As there a few new readers looking in my blog, I feel there is need to update and re-publish this glossary again.

The lasted posting in this “Glossary” series is always an updated version of the previous “Glossary of terms”.

New item is the round sail and here and there a typos corrected.

I’m using in my narrations a lot of abbreviations and special terms, which are understood by sailors. As I know that there are many people without sailing knowledge reading these narrations, I decided to add again this glossary of terms. Here you find always explanations on the terms and especially the abbreviations I’m using.

TWS – True Wind Speed – the speed measured at any position at land or at sea where the position does not move. On board of a boat this wind speed is calculated using satellite data.

TWD – True Wind Direction – the true direction of the wind. The direction from which the wind comes in the global coordinate system where N = 0 deg, E = 90 deg, etc. It is not to be mistaken with TWA, which it relative measured from the boat.

AWS – Apparent Wind Speed – the wind someone standing on a boat feels. This is the wind the sails feel, thus the wind, which drives the boat forward. It is measured on the top of the mast.

AWA – Apparent Wind Angle – the angle equivalent to AWS. It is also measured on the top of the mast

TWA True Wind Angle – the angle equivalent to AWA but recalculated using GPS data. It is the calculated angle at which the true wind would hit the boat.

STW – Speed Through Water – the speed a boat makes through the water. It is measured just outside of the hull. There is through hull in which the sensor is located. This is used to calculate the TWS from the measured AWS.

SOG – Speed Over Ground – the speed with which the boat moves over the ground of the globe. It is calculated from satellite data.

COG – Course Over Ground – the course (direction) in which the boat moves over the ground of the globe. It is calculated from satellite data.

WPT – Waypoint – point along the route a boat sails. Each WPT has a pair of coordinates that determines its position on the globe or on the sea chart (digital or paper)

BTW – Bearing To Waypoint – the direction under which the WPT is located; being seen from the boat.

DTW Distance To Waypoint – the distance of the waypoint from the boat.

PRT – Port or Port side – the left side of a boat when looking from stern to bow. Color is red. (The red heart is at the left side of a human body.)

STB – Starboard or Starboard side – the right side of a boat when looking from stern to bow. Color is green.

XTE – Cross Track Error – The distance a boat is left or right away from the planned route to the next WPT.

NM – Nautical Miles – distance unit for navigation. 1 NM is the equivalent distance of 1 angular minute of a longitudinal circle around the globe (these circles go through the North and South pole). They have all the same length.

KN Knot – a speed unit for which means the NM per hour.

As Nautical Mile and Knot are not an ISO units, they don’t have an internationally fixed abbreviation. Thus, one can find other abbreviations as well. I’m using the ones here in capital characters because they are not in conflict with any ISO units.

Sails
Every sailboat can have different sails but almost always have a main sail and one head sail.

The main sail – or short the “main” is the big 3-angular sail behind the mast.

The head sails – are always before the mast. Head sails can have different sizes and thus have different names. MaRe has 3 different head sails.

The genoa – biggest and most often used has 49 m2.

The jib sails – Only a few catamarans can fly jib sails. MaRe has two. A jib with 20 m2 and a storm jib with only 8 m. Depending on wind and direction conditions one jib can be used in combination or instead of the genoa.

Gennaker – this is huge, 123 m2, sail made out of material also used for parachutes. It is a light wind sail, which I can use for AWA from 70 – 180 deg. (For sailors: I can even fly to 150 deg on the other side with a tack height of 2 m). It is flown in the very front of the boat but can be pulled to the side as well; this depends on the AWA.

MaRe got last year a new gennaker. It’s colors are only dark blue and light blue. The dark blue color is at the edges of the sail, to get a good contrast against the sky. In the inner, light blue area it carries the name “MaRe”.

It got the nick name “The Big Blue”.

Round sail – although I have this sail since I left Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, I did not use it due to a lack of understanding of the handling of this real downwind sail. Now I got this understanding and like this sail.

It’s name comes from its shape and it’s shape comes from its original purpose. A round parachute. It’s a modification of a round parachute. The round opening of has a diameter of 8 m, so the sail has an approximate area of 50 m2.

The parachute lines are bundled in two groups. One is the upper bundle, which is connected to the gennaker halyard. The other bundle is connected to the tack line of the gennaker. There are a few details more, but I will skip them.

The sail flies in front of the bow at a height of about 10 m above the sea. The gennaker halyard is adjusted to a height that the sail never can fall into the water.

