Fun Sailboat Facts And Yarns

The tiniest sailboat to ever cross the Atlantic is the 5-foot, 11-inch April Fool . The record-setting voyage was made in June 1968 by Hugo Vihlen, a Delta Airlines pilot who lives in Homestead, Florida. He made the 4,600-mile trip between Casablanca, Morocco, and Delray Beach, Florida in 84 days.

The oldest ship still intact is the 142-foot Nile boat that was unearthed near the great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt and dates to about 2515 B.C.

The word "cruising" comes from the Dutch word kruisen, "to cross." Yacht owners eventually borrowed the word, altered it to cruise, and applied it to any carefree pleasure voyage.

Freshwater lakes make up 0.009 of the world's water supply.

In Greek mythology, the winds were ruled by Aeolus, who kept them in a cave on Mount Haemus in Thrace. Aeolus gave Ulysses a bag tied with silver string in which all the unfavorable winds were stored, so that Ulysses might arrive home without delay by tempests, but Ulysses' crew opened the bag, believing that it contained treasure, and the ship was driven off course back to Thrace.

In the second century, Archimedes invented a mirror that focused the sun on the sails of Roman ships invading Greece and caused them to flare up in flames. Not to be tried on a friends boat.

Captain Joshua Slocum, who in 1898 aboard the Spray became the first person to circumnavigate the earth alone, never learned how to swim.

Fastest recorded sailboat speed is 38.46 mph.

Salt or saline lakes are always lakes with no surface outlet, although not all lakes without surface outlets are saline. Five nearby salt lakes are Pyramid Lake, NV; Walker Lake, NV; Salton Sea, Ca; Mono Lake, Ca.; and Albert Lake, Ore.

Looking for Tahoe Tessie? An old legend holds that since the Bible says, "God created all the great sea monsters," on the fourth day (Genesis 1:21), Thursday is the best day to watch for them to appear.

There are close to 11 million recreational boats on the nation's waterways. Among those are 6.2 million outboard motor boats; 980,000 inboards; 840,000 sailboats; and 2,495 million miscellaneous crafts such as rowboats and canoes. There are close to 6,000 marinas, boat yards, and yacht clubs in the United States.

Sailboat Right-Of-Way

Because of the slower speed and reduced maneuverability, sailboats are given a special position in the navigational rules, and their own set of rules between boats under sail. While the navigational rules give a vessel under sail right-of-way over a vessel under power, there are certain exceptions to the rule, and the rules should be studied.

When two sailing vessels are approaching one another so as to involve risk of collision, the navigation rules state that one of them must keep out of the way of the other in accordance with the following conditions:

*When each has the wind on a different side, the vessel which has the wind on the port side must keep out of the way of the other.

*When both have the wind on the same side, the vessel which is to windward must keep out of the way of the vessel which is to leeward.

*If a vessel with the wind on her port side sees a vessel to windward and cannot determine with certainty whether the other vessel has the wind to her port or starboard side, it must keep out of the way of the other vessel.

-US Inland Navigational Rules