Charles L.

Sailing

Beginner Basics

There are some basic skills a beginner sailor must learn when starting out.
A Optimist is a solo boat. The first thing you need to learn is how to rig
and tie which is basically how you get your boat ready to sail. The way you
rig is first you put up your sail by sailing hooking your sprit poll to the
sprit, the sprit poll is the poll you have to keep your sail up in the air. Then
hook it to the tie at  the top of the sail witch looks like a ring. After you
tie, put your sail in the hole in front of the boat. After that you need to
put it into the water and put your center board and rudder in. Do this by
putting the center board in the long hole in center of the boat. You put
your rudder in by putting it in the two hole on the back of the boat and
hook it in. Then clip your main chete into the ring on your boom then adjust
your sail with the sprit so it doesn’t have wrinkles by pulling on it hard then
cleating it with sprit cleat.

Now you need to tie all your sail ties and mast clamp and center board. If
you don’t have a mast clamp just tie in very tight to your boat so it won’t
fall out. Now I will teach you how to tie boom knots and mast knots, not
corner knots. So on both mast and boom you use square knots by going
around twice or once and they should be a credit card width between them.
So you go left over right then left over right and pull tight.

Now you need to learn to move threw the water and change direction.
I will teach you how to head up wind,reach and go down wind too. You go up
wind by pulling your sail in with main chete to the corner of your boat and
tack and jib to the windward mark. You reach by putting your center board
up about ten inches then let your sail out  to 70 degrees. You go down wind
by pulling your center board up two feet and let you sail out so it is even
with your sail so about ninety degrees.

Now I will teach you how to tack and jib the purpose of doing a tack
or jib is to change directions and round marks. Tacking is when left or
right and jibing is that too but you turn in other directions. You
should do it less though because it slows you down more than tacking.
Tacking is done by pushing the tiller away from you and jibing is
pulling it the tiller towards you and you push your tiller to much you’ll
head down and lose speed.

Now I will teach you how head up and down heading up is pulling towards
and it is the opposite for heading down and adjust your tiller slightly.

These are the most important basics for a sailor that is new to the
sport.