How To Tack And Gyb In Sailing

Alex Schulte: Hi, I am Alex Schulte with the Washington Sailing Marina's Summer Sailing School and I am teaching you how to sail. This is tacking and gybing. There are two major maneuvers in sailing, tacking and gybing. Tacking is when you turn the bow of your boat through the wind from 2 o'clock to 10 o'clock or from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock. When you tack your main sail will come across your boat slowly and switch to the other side.

If you have a partner the first step in tacking is to notify your partner that you're about to tack by saying prepare to tack. Next you pull in your main sail and put your tiller hard towards your sail. This will turn the bow of your boat through the wind and make your sail switch to the other side. The other main maneuver is gybing. This is when the stern of your boat goes through the wind. If you are going on a down wind run and your sail is all the way out on the right side, if you gybe, your sail will switch over to your left side very quickly. Because of this you have to control your gybe. The way you do this is, again by notifying your partner by saying, prepare to gybe.

Next you pull your sail in almost all the way while putting your tiller slowly away from the sail. This will turn your boat slowly and cause the wind to come slightly from a different direction behind your boat causing your sail to switch sides. Once your sail switches sides you let it all the way back out. If you don't pull in the sail before you gybe, your sail will swing across your boat very quickly and very dangerously. This is called an uncontrolled gybe. That was tacking and gybing, next is sailing upwind.

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