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Step 1
Acquaint yourself with your sailboat's steering apparatus. Larger sailboats will have a wheel that works in the same way as a car steering wheel. Smaller ones usually have a tiller – a wooden handle attached to the rudder.
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Step 2
Learn how the steering works. With a steering wheel, all you have to do is to turn it in the direction you want to go. With a tiller, things are reversed: push the tiller to the left, and the boat turns right.
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Step 3
Learn to adjust for the handling characteristics of a boat.. For example, a boat with a large jib and a small mainsail will tend to turn away from the wind – leeward in sailor speak. To keep it heading straight, you will have to steer a bit windward – towards the wind. If the boat has a large mainsail, it will probably want to turn windward. You will have to steer leeward.
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Step 4
Learn to adjust for wind conditions. Usually, the more wind you have, the more your boat will want to steer off course.
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Step 5
Learn to point. Sailboats cannot go directly into the wind, but they can get fairly close. Going close to the wind is called pointing. Learning how well your boat can point without stalling is important, because it gives you a greater degree of control.
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Step 6
Learn to go on a run. A run is when the boat is going almost directly away from the wind. Past a certain point, the boat will jibe (see below.) Learn to go downwind without jibing.
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Step 7
Use your crew as ballast. Moving everyone forward in the boat will give it a windward bias. Moving them back will cause it to tend towards leeward. Ideally, you want to position your crew so the boat is neutral.
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Step 1
Understand what tacking is. Tacking – otherwise known as “coming about” – is when a sailboat changes course by turning into the wind so that the wind is on the other side of it at the end of the maneuver. For example, if the wind is coming from the right side of a sailboat, it can tack by turning right until the wind is coming from the left side.
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Step 2
Gain some speed. In order to tack, the boat needs to be moving. Otherwise, it will stall when it turns into the wind and starts going backwards.
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Step 3
Make sure everyone knows you are about to tack. Come up with some signal to give your crew. A common one is to call out “ready about” before you tack, and then “coming about” when you begin to execute the maneuver.
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Step 4
Turn the boat sharply into the wind. When a sailboat is tacking, the wind works directly against it. Therefore, you want to do it quickly to keep the momentum.
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Step 5
Pull in the sails. They will naturally drift towards the middle of the boat. As they do, tighten the ropes. That way, you will keep them under control.
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Step 6
When the boom reaches the midpoint of the boat, duck underneath it and move to the new upwind side.
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Step 7
Keep turning until you are no longer facing into the wind. When you are far enough off the wind that you can fill the sails again and start picking up speed, you have successfully come about.
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Step 1
Understand what jibing is. Jibing is the opposite of tacking. As with tacking, the wind ends up on the other side of the boat. Jibing, however, is done by turning directly away from the wind.
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Step 2
Go downwind. The wind should be coming from behind and slightly to the side of you.
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Step 3
Get ready to duck. Tacking is relatively gentle, but jibing is not. The boom will swing very quickly across the boat. Pay attention to how high it is relative to your head and the heads of your crew.
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Step 4
Make sure everyone knows you are about to jibe. Call out “ready to jibe” before you start. Then, when you begin, call out “jibe ho!”
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Step 5
Move into the center of the boat with your crew with your heads down just before the boom swings across.
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Step 6
When the boom swings, switch to the high side of the boat and trim the sails to complete the jibe.