Beside the described two lines there is a third one, the retrieval line to get sail on board again when needed.

The AWA range in which this sail can be used goes from about 150 deg PRT continuously to 150 deg STB. The sail swings in front of the bow so it does not need to be gybed.

The wind speed range goes from 15 KN to 30 KN.

A genoa can only work on PRT or STB thus covers only half of the range the round sail can cover.

Also my gennaker covers an even larger range on wind directions, there is a windspeed limit of 15 KN TWS.

So the round sail is the best for within the describe limits.

Reefing a sail – or – put a reef in sail – making a sail smaller because their it’s too much wind or there is more wind to expected.

The main sail has 3 reefs plus what I call reef 0. Reef 0 is the unreefed sail. When the reef number increases, the sail is getting smaller. Reef 1 covers a large range of wind speeds; it’s used for normal daylight sailing. Reef 2 is good for strong breezes and light gales. I use it also during night to not get surprised by a squall which can have wind speeds of up to 30+ KN. Then there is reef 3, a storm sail. Fortunately I never had to use it in a storm. The only time I used it was during the last 24 – 48 h in the approaching to the Gambier islands. MaRe was running to fast with reef 2, so we changed to reef 3 to arrive later at the check points.

For the genoa there are bar marks at the foot (lower edge) of the sail. The more number of bars are to be seen, the bigger the sail is. 3.5 bars means the full sized genoa. 0.5 bars means the genoa is reduced to the size of a “handkerchief”. The finally stage is furling (rolling up) the genoa fully. The number of bars is also in the reefing table of the boat designer.

Now, you might read “we furled the genoa” – furling a genoa is a work done very often on a boat and has not necessarily something to do with strong winds. Most often it just means getting the genoa out of the way because we need to work at mast on the main sail.

The gennaker can not be reefed. For that reason I can be called a “binary” sail; it’s up or down. Like “1” or “0” in a computer.

Jib sails will not be reefed but exchanged.

The round sail is like the gennaker a “binary” sail; either it flies or is down.

Halyards – each sail has its halyard, which is a line to pull the sail up.

Sheets – Each head sail has 2 sheets. Sheets are lines with which a head sail must be adjusted to the AWA.

The main sail has only 1 sheet to adjust the sail to AWA.

Barber Hauler – a special line, which allows to open a head sail more than what is possible using a normal sheet. I use this typically when I only sail with the genoa and have winds between about 150 – 180 deg AWA.

Autopilot – it is a computer, which can steer the boat depending an information it is given and the steering mode being selected

Steering modes are:
STBY – stand-by – the autopilot returns the steering to the person at the helm and does nothing else.
AUTO – the autopilot steers the boat into a direction entered, ignoring wind and current drifts.
WIND VANE – the autopilot steers the boat in a way that the entered AWA determines the direction the boat is going. Thus, when the wind changes direction, the boat follows the new direction.
TRACK – the autopilot steers the boat to a given WPT correcting drifts by currents and wind. This mode can only be used with very stable wind directions or when the boat is running by its engines.

Directions given in hours – If one stands somewhere at the boat and wants to tell another person where there is something to be seen, the hours of clock are used. 12:00 is fixed to the bow and 0600 is fixed to the stern. The other hours are distributed around the clock.
E.g. 0300 is on STB at a 90 deg angle from the boat. 0900 is the equivalent on PRT. The others are in between on a logical order.

Compass directions – N north (0 or 360 deg)
NNE north-north-east (22.5 deg)
NE north-east (45 deg)
ENE east-north-east (67.5 deg)
E east (90 deg)
S south (180 deg)
W west (270 deg)
Between each main direction the sub directions equivalent to the ones between N and E exist.

Waves – There are wind induced waves and the swell. Wind induced waves are on top of a swell and are cause by wind closer to the boat, whereas swell is created by constant winds far away and these waves roll long distances.
(If I’m not wrong there is a good article in Wikipedia: “Douglas Scale” is a pretty good search term. )

Kartoffelacker – “Kartoffelacker” translates to ” potato field” and here the term refers to a potato field after harvesting the potatoes. It’s a synonym for the sea being fully bumpy. Thus, German speaking sailors use this term for a very bumpy sea after some clouds or squalls passed through.

I hope that the terms are understood even by non-sailor. At least this was the objective for writing this glossary of terms. Feel free to ask for additional information to reinhold@cat-mare.de.