Diagrams Nos. 4 and 5 show the same racing yacht close hauled on the port and starboard tack. The spinnaker and balloon jibtopsail are taken in. A small jibtopsail takes the place of the flying kite. This sail, however, is only carried in light winds, as it has a tendency, when a breeze blows, to make a craft sag off to leeward.
Diagram No. 6 shows a boat beating out of a bay with the wind dead in her teeth, a regular "nose-ender" or "muzzler." She starts out from her anchorage on the port tack, stands in as close to the shore as is prudent, goes about on the starboard tack, stands out far enough to weather the point of land, then tacks again, and on the port tack fetches the open sea.
Diagram No. 7 illustrates a contingency frequently met with in beating to windward, when a vessel can sail nearer her intended course on one tack than another. Thus suppose her course is East by South and the wind SE, she would head up East on one tack (the long leg) and South on the other (the short leg).
Diagram No. 8 depicts the manœuvre of tacking that is the method of "going into stays," or shifting from one tack to the other. Fig. 1 shows a boat steering "full and bye" on the starboard tack. It becomes necessary to go about. "Helm's a-lee!" cries the man at the tiller, at the same time easing the helm down to leeward and causing the boat's head to fly up in the wind. The jib sheet is let go at the cry "Helm's a-lee!" decreasing the pressure forward and making the boat, if well balanced, spin round. A modern racer turns on her heel so smartly that the men have all they can do to trim the head sheets down before she is full on the other tack. Some of the old style craft, however, hang in the wind, and it sometimes becomes necessary to pay her head off by trimming down on the port jib sheet and by shoving the main boom over on the starboard quarter (Fig. 3). Soon she fills on the port tack, and goes dancing merrily along, as shown in Fig. 4.
In beating to windward in a strong breeze and a heavy sea leeway must be considered.
Leeway may be defined as the angle between the line of the vessel's apparent course and the line she actually makes good through the water. In other and untechnical words, it is the drift that the ship makes sideways through the water because of the force of the wind and the heave of the sea, both factors causing the craft to slide bodily off to leeward.