Yawn, yawn, yawn....

Joined
16 May 2001
Messages
4,187
Visit site
Walking around the boat show every few minutes you would hear yet another young wag saying something like "..get a code 0 on that and I bet it would fly"

Apparently, if you don't know what a code 0 is you aren't a proper sailor anymore! Does it give them a thrill to appear to be in the "Know" do you think? I suspect that the opposite is the reality.

Who cares? King's Suit of Clothes?

What will the next new buzz words be?

Steve Cronin

ps Yes I DO know what a code 0 is but you'll not get me wasting my money on one or straining the pulpit by fitting one.


<hr width=100% size=1>The above is, like any other post here, only a personal opinion
 
Go on then ,let us unenlightened ones in on the secret or is it on a need to know basis??

PM me if you fear the info may get into the wrong hands.....

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Should i be ashamed to admit i have no idea what a "Code O" is ?
Have i been a danger to my self this last 38 years sailing and boating in one form or another, happy in my ignorance !...
Will it benefit my sailing in the future to learn what a "Code O" is ?
"Questions" always questions !

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Yes Steve... know what you mean, but I actually found myself feeling quite envious of these kids.

I guess many have school sailing clubs or comfortably off parents etc. Yachting is far more easily accessable these days and I was just glad to see young kids does somthing and looking healthy.

I dont see to many, however spending there own money and time resurecting battered/negected craft and learning the skills that many on this forum picked up in the late teens/and twenties. Its a bit more fast track, and as you say poss more emphasis on the correct words and kit!!

I had a long chat with a pleasant lad on the Hobbie Cat stand and at the end felt like selling the Halberdier and getting a Hobbie 18 and all the T-Shirts/Bags and 4x4 to tow it all with!!

All best Nick

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.yachtsite.co.uk/fairweather>http://www.yachtsite.co.uk/fairweather</A>

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Yep

Asymetric cut for close reaching, my son told me last week. I expect he'll tell me how much soon. :-)

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Not only don't I know what a 'code 0' is but Istill have trouble with the numbering of other forsails.
You see the two people responsible for getting me into cruising both used numbers to describe their jibs and staysails but one counted down and the other up.
I'm still not sure which is right, but my sails have names, working jib, tow fors'l. Genny, like that. It works for me.

IanW

<hr width=100% size=1>Vertue 203, Patience
 
Jargon alert

Bob Geldof once told the story of a record producer who was good at jargon and low on understanding. The Boomtown Rats were in the studio and this guy was "throwing shapes" in Geldof's memorable phrase. "DI the congas and EQ the Dolby"( both are contradictions in terms)! he declared. "What a load of bovine excrement" retorted Saint Bob. "You're fired".

The desire to baffle with spurious technical jargon is a universal male trait. I can't recall a woman ever resorting to it.

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Working on the principle that your number one is the biggest genoa I guess code 0 is a genoa bigger than your biggest genoa?

Does that make sense ?

Roller genoas have killed off some of the black art of which one to use.Trying to guess what the weather will be like for the next few hours unless you have loads of willing crew.

Saw a bloke in the forepeak of a boat we were sailing carefully testing the weight of a couple of sails in bags to get the number 2. Someone pointed out the 2 bands around the bag and made his day.

Time for another Whytes and MacKay.
 
Perhaps the International Code of Signals might help? Under the tables of complements Table III (concerning wind directions) says Code Flag 0 means Direction Unknown or calm.
Any help? No? Ah well

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
So can I be the first with a code minus 1 ?
... or should I replace my iffy torps'l?
Thinks,,,,,,,,, the next time I dig out the fourth hand Sqib jib to use as a watersail I might call it my 'Code W', that'll fox 'em.
Just recalled, a boat that I sail behind has sails known as 'The Bastard', the 'Big Bastard' and the 'Little Bastard',,,,,, wonder what numbers they would be? ;)

IanW

<hr width=100% size=1>Vertue 203, Patience
 
explanation?

There is a logic to the 'coding' numbers.. apart, perhaps from 0!

Even numbers are VMG runners (deep running). Bigger numbers for stronger winds. So Code 2,4, and possibly 6 are deep running sails (6 would be a chicken chute). Add an A (2A,4A,6A) and you have an asymmetric, not s symmetric kite.

Odd numbers (3,5 and 7) and likewise 3A,5A etc are reaching kites, again for progressively higher apparent wind speeds.

