For navigating purposes all that is really necessary for a coasting voyage is a chart of the waters you propose to sail in, a pair of dividers and parallel rulers, and a book of sailing directions. A patent log may be added if so desired, and will add to the accuracy of your dead reckoning.
Thus equipped, the navigator may boldly venture forth either by himself or with a congenial companion. If he does not enjoy every moment of his cruise, and gain health and strength from the tonic sea breezes, he can safely conclude that Nature never intended him for a sailor. In that case he should dispose of his craft at once and seek such consolation as agricultural pursuits afford.
There is an old nautical truism to the effect that a haystack will sail well to leeward, but that it takes a correctly-modeled vessel to beat to windward. It is easy to comprehend how a straw hat thrown into a pond on its northerly edge will, under the influence of a brisk breeze from the north, make a fast passage to the southerly bank. It is more difficult to understand how the same straw hat, if put into the water at the southerly end of the pond, might be so manœuvred as to make a passage to the northern extremity of the sheet of water, though the wind continued to pipe from the north. This was, no doubt, a tough nut for the early navigators to crack, and the problem may have taken centuries to solve.
Diagram No. 1. Sailing under Varying Conditions of Wind. ]
The paddle was naturally the first means of propelling a rude craft through the water, and the ingenious savage (probably an indolent rascal) who discovered that a bough of a tree, or the skin of a beast extended to a favoring breeze, would produce the same effect as constant and laborious plying of paddles, was presumably hailed as a benefactor by his tribe. But this device, artful no doubt in its inception, was only of avail while the wind blew towards the quarter in which the destination of the enterprising voyager lay. If the wind drew ahead, or dropped, the skin or leafy bough was no longer of use as a labor-saving contrivance, and the wearisome paddle was necessarily resumed.
The primitive square sail of antiquity embodies the same principle as that governing the motion through the water of the modern full rigged ship, which is admirably adapted for efficient beating to windward, or sailing against the wind. Superiority in this branch of sailing is the crucial test of every vessel whose propelling power is derived from canvas, and the shipbuilders and sailmakers of all seafaring nations have vied with each other for centuries to secure the desired perfection.