Boating and Sailing.pdf - Moja ladja

Chapter 26: Handling Your Sailboat
Depending on the boat and the conditions, you may need to lower the mainsail in
addition to the jib in order to keep the boat stable at anchor.
5. When you’ve released adequate scope (three to five times the water depth or more,
as you’ll recall from Chapter 8, “Anchors Aweigh! Making Your Boat Stay Put”),
pull on the rode and see if you can help the flukes to work their way into the bottom.
This step isn’t necessary in a powerboat where the engine puts pressure on the
rode, but it’s a good idea in a sailboat under light winds.
6. Cleat off the rode.
When you’re ready to leave the spot, raise the mainsail if it had been taken down, and
then pull in the rode until the bow is nearly over the anchor. Keep track of the angle of
the rode at all times. The boat will try to sail around the anchor, and it’s very easy to get
the rode wrapped around the keel, propeller, or rudder if you are not careful. Agree on a
set of hand signals between the bow and the helm. Once the bow is over the anchor, a few
pulls usually breaks out the hook. Sometime the pitching of the boat can be used to
advantage here, taking up slack with each pitch down and using the buoyancy of the bow
for power with each pitch up.
Getting to a Moored Boat
With large fixed-keel sailboats, it’s common to leave the boat at a mooring well away from
the dock, avoiding the handling problems of docking in a tight spot. The dinghy, or
“dink,” is a small boat used to travel back and forth from shore to the boat.
The dinghy is also a mobile fishing and diving
platform that allows you to poke into shallows
where the mother ship can’t go. It’s also useful
for setting out a second anchor where necessary
for overnights. (The anchor is lowered into the
dinghy, and the rode paid out as the smaller
boat moves away from the mother ship.) And
there are times when it can serve as your tow
boat, as well; even with a 4-horse outboard, a
dinghy can tow a 40-footer out of the harbor,
slowly but surely, so long as wind or current are
not excessive.
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Boat Bytes
An inflatable dinghy also
acts as a serviceable
lifeboat in an emergency. It
has the stability to survive
in rough water and plenty
of space to haul your entire crew
to safety—something that most
“hard” dinghies can’t manage.