Working Sails, Storm Sails, Light Air Sails

You often hear these terms but what do they refer to?
These are terms to describe sails used in different situations.

Working Sails

Working sails are “the normal sails”. These are your mainsail and your regular headsail. The headsail type doesn’t matter: Genoa, Jib, Staysail, Yankee, it doesn’t matter.
These sails are used when the winds are present all the way up to when the winds get strong you need to start reefing.

Storm Sails

When the wind picks up, you start to reef your working sails. Reefing makes your sails smaller but these are still your working sails (even though they are smaller). When the wind gets too strong, you then switch out your working sails for your storm sails.
These sails are your trysail and storm jib. These small sails are specially made for high winds and horrible conditions! The cloth will be incredibly heavy and the stitching will be strong and overdone.

Light Air Sails

The polar opposite of your storm sail are your Light Air Sails. These sails are made of very light nylon that will fly in the lightest of breeze. The conditions for these sails will be from “No Wind to less than 10 knots of breeze”.
Sails that fall into this category are spinnakers, drifters, and nylon mainsails.

Hopefully this cleared up some questions you might have about sail types and the terms Working, Storm, and Light Air!

Dental Health While Traveling

As a dentist, I know how important it is to take care of your teeth, and also how easy it is!

The best thing you can do for your teeth to prevent any issues while at sea on a long voyage is to brush your teeth! When you are sailing, time drags out and you have long periods with nothing to do. This is excellent because this is when you can brush your teeth like a dentist.

Everyone knows that you should brush twice a day for two minutes each time. That’s nice but it doesn’t really work. You need to brush twice a day and you need to do it well! The average American brushes for about 7-15 seconds! Now that you are at sea, you have plenty of time to do it right.
The first thing you need to do is stop brushing your teeth and start cleaning each tooth individually.
The toothbrush is not a chore machine that you pass over your teeth, it is a tool to help you clean your teeth.
Focus on cleaning each and every tooth. Start on the bottom back right and clean the last molar, now after it’s spotless, scoot forward one tooth and clean the molar in front of that, next the premolar, and on and on. When you finally finish the bottom arch, it’s time to clean the top arch.
How do you know when your teeth are clean? This one is very easy, you just need to use a very sensitive and agile appendage to feel your teeth: Your tongue!

Rub your tongue over each tooth. If you feel anything rough or sticky or anything other than slippery smooth, brush it a little more and recheck.
You have 32 teeth if you never had your wisdom teeth removed, and if you did, then you only have 28 teeth to clean. This whole process takes me about 4-5 minutes to carry out and my teeth are spotless at the end of it all.
In all honesty, this is fine on calm days when the time drags on forever; but on days when the wind will not relinquish you from the whips of furry brushing is the last thing on your mind.
When we have found ourselves hove to in a gale for days or just in terrible seas, brushing my teeth is the last thing on my mind. If brushing occurs that day, it will be fast and sloppy because the last thing I want to do is fall over with a tooth brush in my mouth! I honestly forget to brush unless Maddie reminds me of it. Once the weather calms down and we switch out our storm sails for our working sails, I get to relaxing in the cockpit and my tongue will notice how fuzzy my teeth feel!
And so begins the ritual of brushing my teeth in calm weather.
Fun tip: if you pull up a bucket load of clean ocean salt water, use that to brush your teeth. The salt in the water will do wonders for your gums and your mouth will feel great! I honestly prefer brushing my teeth with ocean water over using regular fresh water or even rain water!

A toothbrush is a wonderful tool to clean your teeth but it won’t repair neglect or decay! Always visit with your dentist and have them take X-rays before you set out in a long voyage. If your insurance won’t cover X-rays because of frequency limitations, pay it out of pocket! Catching a problem and fixing it while on shore is so much better than having an issue flare up while at sea and far from a dentist.

Using The North Star

You know how to find it, you know where to look, but do you know why to look?

