#seamanship

[the-golden-vanity]

Remember the lighthouse knife I scrimshawed for a shipmate? Yesterday, I received my half of our skills trade—a big marlinspike hand-forged from railroad steel. It makes me want to practice my knotwork, but I imagine, if needed, it would also be a pretty effective way to repel boarders. 🏴‍☠️

[ltwilliammowett]

General points of wind

Into the Wind/In the Eye of the Wind: The vessel is directly facing the wind (in the “eye of the wind”) and in the no go zone. The sail is luffed and provides no propulsive power. In this event, the ship is said to be “in irons” and risks losing its forward momentum, coming to a stop, and eventually being taken back by the wind (making sternway).

Close-Hauled/Beating: Vessels sailing as close as is feasibly possible to the wind without entering either side of the no go zone is said to be sailing “close-hauled.” For most fore-and-aft rigged vessels, this would be roughly 45 degrees into the wind. A vessel would also sail at this point prior to tacking (turning the bow through the wind). Being able to sail close-hauled and arrive at a certain point without having to tack is known as fetching.

Reaching: Sailing with the wind on the side of the vessel. A “beam reach” would be with the vessel’s hull perpendicular to the direction of the wind, as is depicted. A “close reach” would have the head of the vessel slightly into the wind, between close-hauled and beam reach.

Broad Reach: The wind is on either quarter of the vessel, but not directly astern.

Running Downwind/Before the Wind: The wind is coming from directly astern of the vessel.

[scenicworlds]

July 24, 2024

Sailing race starts are so exciting. Belfast, ME.

[severusish]

the urge to adopt an intelligent and back-talking parrot, learn navigational skills and swordsmanship, and devote myself completely to a life of adventure and piracy out on the high seas —

[sssfrs]

JOE IS DEAD update!  (Webcomic about pirates who find the dead body of their astronomer and they have to carry out his will).  Now that this is posted on tumblr instead of Twitter I can make the description much longer.  For this page I wrote a little thing about directionality at sea on the website for the comic but I’ll just put it here and you can learn a little bit about sailing: 

Did you know "port" and "starboard" used to be called "starboard" and "larboard", with the one starting in L as the "left" one, but it was changed because they sound too similar? I don't remember when or under what circumstances that change happened but you can probably look it up yourself using the computer. If you ever need to remember which one is port and which one is starboard (between right and left), you can remember because "starboard" has the same number of letters as the word "right".

Some other directional boat words that are a little less commonly known: You may have heard of bow (the front of a boat), and stern (the back of the boat), but did you know each side is called the "beam"? Just like you can say something is "astern" of your boat, you can say something is "abeam" when it's positioned to either side. Another way of saying "astern" is "abaft", but that can mean behind even if you're not all the way behind the whole ship. There's also the word "athwart" or "athwartships", which means something is positioned in a side-to-side way of the ship, rather than back to front. A square-rigged sail is oriented athwartships, while a fore-and-aft sail is oriented fore-and-aft.

Now that you know all that, I can tell you a joke that my friend Oscar made up: When is a wind not a wind? When it's abeam.

Now here’s link to where you can read this whole comic for free and you LOVE  it: Here is it

Also on Tapas and webtoon 

[ninakaina]

[barnaclebill]

[scoutingthetrooper]