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Principles of sailing

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X2-PB

Post subject: Principles of sailing

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:57 am

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

Seeing as not everyone is a sailor and some sailing knowledge would be helpful, I thought I'd start a thread where we can collate comments on the principles of sailing. I'm not going to do it in an organised way to start with, but I thought at the same time it would provide a good opertunity to give some quotes from various Dev Blogs (which I'm reading through, from start to finish, at the moment. Currently at 2003!). Later on, I'll come up with a consise post of the principles.

Anyway, for now, here is a little tidbit from very early alpha stage including an explanation of tacking.

Quote:

Close-hauled on the Starboard Tack

05.01.03 by Augustus

This afternoon with Rev, we booted up the game, logged in and set sail from St. Vincent to St. Lucia in our little sloop. Our goal was to start the balancing process for sailing, and to help solidify the world scale and travel times.

What are we shooting for? Well, I’ll start by saying what we’re NOT shooting for: hyper-realism. I’m the first to stand up for simulation and authenticity, but when it comes to sitting on my butt, watching the open ocean waves roll by for a half an hour, even I long for a bit of abstraction. What we are looking for is a distance between ports that is long enough that players can get into fights along the way, but short enough that “sailing time” isn’t time you spend reading a book.

So, after much research into the Beaufort scale, and historical sailing data for 18th century square-riggers, we plugged our real-world numbers in for the sloop. The wind today was coming from the north at a fresh 17 knots, so our destination was almost directly upwind. Our little Bermuda sloop can pinch really close to the wind (4 points, better than any other vessel in the game), but even it came to a shivering halt when aimed that far into the wind. That’s when we discovered the joy of tacking.

Sailing close-hauled to the wind is what they call sailing as far upwind as possible. It turns out, there’s a fairly hard line in your vessel’s top speed. On one side of that line (sailing close-hauled), you can actually move pretty fast. Just a little closer to the wind, though, and your sails lose the wind and you come to a dead stop. So when you need to sail upwind, you sail close-hauled on the port tack for a long time, then turn your vessel through the eye of the wind until you end up sailing close-hauled on the starboard tack. Repeat this and you end up zig-zagging your way upwind far faster than trying to sail directly.

So how long does it take to sail from St. Vincent to Vieux Fort, the southern port of St. Lucia? Because I was sailing upwind the entire trip, it took about 25 min. In my opinion, this is way too long! So, to the horror of the purists out there, we are going to change things up a bit so that it takes less time to get from port to port. We’re going to see how it feels for a sloop with a decent wind to make trips of that distance in 6-8 min.

That will be tomorrow!

-Taylor Daynes
Lead Designer

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Angelus

Post subject:

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:25 am

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So that's what they are doing during the America's Cup sailing I watched a bit of on the weekend. Tacking = turning to get best spd going against the wind.

Gotta apply that in my Sid Pirates gaming tonight!!

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:36 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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I'll be adding to this soon, I promise!

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:08 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

Right, here we go. As a base I'm going to be using definitions from Wikipedia and then modifying the bits I disagree with and generally simplfying them. I'll stick with terms relating to the principles of sailing and not the names of various parts of a ship, because it's not really necessary to know them and frankly, I can't be bothered!

To start, the term Tack.

It has two meanings in terms of a verb, to tack, or a noun, tack.

The verb, to tack:
A tack or coming about is the maneuvre by which a sailing boat turns its bow through the wind so that the wind changes from one side to the other.

Before tacking, it is in good practice to have a considerable amount of speed before doing so in order to complete the tack. If a vessel hasn't enough speed to complete a tack, the wind may overpower the boat's turn, thus forcing it back on its previous course, or the vessel may find itself "in irons," not moving at all.

Tacking can be performed with both Fore and Aft and Square rigs. Although it is generally not advisable to tack a square rigged ship, because the loss in speed in doing so renders the manouvre pointless!

When traveling windward, one must tack repeatedly so as to not severely alter course. Doing this is known as beating. Be warned, every time you tack, you lose speed in the manouvre. If you're racing or attempting to run away, tacking too often will lose you precious time.

The noun, Tack:
As a noun, tack describes the position of a sailboat's bow with respect to the wind. If the vessel's bow is positioned so that the wind is blowing across the starboard (right) side of the vessel, then the vessel is said to be on a starboard tack. If the wind is blowing across the port (left) side of the vessel, then the vessel is said to be on a port tack.