Code 0 is a light airs upwind sail, that measures as a spinnaker (i.e it's half width is large enough), that has a straight (rather than curved) luff, and is set up with immense luff tension. This will enable you to sail at about 40 degrees or greater AWA, usually in apparent windspeeds of up to 14 knots or so. By 50 or 60 degrees you are into a close reaching spinnaker zone. They are very demanding to trim (due to the huge half width) as the leach is prone to collapsing. Also in a masthead rigged boat, if the main has a large roach you will often need the first reef in otherwise the slot becomes too tight, and the rig stalls.

The reason for their popularity, is that they dont increase the rated upwind sail area, and as such dont increase the rating.


<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Re: Jargon alert

And I suppose you'd mete out similar treatment to anyone calling a toilet 'the heads' on your boat, or 'port' and 'starboard' instead of left and right, or any other silly boaty jargon?

Whatever the merits of the Code 0 argument, fact is there are few past-times as jargon-strewn as our own, which render it entirely baffling to anyone not familiar with it - I don't see anyone lobbying to use layman's terms for common sailing parlance (and it would be a real shame if they did) - we probably look just as stupid to non-sailors as your Code 0 chums do to you...

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Re: Jargon alert

>>>And I suppose you'd mete out similar treatment to anyone calling a toilet 'the heads' on your boat, or 'port' and 'starboard' instead of left and right, or any other silly boaty jargon?
No. Of course I wouldn't! "DI the congas and EQ the Dolby" are self-contradictory gibberish. Only electronic instruments can be DI'd. I was DI'ing a set of electronic drums for a mate this morning. If he'd played congas (as usual) I could not have DI'd them. Dolby is a parametric equalistion system. You can't EQ it! Describing the loo on a yacht as the heads has historic origins. I was a tour guide on the "Endeavour" replica for a week explaining this point to the visiting tourists. Port and starboard have practical use.

>>> Whatever the merits of the Code 0 argument, fact is there are few past-times as jargon-strewn as our own, which render it entirely baffling to anyone not familiar with it. We probably look just as stupid to non-sailors as your Code 0 chums do to you...
There's a difference between jargon existing, such as the convoluted names for all the ropes on a three-masted barque (which you just have to learn) and using spurious jargon to impress people in the know and to exclude those not in the know. In any technical context you can communicate clearly (e.g. a type of cruising chute which can be used at very narrow apparent win angles) or use jargon (e.g. Code Zero). -

>>>I don't see anyone lobbying to use layman's terms for common sailing parlance (and it would be a real shame if they did).
You've forgotten the early days of the RYA's teaching technique "The Method" developed by Bob Bond. With techniques like beam reaching away from an MOB came a doomed attempt to replace "mainsheet" with "the rope that pulls the big sail" for example. The attempt failed because there is a proper place for jargon as there is a place for the use of clear English.


<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Has Saint Anselm taken up sailmaking?

>>> Working on the principle that your number one is the biggest genoa I guess code 0 is a genoa bigger than your biggest genoa? Does that make sense ?

NO! I can remember sitting a theology lecture theatre [next to a convicted murderer - but that's another story] trying to understand how St Anselm could "prove" the existence of God with the deduction "If that than which a greater cannot be conceived is that than which a greater can be conceived this is plainly nonsense"! The same blankness overtook me attempting to study the computer language C++ and is rapidly returning now.

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
It\'s not so much the jargon.....

... as the way one item becomes flavour of the month with those who aspire to appear trendy, surely/

Steve Cronin



<hr width=100% size=1>The above is, like any other post here, only a personal opinion
 
That\'s the way of the world

We always seem to need to be "one up." And, after all, the denizens of internet boards are amongst the most devoted practitioners of one-upmanship around.

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
exact snobbery?

Aha! So, perhaps Mr Cronin's post about not understanding the jargon is actually reverse snobbery? Or perhaps "exact" snobbery? - It does make it a bit awkward if not knowing enough about boating makes you a nitwit - whereas knowing a bit too much makes you a jargon-blathering showoff.

Mind you the same happens on the motorway: everyone who sits in the outside lane going slower than I want to go should damn well learn to drive - whereas anyone who overtakes me is of course a raving lunatic :-)

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Re: exact snobbery?

"...everyone who sits in the outside lane going slower than I want to go should damn well learn to drive - whereas anyone who overtakes me is of course a raving lunatic :-)....

Sorry - is there something wrong with such an attitude?

<hr width=100% size=1>I like work - it fascinates me. I could sit and look at it for hours!
 
Top