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Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft (sailing vessel, ice boat, or land yacht), whose next destination is into the wind, turns its bow toward and through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. [1]
The corner where the leech and the foot connect is called the clew. [8] In the case of a symmetrical spinnaker, each of the lower corners of the sail is a clew. However, under sail on a given tack, the corner to which the spinnaker sheet is attached is called the clew, and the corner attached to the spinnaker pole is referred to as the tack. [20]
A tack is the windward side of a sailing craft (side from which the wind is coming while under way)—the starboard or port tack. Generally, a craft is on a starboard tack if the wind is coming over the starboard (right) side with sails on port (left) side. Similarly, a craft is on a port tack if the wind is coming over the port (left).
For many sailing craft 45° on either side of the wind is a no-go zone, where a sail is unable to mobilize power from the wind. Sailing on a course as close to the wind as possible—approximately 45°—is termed beating, a point of sail when the sails are close-hauled. At 90° off the wind, a craft is on a beam reach.
The jib is backed to windward, the mainsail is slightly eased, and the rudder is fixed in an attempt to turn into the wind (which is coming from the top of the diagram). In sailing, heaving to (to heave to and to be hove to) is a way of slowing a sailing vessel's forward progress, as well as fixing the helm and sail positions so that the vessel ...
An optional adjustable tack-line can be eased to allow the tack to lift, enabling the sail to also lift and its shoulders to rotate for deeper downwind angles. Depending on the design and size of the boat, sail and position of the tack, asymmetrical spinnaker sheets may be led to pass between the spinnaker and the headstay or, alternatively ...
This combination of two staysails is called a cutter rig (or in North America a yankee pair) and a boat with one mast rigged with two staysails and a mainsail is called a cutter. On cruising yachts, and nearly all racing sailboats, the jib needs to be worked when tacking. On these yachts, there are two sheets attached to the clew of the jib.
Sailboats can be pushed downwind by the wind, or can use lift to move across or into the wind. [8] However, for most sailboats the boat speed drops if sailing closer than 45 degrees to the wind. [9] The highest speed for most sailboats is reaching with the wind from the side or the aft quarter (a beam reach or a broad reach). [10]