now know as much as I do so feel free to jump on a round the world yacht! If you are sailor you are probably shaking your head at any errors I’ve made or you have thought of plenty bits/names I’ve missed out!
