Commands for going about.

My written checklist, posted on the bulkhead

Tacking

- Load high side winch; winch handle
- Ease traveler, bear away a bit
- Stacking
- Inner forestay back
- Slack out of backstay, close clutch
- Check boom ready to cross (traveller open / preventer / nothing round boom or tiller)
- Pre-set traveler
- Tiller down
- Release old sheet, pull on new
- Backstay on; old one off
- Check course, look up, trim solar panel

I suppose if I were sailing with someone, "lee-o" would be in there just before tiller down.

The gybing checklist is longer.
 
ChattingLil said:
i think you just stick with what you grew up with and it's just habit. For me it's

ready about
(wait for afirmation that everyone's ready, put the tea down, etc:))
helm to lee
lee ho

I think it's stuck from teenage dinghy racing days. It's just our routine and everyone's used to it on my boat. btw - I'm am not public school, posh or pretentious !
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That's what we do. It makes sense to me as it says exactly what's happening.
 
Easticks28 said:
'Lee ho' is the advisory that the helm is, at that 'command' being moved to initiate the tack. Keel boat, dingy, 'cruising yacht' ( don't they have keels?:) )
- all the same, and IMHO either in a 'formal sense or "just out with your mates" makes no difference. Clarity of language and consistency is important for understanding. I use the RYA terminology when teaching AND when out in my own boat for a jolly.
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None of the schools I've worked at would agree with you.

Lee ho is the command to let go and haul on the jib. Helms a lee is an advisory the evolution is starting.
 
bbg said:
My written checklist, posted on the bulkhead

Tacking

- Load high side winch; winch handle
- Ease traveler, bear away a bit
- Stacking
- Inner forestay back
- Slack out of backstay, close clutch
- Check boom ready to cross (traveller open / preventer / nothing round boom or tiller)
- Pre-set traveler
- Tiller down
- Release old sheet, pull on new
- Backstay on; old one off
- Check course, look up, trim solar panel

I suppose if I were sailing with someone, "lee-o" would be in there just before tiller down.

The gybing checklist is longer.
Click to expand...

:D
 
After 189 posts on what I originally thought was a trivial subject it has finally dawned on me why I find newly "qualified" incontinent crew and dazed kippers such a trial to sail with. I have used the "ready about" - "lee-o" as the helm goes down call all my sailing life and have had it used on me. I expect the crew to let go the genoa sheet (though I quite often do it myself if I am steering from the lee side) as the sail starts to luff and to haul the sheet as the clew clears the shrouds. It never occurred to me that the formally trained yins were waiting for an intermediate order and that I was disorienting them by using only 2. I thought they simply didn't understand their role and the physics of sailing.
 
bbg said:
My written checklist, posted on the bulkhead

Tacking

- Load high side winch; winch handle
- Ease traveler, bear away a bit
- Stacking
- Inner forestay back
- Slack out of backstay, close clutch
- Check boom ready to cross (traveller open / preventer / nothing round boom or tiller)
- Pre-set traveler
- Tiller down
- Release old sheet, pull on new
- Backstay on; old one off
- Check course, look up, trim solar panel

I suppose if I were sailing with someone, "lee-o" would be in there just before tiller down.

The gybing checklist is longer.
Click to expand...

Oh my God! That would be enough to make me give up sailing :eek:

we have one item on our list. Turn the wheel. :p
 
awol said:
After 189 posts on what I originally thought was a trivial subject it has finally dawned on me why I find newly "qualified" incontinent crew and dazed kippers such a trial to sail with. I have used the "ready about" - "lee-o" as the helm goes down call all my sailing life and have had it used on me. I expect the crew to let go the genoa sheet (though I quite often do it myself if I am steering from the lee side) as the sail starts to luff and to haul the sheet as the clew clears the shrouds. It never occurred to me that the formally trained yins were waiting for an intermediate order and that I was disorienting them by using only 2. I thought they simply didn't understand their role and the physics of sailing.
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+1 - except to say that " the formally trained yins were waiting for an intermediate order" wouldn't have been :D
 
After this thread, tacking will never be the same again! I have been forced to the realisation that, due to my inability to perform the most basic of manouvre correctly, my sailing career has been a complete failure .

I have never had a tacking checklist or eased the mainsheet or said anything except 'ready about' and lee-oh'. How I have ever managed to sail anywhere at all is a complete mystery. :confused:
 
readyabout.jpg
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
Oh my God! That would be enough to make me give up sailing :eek:

we have one item on our list. Turn the wheel. :p
Click to expand...

When you sail 6 days on the same tack, it is useful to have a reminder. Especially if you're only half awake at 03:27 and realise you have to tack.:D
 
parsifal said:
After this thread, tacking will never be the same again! I have been forced to the realisation that, due to my inability to perform the most basic of manouvre correctly, my sailing career has been a complete failure .

I have never had a tacking checklist or eased the mainsheet or said anything except 'ready about' and lee-oh'. How I have ever managed to sail anywhere at all is a complete mystery. :confused:
Click to expand...

It's "lee-o" or perhaps "Leo". Not "lee-oh". Just to be clear. And definitely not "lee-ho". I think everyone agrees that would just be silly.

Anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be allowed on the water.
 
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bbg said:
It's "lee-o" or perhaps "Leo". Not "lee-oh". Just to be clear. And definitely not "lee-ho". I think everyone agrees that would just be silly.

Anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be allowed on the water.
Click to expand...

OK, thanks for pointing that out. I've never had to write it down before so I wasn't sure how to spell it.

When I'm typing out my pre-tacking checklist I'll be sure to put 'lee-o' and not 'lee-oh'.
 
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