Home › Contents › Bringing Up at Moorings

Bringing Up at Moorings

We are still against the tide, and our moorings are in sight. To bring her up handsomely calls for more skill than even handling her well. Our object now must be to lay her still at the moorings from whence we started, and at the same time to have enough way to reach them. In our present case it will be best to round her to about an hundred yards short of the moorings, and, when head to wind, lower the mainsail, leaving the head sails standing--this with putting up the helm will bring her head round again--then take in the jib, and, if she has way enough, the foresail also; and with the opposing tide we may steer our craft so steadily to the buoy as to take it on board with ease. Having informed the young sailor of what is necessary to be done on board, we will now impress on his mind a few useful nautical terms and maxims, which may lead to the preservation of life and limb.

OF THE MARINERS' COMPASS, AND VARIOUS NAUTICAL TERMS. The ancients, whose only guides over the trackless waters were the heavenly bodies, so often obscured by clouds, could not venture far from shore. It is the compass which has enabled us to steer boldly across the deep. The directive power of the loadstone has been long known to the Chinese, and it was brought over to Europe about the year 1260. The communication of the magnetic power to steel and suspending it on a pivot, is undoubtedly an European invention. The compass is composed of a magnetic needle suspended freely on a pivot, and supporting a card marked with the thirty-two points of direction into which the horizon is divided, and which are thence called the points of the compass. The needle always points nearly north, and the direction of the boat may be easily seen by looking at the card. The whole apparatus on board a ship is enclosed in a box with a glass cover, to allow the card to be seen without being disturbed by the wind. This box is also sometimes suspended, to prevent the needle being affected by the motion of the vessel. The whole is then placed at the binnacle, in sight of the helmsman. In the inside of that part of the compass-box which is directly in a line with the bow, is a clear black stroke, called the lubber line, which the helmsman uses to keep his course; that is, he must always keep the point of the card which indicates her course pointing at the lubber line. Every young yachtsman must learn to box the compass; that is, to repeat all its points in order.