Reefing
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In sailing, reefing is the practice of reducing the area of a sail to preserve a sailing vessel's stability in strong winds. This is usually achieved by folding or rolling one edge of the canvas in on itself and attaching the unused portion to a spar or a . Restoring full sail area is termed shaking out a . Whereas fore-and-aft rigged vessels store the unused portion of the sail on a boom (below the sail), square-rigged vessels stow the unused portion on a spar above the sail. Reefing may occur by rolling the sail around its luff or foot, either on a rotating stay or within a spar.
In sailing, reefing is the practice of reducing the area of a sail to preserve a sailing vessel's stability in strong winds. This is usually achieved by folding or rolling one edge of the canvas in on itself and attaching the unused portion to a spar or a . Restoring full sail area is termed shaking out a . Whereas fore-and-aft rigged vessels store the unused portion of the sail on a boom (below the sail), square-rigged vessels stow the unused portion on a spar above the sail. Reefing may occur by rolling the sail around its luff or foot, either on a rotating stay or within a spar.
History
The earliest known depiction of reef points is on the Dublin City Seal of 1297. The earliest surviving example of reef points is on the sail for a ship's boat found on the wreck of Vasa, which sank in 1628. Vasa s own sails included ones which had bonnets. These are extra pieces that fasten to the bottom of a sail to increase its area. These were attached for lighter winds and removed in higher winds. This was the common method of adjusting sail area to match wind strength during the latter part of Medieval period, with the first mention of this technique in 1350. Other evidence of use of bonnets has been found on the Mary Rose. Reefing started to be used again on square rigged ships in the latter part of the seventeenth century, first appearing on topsails , and being used on courses somewhat later. In the first half of the sixteenth century, another action in stronger winds was to "half mast" the topsails. This involved partially lowering the topsails, which reduced the amount of drive they produced. With the sail lower down the topmast, the forces generated were lower down the mast, so putting less tension in the backstays.
See also
Brail Glossary of nautical terms (M-Z)
Notes
References
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378361788 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.