When not actually sailing, it's fun to read about it. So reading in Harland's tome "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" this weekend I discovered something interesting to share. On square-riggers when sailing close-hauled, "...only the lee sheet was hauled aft, the weather one being idle." [Square sails have two clews, rather like the symmetrical spinnaker.] "The weather clew was held down and forward by a tapered rope called a tack. Upon going about, the other tack was 'got down', and the 'new' lee sheet hauled aft." Now here's the fun part!! "Thus, with the wind on the port side, the port tack was down, and the ship was said to be sailing on the port tack." Now it's clear--a vessel is sailing on a port tack when the wind is arriving from its port side; on starboard tack when arriving from its starboard side. When a vessel comes about [in historical sense] "it changes tacks." Also, when a square-rigger was sailing down wind, it was sailing "betwixt two sheets." [No tack holding down a "weather clew."] I wonder how they figured COLREGs in that circumstance.
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