How to Tack a Sailboat

Video Transcript

"Okay, right now we are on a port tack and what that means is that the wind is coming over our port side and the boom and the jib are over on the starboard side and as, as we, in order to go upwind we have to tack back and forth and change tacks and so we may want to go from a port tack, which we are on there, where the wind is on the port side, to a starboard tack where the wind is on the starboard side. And the way that we would do that, is there's commands that you need to communicate with your crew and make sure that they know what you're about to do, and the command is "prepare to come about", and when they are ready, and I'll explain that in a second, what that is, when they're ready, they will say "ready", if they're not ready, they will say "no", and as we, they will be ready when the person, you have a working sheet, the one on, which is on starboard right now, where Ed is, and is, that's where the tension is on the jib sheet. And then you have a lazy sheet, or the one on port right now, where Kelly is. You see how it's slack by the jib and so what we are going to do is, when we come about, Ed is going to have to release his side on starboard. Okay. And Kelly is going to pull in on her side, and "ready about". "Ready", Ed is over here, ready to release. "Ready", and Kelly is ready to pull. And then the command is "Helm, to lee", I am going to put, turn the tiller as, or the wheel, so that the boat turns into the wind. I'm turning into the wind now, and Ed releases and Kelly pulls it in on the other side. And as soon as the main sail is on one side, we release, we stop turning and we are sailing now on a starboard tack. And as you can see the wind is now coming over the starboard side of the boat, and the sails are on the, have changed sides of the boat and they are right now on the port side of the boat. "Helm to lee". Okay, talk us through it Steve, talk us through it. Okay, the sail comes over on the aft, I put my additional wraps on at the very end. If you do it quickly, you don't need to winch it in. I was a little slow on that tack, so I'm going to winch it in a little. When you are around the winches you want, you always want to keep the heel of your hand toward the winch, don't point your fingers down here, keep the heel in that direction."