HEAD-REACHING AND WEATHERING.
It can be assumed that the yachts in the match are close-hauled standing on starboard tack on their first board in the beat for No. 1 markboat ; jibs have been purchased up till the lull is as straight as the forestay, peak purchased up, main tack bowsed down, topsail tack hauled down and sheeted home, and sails trimmed to the exact inch of sheet. The water is just squeezing through the lee scuppers, and the helms man has 'plenty of weather helm to play upon in luffing to the " free puffs." Two yachts have started abreast of each other, but one a hundred yards or so to leeward. The one in the lee berth holds much the better wind, and is gradually eating up to the other and head-reaching too. At last she is close up under the lee bow of the craft to windward, and in another half-minute her weather quarter-rail promises to strike the bowsprit or lee bow of the other ; which has to give way ? To begin with, we must clearly understand what is taking place. Close-hauled means sailing so close to the wind as a vessel cau be sailed with a view of economising distance or time, or both, in reaching a particular object. The vessel that is " weathering," and at the same time head-reaching, can in this case be taken as a standard for the condition of being close-hauled. It is thus quite clear that the vessel to windward does not fulfil that standard, and is in the condition—an uncontrollable one it can be admitted—of bearing away on the other. This, under Rule 22 of the Y.R.A. (the Luffing and Bearing Away rule), a yacht is not allowed to do, and she must luff up to enable the other to clear her. However, the general practice in such a case is for the leeward yacht to be given weather helm to keep clear of the one to windward ; then when she has drawn clear ahead the weather tiller lines can be eased, and she will literally fly out across the bow of the other. This, on the whole, is the better course ; and further, it is the course that must be followed if the leeward yacht head-reaches from a position astern, as by the Luffing and Bearing Away rule " an overtaking vessel, if to leeward, must not luff, so as to interfere with the yacht she has overtaken, until she has drawn clear ahead." It may possibly be argued that the leeward yacht is not luffing, that she is (for her) only a bare close-hauled, and that it is the windward yacht that is bearing away. Such a dispute can only be settled in
one way : the leeward yacht was in the position of the overtaking vessel, and should have kept clear of the yacht to windward. There fore in all cases if the leeward yacht is head-reaching, and at the same time weathering, we think it is good policy for her to keep clear of the yacht she is likely to foul to windward. It will not do for the yacht to defer using a little weather helm until her weather quarter is so close under the bow of the yacht to windward that the fact of putting her helm up would have the effect of swinging her quarter on the bow of the other.
But it may happen that the yacht which is to windward is head reaching, although not holding so good a wind as the other ; in such a case the yachts may converge, and the lee quarter of the windward yacht may be likely to foul the weather bow or bowsprit of the leeward yacht. In this case it will be the duty of the windward yacht to keep clear of the one to leeward, as she is in the condition of a yacht bearing away, and is the overtaking yacht and must keep clear of the other; and moreover, by the rule before referred to, a yacht in the position of the one to leeward, that is being overtaken, may lull as she pleases to prevent another passing to windward ; and further, when two yachts have the wind on the same side, and if no question of overtaking is involved, the yacht which is to windward must keep clear of the other.
If the windward yacht has deferred luffing until such time as the bowsprit end of the other is close to her lee quarter, it will be too late to luff, and a little weather helm will probably take the yachts clear. The leeward yacht will be pretty certain to have been well blanketed by the one to windward ; her way will therefore be stopped, and the other, under the influence of her weather helm, will lift her stern to windward and forge clear.
When the leeward yacht is passed like this, it will be a good time to choose for getting a pull on any of the purchases that may require it. If the yachts are not too close when the blanketing takes place, it is the practice for the helmsman of the leeward yacht to put the helm down as the sails begin to shake, and make a shoot to windward clear of the wash of the other ; but care must be taken not to keep the vessel shooting so long as to lose her way, as she might get in irons.