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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]
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).
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] Tack – The tack is the corner on a fore-and-aft sail where the luff and foot connect [8] and, on a mainsail, is located where the boom and mast connect.
Points of sail and approximate apparent wind for a conventional sailboat on starboard tack. A point of sail is a sailing craft's direction of travel under sail in relation to the true wind direction over the surface. The principal points of sail roughly correspond to 45° segments of a circle, starting with 0° directly into the wind.
The points of sail clarify the realities of sailing into the wind. One of the points of sail is "Head to Wind." A boat turns through this point on each tack. It is the point at which the boat is neither on port tack or starboard tack and is headed directly into the wind. However, a boat cannot sail directly into the wind, thus if it comes head ...
The top of a triangular sail, the head, is raised by a halyard, The forward lower corner of the sail, the tack, is shackled to a fixed point on the boat in a manner to allow pivoting about that point—either on a mast, e.g. for a mainsail, or on the deck, e.g. for a jib or staysail.
The ship is close-hauled and the sail is now controlled by the tack rather than the sheet. The tack of a square-rigged sail is a line attached to its lower corner. [1] This is in contrast to the more common fore-and-aft sail, whose tack is a part of the sail itself, the corner which is (possibly semi-permanently) secured to the vessel.
A sail plan is a drawing of a sailing craft, viewed from the side, depicting its sails, the spars that carry them and some of the rigging that supports the rig. [1] By extension, "sail plan" describes the arrangement of sails on a craft. [2] [3] A sailing craft may be waterborne (a ship or boat), an iceboat, or a sail-powered land vehicle.