By definition, this is opposite to the side which the boom is carried (in a fore and aft rig, obviously it doesn't happen in a square rig), since it can be difficult when a boat is sailing downwind or nearly downwind from which side the wind is coming.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:13 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

To Gybe
Also spelt jibe, though I consider Gybe the proper spelling! Basically, is the opposite of tacking in that the wind crosses the stern of the boat rather than the bow. This is usually referred to as wearing in the age that this is set in (Gybe is a relatively modern term). There is very little inherent loss of speed to a square rigged ship when wearing. In a fore/aft rigged ship, a badly performed gybe is liable to capsize the ship and decapitate a few of the crew (I have done such in a dinghy, it really hurts!)

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:17 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

Weather Gage
To have the weather gage describes the favorable position of a sailing vessel relative to another with respect to the wind. It is any position upwind of the other vessel. An upwind vessel is able to maneuver at will toward any downwind point, since in doing so the relative wind moves aft. A vessel downwind of another, however, in attempting to attack upwind, is constrained to trim sail as the relative wind moves forward and cannot point too far into the wind for fear of being headed. In sailing warfare, when beating to windward, the vessel heels under the sideward pressure of the wind. This restricts gunnery, as cannon on the windward side are now elevated, while the leeward gun ports aim into the sea, or in heavy weather may be awash. A ship with the weather gage, turning downwind to attack, may alter course at will in order to bring starboard and port guns to appropriate elevations.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:24 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

I think everyone knows the meaning of the terms: Port, Starboard, Bow, Stern and Aft. For those that don't I'll list them here.

Port
The left side of the boat. Easily remembered as Port and left both have four letters! Sometimes, I believe, Port is referred to as Larboard (a term used a lot in Patrick O'Brian novels). I'm not actually aware which is most appropriate, but the term Port is certainly more common.

Starboard
The right side of the boat.

Bow
The front of the boat.

Stern
The back of the boat.

Aft
Towards the back of the boat. In context: Move those barrels aft would mean Move those barrels towards to stern.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:40 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

Points of Sailing
To do this justice requires a diagram. I don't have one handy!

There are three main points of sailing, broadly speaking.

Close Hauled
Pointing the boat as close to the wind as the rig will allowed. For a fore/aft rig this is about 45 degrees off the wind ie the wind comes from 45 degrees around from the bow of the boat in either direction. A Square rigger can't really close haul properly, doing so basically causes the ship to stop moving.

Reaching
The wind is blowing roughly perpendicular to the direction the ship is travelling. This is further divided into three terms:
Beam Reach
The wind is perpendicular to the direction the ship is travelling. When one refers to the fact that they are reaching, they usualing mean that they are on a beam reach.
Close Reach
Roughly halfway between a Beam Reach and Close Hauled. The wind is coming from a position that is forward of perpendicular.
Broad Reach
Halfway between Beam Reach and Running (see below). The wind is coming from 45 degrees off the stern in either direction. This is the fastest point of sailing for a square rigged ship. I'll say that again with emphasis: This is the fastest point of sailing for a square rigged ship. Remember that, it could give you that couple of extra knots of speed when you're trying to run away.

Running
The wind comes from directly aft of the ship. Unintuitively, this is not the fastest point of sailing. I'm not going to explain why, because I probably couldn't do the explanation justice! But basically, it is down to aerofoil theory.

I'll try find a good diagram to put in to explain all that a little better.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:01 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Knots
Forgot to add this one above. Knots is nautical miles per hour. So called because of the way it used to be measured. A string with a weight on the end was let out in the wake of the ship. It had knots on it at regular intervals (I've yet to find out what those intervals were) and a second person timed the period when the string was out, the string unraveled into the wake during this period. When the timer called stop the person holding the string would pinch it at that point, preventing any more being let out. The number of knots in the string were then counted in and this was the speed of the ship.

60 Nautical miles is equal to one degree of latitude. A Nautical Mile is 1852 metres.

Points of a compass
I couldn't think of a better way of describing this, but I'm not refering to N, E, S, W but rather the term Points as in "two points off starboard bow". One point is one 32ndth of 360 degrees. Take the context, a fore/aft rigged boat that can sail four points off the wind. This means that the closest that it can close haul is 4 32ndths or 45 degrees off the wind.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:19 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Heading up
Heading up into the wind. Turning the bow of the ship into the wind

Bear away
Bearing away from the wind. Turning the bow of the ship downwind.

I thought I ought to put in a little explanation about what happens and terms relating to going into the wind. Assuming you are sailing a fore/aft rigged ship (it's not even worth considering heading into wind in a square rigged ship so I shan't deal with it here). If you are close hauled, you are at the closest point of sailing that you can happily sail windward. Exactly where this point is depends on the type of boat, it can be closer or further away than the typical 45 degrees.

