"Back and fill" meaning

[srah1953]

What does the word "fill" mean in back and fill? I understand the process, just not the terminology.
Just curious

 

[sailorbenji]

It means fill the sail in the usual method...so you alternately back the sail (wind from behind the sail according to the side the sail is sheeted), then fill the sail from the correct side according to the side the sail is sheeted, repeat ad infinitum as the tide does its work.

That's my understanding anyway.

 

[srah1953]

Ah, interesting. I was thinking of the term as is used in manoeuvring under engine.
Thanks

 

[Aardee]

I suspect it's one of those older sailing terms that's been adopted to describe the manoeuvre you're thinking of. Both are used to turn the boat through 180 degrees in a restricted space.

 

[sailorbenji]

Ah, interesting. I was thinking of the term as is used in manoeuvring under engine.
Thanks

Aahh, yes I think it's one of those old sailing terms that is used now in a modern context...certainly my explanation of it is it's "original" meaning at least!

 

[Kukri]

It has a precise meaning.

It is the technique used by a square rigged vessel to work up a channel that is too narrow for her to tack or wear ship in.

these pages are from Harland’s “Seamanship in the Age of Sail”;

 

[Kukri]

 

[Kukri]

There is a very good description in Frank Worsley’s “Under Sail in the Frozen North” which describes his circumnavigation of Spitzbergen including Nordaustland in the barque “Island” in the 1920s. Worsley as you will recall was Shackleton’s navigating Officer.

The operation was usually done under topsails only. The ship fills and drives ahead as far as she can; the helm is then reversed and the topsails backed and she makes a stern board, then the process is repeated.

It was the ability to do this that caused collier brigs to last into the 1900s and caused trading schooners to keep their square topsails.