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Sailboat racing has been a vibrant part of the Lake Hopatcong scene for many decades, and with several yacht clubs dotting the lake’s shoreline and countless residents keeping boats of all classes and sizes at their docks, it continues to thrive today—despite the crazy wind patterns that are known to confound locals and visitors alike.
 Every summer, the Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club’s eight-week sailing lesson program teaches dozens of budding young sailors the basics, and Sunset Sailboat Co. in Lake Hopatcong offers sailing lessons to aspirants of all ages and ability levels. Nothing prepares you for sailing like actually getting into a boat and giving it a whirl. But for those who want the bare-bone principles, and a few details about Lake H sailing, here’s a cheat sheet for you.
Basic Boat Parts:
-Hull: The body of the sailboat, which holds its crew and sits in the water
-Mast: The vertical spar that holds the sail
-Rigging: The wires that hold the mast upright
-Boom: The spar that stabilizes the bottom of the main sail
-Mainsail: The large sail positioned behind the mast
-Jib: The smaller sail in front of the mast
-Spinnaker: A large triangular sail (often colorful) flown in front of the mast on downwind legs
-Centerboard/Daggerboard/Keel: Projects underneath the hull to prevent the boat from moving sideways
-Rudder: A movable fin in the rear of the boat that controls the boat’s direction.
-Tiller: Extends from the rudder to steer the boat.
(For a US Sailing glossary and diagram of a boat, click here!)
Basic Points of Sail:
-Head to Wind: Pointing the boat directly into the wind, which generally keeps the boat “in irons”—sails luffing (flapping), not moving forward.
-Beating: Sailing upwind by aiming 30 to 40 degrees off the wind on either tack, zig-zagging to make forward progress. The sail is trimmed tightly toward the boat.
-Reaching: Sailing with the wind coming from the side, with the sail about halfway out.
-Running: Sailing downwind, with the mainsail out 90 degrees from the boat (and spinnaker up, if applicable).
Port vs. Starboard/Windward vs. Leeward:
When facing forward in the boat, port is the left side of the boat and starboard is the right side of the boat. Boats on starboard have right of way over boats on port. A boat is on starboard when the wind is coming over the right side of the boat; a boat is on port when the wind is coming over the left side of the boat.
Windward is the direction the wind is coming from, and leeward is the direction away from the wind. A windward leg in a race is upwind; a leeward leg in a race is downwind. Leeward boats have right of way over windward boats, so the boat closer to where the wind is coming from must stay clear of boats downwind.
Steering:
A skipper moves the tiller in the opposite direction he or she wants to go: pushing the tiller to the left will send the boat to the right, and vice versa. Pushing the tiller away from you in slight increments will move your boat closer to the wind, known as “heading up.” To pull the tiller toward you in slight increments, aiming the boat further away from the wind, is to “bear off.” A more sweeping move of the tiller away from you will cause you to tack, which will send the boat head to wind and then onto the opposite tack (port to starboard or starboard to port). A more sweeping move of the tiller toward you will cause you to jibe, which will send the boat dead downwind and then to the opposite jibe (port to starboard or starboard to port).
Starting Sequence and Racing:
For Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club races on Sundays (and occasional Saturdays), the race committee follows a five-minute starting sequence. A horn will be blasted at 5 minutes to the start, again at 4 minutes to the start, again at 1 minute to the start, and again at the start itself. (Because there are four classes of boats at the LHYC, the first to start is the E-Scow class, their start is the 5-minute horn for the A-Cat class, whose start is the 5-minute horn for the Star class, whose start is the 5-minute horn for the Thistle class.) The starting line is an imaginary line between the race committee boat and a starting buoy. Competitors must be behind that line at the starting gun or they will be called “over,” and have to return and restart the race.
The sailors then follow a racecourse determined by the race committee, with the first mark directly upwind of the starting line. Competitors round each mark as the race committee directs (to port or to starboard) before finishing. When racing against the same class, the boats are scored based on their finishes. (First gets one point, second gets two points, etc.) In races where multiple classes race against each other, the finishes are based on the length of time taken to complete the race and a formula that is based on comparative boat speeds.
Hopefully that helps non-sailors have a better sense of what’s going on out there. And perhaps piques some interest in taking up sailing, too!
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