If you head up from this point, you start "pinching". I don't know if that's a technical term but that's what we called it. This is not efficient in terms of sailing. You are on the exact point where the sail starts to stall (exactly the same thing that happens to an aircraft wing when that stalls). Point any higher (into the wind) and, depending on your speed, you will either start to tack or the sail will flap and you will put yourself into irons. This is the technical term meaning that you are heading straight into the wind. The sails don't do anything and the only movement you will make will be by currents.

If you haven't quite got exactly into irons and are pointing slightly away from the wind, but with the sails still flaping, the force of the wind may cause you to slowly bear away and you can then set off again. If you are truely in irons, this won't happen.

A well designed boat won't allow itself to stay in irons so if you want to stop the boat's movement, without furling the sails, you have to Hove to. This is where you set a headsail such that the wind causes the boat to bear away but you set the rudder to cause the boat to head up. This will put the boat in an equilibrium position where it is effectively not moving but is also relatively easy to get out of and set off again.

The area between being close hauled on one tack to close haul on the other is known as the No Go Zone for obvious reasons!

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:26 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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That's most of what I can think of for the moment. If you have any terms you want explained or anything nautical related you want explained, post your question here and I'll do my best to answer it.

From here on in, unless there are question or I think of any other terms myself, I shall put in thoughts on naval tactics, relating both to sailing as well as combat. These, of course, will be my opinions. I'll also try to relate it to the game mechanics, as we know them, so that you have an idea of where to send the crew when you are performing a particular tactic.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:58 pm

n00b 4 3v3r

Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Had another thought of terminology.

Ship
Strictly speaking, the term ship only applies to boats with at least three fully square rigged masts. I've been using the terms ship and boat somewhat interchangably here. First-rate through to sixth-rate ships, I believe, depend on tonnage and number of guns carried. First-rate being the largest and with the most guns.

There are plenty of good resources on what non-ships are called, dependant on their rigging types. I'll post a link when I find a good one.

Yacht, while not necessarily a modern term, tends to refer to an unarmed sailing vessel of fore/aft rigging design. Sloops and Cutters can be referred to as yachts but, in this time setting, generally aren't.

A Dinghy is a very small boat, usually one to four personed and a single mast. Readily capsizable as proved by many dinghy sailors the world over!!! :mrgreen:

As a credit to this, I'm going to give you the definition of the term turtling.

Turtling
A dinghy sailing term referring to when the boat is fully inverted ie the mast is pointing down to the seabed. This usually happens if a capsize is not righted fast enough. It is so called because the inverted hull sticking out of the water looks like a turtle shell. In Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, when they invert the Black Pearl (and for a sailor that scene is fantastic to watch! Very funny, see below) it can be said to be turtled.

In my sailing club, it is almost a running joke that turtling is the sign of a bad sailor and, as a consequence, we present a prize, to the person who has capsized the most in the year, of an inflatable turtle! This all has nothing to do with PotBS, of course, but a fun story to tell nevertheless!

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Rocklar

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Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:05 pm

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Great collection of terms, Antan. Master and Commander illustrates some of these, the measurement of knots being one example that comes to mind.

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X2-PB

Post subject:

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:24 am

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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2001 8:01 pm
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Location: The Seaside, UK

I've moved a lot of these over to the wiki. I'll now update that than add them here.

I've split it into three sections:
Sailing Terminology: Quite obvious really. Gives definitions for the various sailing terms.
Principles of Sailing: Different from terminology, this explains the hows and whys of different aspects of sailing. There will be a fair amount of overlap with the terminology section but will tackle it from a different point of view.
Antan's Naval Tactics: This is where I will put in my personal thoughts and ideas on tactics for naval combat in a variety of different situations, relating it directly to game mechanics.

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Deak Almar

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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:58 pm

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Cool - good info

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X2-PB

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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:02 pm

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X2-PB wrote:

I've split it into three sections:
Sailing Terminology: Quite obvious really. Gives definitions for the various sailing terms.
Principles of Sailing: Different from terminology, this explains the hows and whys of different aspects of sailing. There will be a fair amount of overlap with the terminology section but will tackle it from a different point of view.
Antan's Naval Tactics: This is where I will put in my personal thoughts and ideas on tactics for naval combat in a variety of different situations, relating it directly to game mechanics.

Principles of Sailing and Antan's Naval Tactics now actually have stuff in them. All three sections could benefit from vast improvements but the basics are there now.

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