The North Star sits directly over the North Pole and is a handy indicator at night for “which way is North” but it also serves one more very handy purpose.
The North Star tells you your latitude without any math or calculation. By measuring the angle from the horizon to Polaris (The North Star) with a sextant, you will instantly find your latitude!
Since the North Star is directly over the North Pole, this means that if you stood on the very pole itself and looked directly up, Polaris would be directly over you.
Your latitude would be 90* and the angle of observation in the sextant would also be 90.
If you were at the equator, at Latitude 0*, the North Star would be directly on the horizon (and not too clearly visible).
Therefore, every degree of latitude that you gain in the northern hemisphere, Polaris will also gain a degree of observation from the horizon.
This fact has been known for hundreds of years and in the old times (when navigation was more crude) navigation was performed with a board and a rope!

The board would occupy the void between the horizon and Polaris, and it was held a prescribed distance from the observer.
The prescribed distance was controlled by the rope, which would have knots tied in it. The observer would bite the desired knot and hold the board out away from their face until the rope went tight, then they would position the bottom of the rope so that it would lay at the horizon and the top of the rope so that it would lay at the North Star. If there was a gap between the board and the North Star, they knew they were too far north and needed to steer more south. If the Star was covered, then they were too far south and needed to steer more North until the Star was visible again. If the Star and horizon just touched the board, then they were at the correct latitude for their destination!

There was no measure of Longitude on a ship at that time so they simply sailed to the desired ports latitude and sailed East or West until they ran into it! Thankfully, the ability to keep time on a ship changed this crude behavior as longitude was then able to be calculated and the mysteries of “when will we get there” vanished!

Finding the North Star

Before you can use the North Star, you need to know how to identify it in the night sky.
I personally use three constellations to identify the North Star and confirm it’s identify.

1. The Big Dipper

2. The Little Dipper

3. Cassiopeia

The Big Dipper

Also know as Ursa Major (because it looks like a bear) is a very prominent and easy to spot constellation.

The two most important stars in the constellation are the last two of the dipper. If you follow an imaginary line out and away from the dipper, you will come directly to the North Star.

The Little Dipper

Also known as Ursa Minor (because it looks like a small bear) is a very important constellation in the night sky! This is because the last star in the constellation is actually the North Star! The tip of the tail is actually (in my opinion) the most important star in the night sky when it comes to navigating at sea without technology or electronics.
the Big and Little Dippers actually lay in 69 to each other in the night sky.
If you see The Big Dipper and follow the imaginary line to the North Star, then you should now see the Little Dipper constellation.

I know I was making fun of the constellations for being called Bears because the line drawings I have made look nothing like bears! This is the actual accepted constellation for The Dippers. The full constellation has many more lines and it turns out that the “Dipper” is just the body and tail (very long tails by the way). The constellations have legs and a head, but honestly, you won’t see these features unless you are away from all light pollution on a clear moonless night.
Where can you find that? Out at sea of course!

Cassiopeia

The last constellation I use is Cassiopeia, which looks like a W but is actually a dancing woman!
Cassiopeia lies opposite the dipper of The Big Dipper and about just as far as the Big Dipper is from the North Star.

The reason I use three constellations is because I want to make sure I am looking at the right star. With one I’m pretty sure, with two, I’m very sure, and with three, I’m certain!

The other reason to know multiple constellations (especially constellations that are opposite each other in the night sky) is because if you are near the equator, the North Star will be low on the sky. This means that some of the constellations will be under the horizon and obscured from your view!
Having more visual landmarks in the sky will help orient you and prepare you to better locate the North Star for your navigation at sea.

The North Star

Polaris, so named for its position directly over the North Pole is a special star.
Yes, you can measure your exact latitude by simply measuring the angle between the horizon and the Star, and you can use it to identify North without the aid of a compass, but it has one interesting attribute in the night sky.

It is stationary.

All the stars in the night sky revolve around the North Star. Constellations will change sides in the sky or rotate to be entirely upsidown, but the North Star remains a fixed beacon of truth in the darkness of night.