It helps to be a sailor to understand the lingo, but I also keep a dictionary nearby.Captains Courageous is wonderful. Enjoy.
I wonder, how do you find the language? Is it ok to follow?
I fly my riding sail off to one side, like a jib in reverse. It is dead flat (and tiny), so it doesn't have a lot of drive, but it does a much better job when it's working like a sail instead of like the fetching on an arrow. When it's rigged in the center, it doesn't get enough angle of attack to do anything until you've already swung. When the "sheet" is off to one side, I tend to veer off in that direction a bit, but I don't oscillate as much.I would never fly a trysail as an anchor sail. You might actually create a small amount of lift/drive with a trysail. An anchor sail has no shape and only acts like dart feathers.
I think that may be the brand anchor sail that we have......Here's a another design. No affiliation
The Good Old Boat article describes the causation well:1. Have you ever or do you often set a trysail/riding-sail at anchor on the main boom or mizzen to keep head-to-wind?
2. How/what hardware do you use to set it?
Modern boats with roller-furling headsails and often in-mast furling mains (leading to big fat masts) are particularly prone to sailing at anchor. Fuel and water jugs and water toys along the rail make it worse.What causes this phenomenon? For most boats, the center of effort (or windage) of the topsides and rigging is well forward of the underwater center of lateral resistance. This means the boat is out of balance while on the hook, and doesn't really want to weathercock. Whenever the boat drifts backward during a gust (or there is a slight change in the wind direction) the bow will fall off faster than the stern, putting the boat broadside to the wind. Once that happens, the bow continues to fall off, and the boat will "sail" away in the new direction, up to as much as 30 to 40 degrees off the wind, until brought up short by the rode.
Okay, I admit. I'm not as ingenius nor industrious but I did have a little extra spending money thanks to a generous income tax refund, so I purchased a riding sail from Banner Marine. Works great after working with it a bit and finally giving up in desperation and actually reading the instructions. Just kidding about the income tax refund! (Just in case the NSA and IRS happen to be lurking about) I do enjoy your blog Chip!I fly my riding sail off to one side, like a jib in reverse. It is dead flat (and tiny), so it doesn't have a lot of drive, but it does a much better job when it's working like a sail instead of like the fetching on an arrow. When it's rigged in the center, it doesn't get enough angle of attack to do anything until you've already swung. When the "sheet" is off to one side, I tend to veer off in that direction a bit, but I don't oscillate as much.
(It's way smaller than a trysail though, and wouldn't use a trysail at either.)