Sailing

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ruel

ruel

TreeHouser
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Jan 27, 2015
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Harpswell, Maine
I've been learning to sail for the last few years, and have totally fallen in love with it! The lines, rigging, gadgets, gear, demand for focus etc. remind me of what I enjoy about tree work. So far I'm just day sailing, but toying with getting a small cruising boat or live aboard. I'm pretty much sailboat crazy right now, so let's hear from any other arbo-sailers on here!

Share your awesome sailing adventures, pictures of your boat, advice or whatever sailing stuff comes to mind!
 
I've never quite understood the mechanics of sailing... I mean - if the wind is blowing in the opposite direction where you wanna go, how do you get where you're going???

I bet a nickel there aren't a lotta sailors here...
 
I don't know a thing about it, but always thought it looked pretty cool. Much more interesting to me than powerboating, for the reasons you mentioned. You don't simply point and go. There's an art to it.
 
Heck yea - I'd love the quiet... just the waves. Kinda like gliding!!!

Virginia needs to chime in. She doesn't have a sailboat but she may have some experience!
 
I took sailing lessons as a child. It was fun. But that was a lifetime ago now. And only on a lake. I'm not a huge fan of oceans myself.
 
I copy pastad this little simple explanation:

Sailing into the wind is possible when the sail is angled in a slightly more forward direction than the sail force. In this aspect, the boat will move forward because the keel (centerline), of the boat acts to the water as the sail acts to the wind.

Someone will explain it properly/easily I imagine.
 
Wikipedia is a little technical/jargony for someone not into it, but here it is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing)

You basically zigzag forward, moving ~45° to either side of the true line you want to be on. Somewhat similar is ferrying when paddling whitewater. You want to get to one side or the other, but the current is pushing you downstream, and if you point yourself 90° to the current, you will likely get pushed over, and certainly won't hit the bank where you want. You angle the boat 45° upstream, and paddle forward. The current then pushes you to shore as you paddle upstreamish.
 
I grew up on a lake and learned to sail at a young age, probably around 7 or 8 years old. The physics can seem a bit complicated but it is similar to flying, in that the sail acts as a wing and the forces are vectored to provide propulsion in a direction that is angled to the wind direction. You can't sail directly into the wind but you can sail at a pretty steep angle into the wind. Google can probably explain it better than I.
 
So you can't - directly? That's what I was thinking and the steep angle makes sense. You have to constantly replot your course...
 
Being from a great seafaring nation ( I believe we are currently the 5th biggest in tonnage, which is amazing considering our size and population) I have been on sailing boats quite a bit.
I never really got it.....................bored shitless after a few hours to tell you the truth.
 
Lol. I can see that. I took my lessons as a teen along with my two year older cousin and a handful of her(all female) friends. As a teenage boy it was basically..........paradise. :D
 
Like when I took up dressage riding at age 13.
Me and my buddy with whom I still ride were the only boys in the academy.
 
bored shitless after a few hours to tell you the truth.
Click to expand...

Do you mean sailboats in general or all forms of watercraft? Personally, I'd like a hopper-up Seadoo!

I'd also like to have a mini-sub.
 
I had an 18' racing catamaran when I lived in California. Loved doing high speed runs throwing up rooster tails on open inland lakes. Sailing and tree work do have much in common.
 
Years back I was semi seriously looking into kayaking to Europe. Thought it would be impressive, and I could maybe get it paid for by sponsors. Found out it was already done, and it kind of took the wind out of my sails(hah!). In a different life, it would have been cool to hand build a longboat, and sail that around the world. Too old now. Lacking just about everything I'd need to make it happen.
 
I've been sailing since a kid. My uncle had a 40' we would go out together regular. My cousin about a 36. My uncle and some buddies sailed to Hawaii and back. Down to the Panama canal and over into the Bahamas. Cousin went damn near round the world solo.
Young adult I got my helmsmans and sailed regular on lakes in MA. Different from ocean, little day sailers and sunfish(?).
Did some more out of Rhode Island and New Jersey. Always thought I would eventually end up living on one.
One family friend would work construction on Martha's Vinyard Island till fall, sail some wealthy persons yacht down to St Thomas and do construction/contracting all winter there. Then sail back in spring. Seemed like a dream job to me.
Life just took me in a different direction.
Fond memories and always at peace on the sea.
Wish the Navy had taken me when I enlisted, but the asthma made a 4f(?) out of me :(
 
Sailing rocks!

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I've got a 25 foot macgregor, haven't been on it in years. Life got busy and it got put on the back burner. However i absolutely love sailing, there's nothing better in the world for me. The silence and violence of it is awesome, all contained by ropes. Me getting into sailing was the impetus for me learning splicing and more rigging, tree work followed shortly after. I'm pretty landlocked being in central Illinois, so I've only been on the Illinois river and the Peoria lakes (wide parts of the river that are lakes). I've been told if you can maneuver in a busy channel with idiots that don't understand who has the right of way under light airs just about everything will seem easy after that. Although there are very big lakes within driving distance, it always seemed too much hassle when i would rather just go on the water and party. I've wanted to take the boat back to lake Michigan (the boat has done the mackinaw race twice), but just never got around to it. If i went through it really well and fixed some of the stuff that needs attention, i could easily trailer it there, or Florida for that matter. As the kids get older I'm sure il get back into it, as boating is an awesome family activity. My sister just bought a sunfish, so i might go out on that this year.

The other really cool thing about sailing is the history of it, because that's really the history of rope and rigging. For the last century sailing has had the connotation of a way for the rich to blow money, but for most of human civilization it has been almost exclusively in the hands of the working class. A vast majority of knots, splices, tools and techniques for all manners of rigging were developed by illiterate sailors who used rope to pass the time rather than reading. Just about every "advancement" in tree work is actually centuries old technology and techniques used with modern materials. The grcs, friction devices, rigging rings, saddles, etc. are all directly from sailing.

Il have to hunt for more pictures, but here's one of me years ago in my driveway using the boom to determine how big the yellow jacket nest in the mast was during spring cleaning...

imagejpeg_2vfddc.jpg
 
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