CHAPTER 16 Huffling


In flat water with plenty of way on you can often shoot head to wind for several boat’s lengths as you come about. The technique can also work when you aren’t quite making a corner beyond which you’ll be sailing free. This ‘huffling’ gains valuable distance, especially amongst moorings and other awkward obstructions. If the boat develops lee helm when she fills on the new tack, you’ve allowed her to shed too much way, so learn for next time. Huffling doesn’t normally work at sea because of the waves.


Lee-bowing


Use of transits Wherever a tide or current is running, the boat will not be going where she is pointing. This holds good for power craft also, but the sailing-boat skipper who is tacking must be especially observant about where the boat will end up. The only real answer is to use the transits of two objects in line whenever you want to arrive at a specific place. If your interest is more in not hitting something, note whether the appropriate transits are changing. If it’s a moored boat, make sure both of her ends are moving in the same direction. If the stern’s gobbling up the background and the bow is spewing it out, you’re passing clear ahead, but if both stern and bow are progressively obscuring background, alter course or wait for the crunch.


Keep an eye on your masthead Tacking up a river full of moored boats on a windy day with your boat heeled well over, it’s frighteningly easy to forget your masthead. Watching transits at eye level does not guarantee immunity from fouling other boat’s rigs with your wind instruments. Always look aloft. Think ahead Make a point of thinking ahead in a river. Beating, try to plan a tack ahead – preferably two. Don’t be over-ambitious with your tactics, and you won’t end up at the bitter end of a blind alley. Exit strategy Sailing in tight waters, things can slip out of your control quite suddenly. One moment you are enjoying the ambience, the next you’ve run out of space. Especially when sailing alongside or into a tight berth, an exit strategy is axiomatic so that if things go horribly wrong, you know before you start what the alternative is. Given this, the only decision is when to activate ‘Plan B’.


Closehauled and facing a foul stream, huge advantages can accrue if you can steer to place the tide on your lee bow. The boat will be magically set upwind, while the apparent wind will be freed by a geometrical mystery. Lee-bowing can save whole tacks. Once in a while it even excuses pinching.


MANUAL OF SEAMANSHIP | 143


River seamanship


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