Boating and Sailing.pdf - Moja ladja

Chapter 23: How to Tell the Main from the Jib: A Sailor’s Vocabulary
I learned to sail at Steve Colgate’s week-long Offshore Sailing School and recommend it
strongly, but there are many other good schools that can get you going, some over a
weekend.
You can’t truly learn in a classroom, however, and all the good schools feature on-thewater
instruction after a brief period of book learning.
The Absolute Basics of Sailing
311
Sailing requires some knowhow
and practice, but the
rewards are well worth it.
This family uses a singlemasted
sailboat known as a
sloop to visit an island in
Lake Erie.
(Photo credit: Frank Sargeant)
You don’t have to know the difference between a mizzenmast and a shroud to put up the
sail and go for a turn around the bay.
Pick a day with just a little wind for this, under 10 knots—otherwise, you may have to
learn a little more quickly than you want to. And make your first attempts in a small, basic
sloop-rigged sailboat—no twin-masted ketches to start, please. (See Chapter 24, “Types of
Sailboats,” for details on the types of sailboats.)
Here are the absolute basics of sailing in 35 words or less:
1. Hitch the white sheet to the pole.
2. Raise the white sheet up the pole by pulling on the rope.