Saving Old Seagulls

Hello all,

The forum said I can talk about almost anything here, so I will.

I am a sailing instructor here in the Netherlands. At the sailing school we occasionally get non-dutch speakers, so we teach in English. We have a list of sailing related terms, but the list is not complete. There are a couple of words I can not find. I hope the native english speakers on this forum can help.

-1-
Suppose you are on an island, with the wind coming from the North. Then the northern shore is the windward shore, the southern shore is the lee shore.
Suppose you are on a boat on a lake, with the wind coming from the North. Then the northern shore is the windward shore, the southern shore is the lee shore. Whether a shore is a windward shore or a leeward shore depends on you position (on land or on a boat). Is this correct?
On your boat on the lake, if you do nothing, you will end up on the southern shore, because the wind blows you towards it. In Dutch we have words for windward and leeward, but we also have specific words for the shore where the wind is blowing from shore towards the water (hogerwal) and for the shore where the wind blows from the water towards land (lagerwal). How would you translate those sailing terms?

-2- Suppose you are on a sailing boat, no Seagull onboard so everything is done under sail, wanting to go to the shore, beating to windwards. In dutch there are words for the manoeuvres to land the boat (aan de windse sliplanding or opschieter). I have not found any words in English to describe this. Most boats simply lower their sails and start the Seagull, or are dinghys where you can stop the boat on a dime. We use daysailer keelboats, no cabin but a big enough cockpit to sit inside or on the gunwhales. Again, help??

Thanks for your input,

Charan

Not the guy to talk about sailing, but if the wind is from land to the sea it is often called simply. "an offshore wind". Likewise a wind from sea on to land " an onshore wind". As for you having to go into the wind to get to shore or whatever then "you tack into the wind". As opposed to running with the wind.

Charan

As for the wind direction;
Basically you would describe the wind &/or shore from your perspective on the boat.
So,
In your island example with a northerly wind;
If your boat is north of the island, you'd have a 'sea breeze' & a 'lee shore' or (leeward shore)
If your boat is south of the island, you'd have a 'land breeze' & a 'weather shore' (or windward shore)
So,
In your lake example with a northerly wind;
If you were sailing the northern coast, then you'd have a 'land breeze' & a 'weather shore' (or windward shore)
If you were sailing the southern coast, then you'd have a 'sea breeze' & a 'lee shore' (or leeward shore)

As for 'manoeuvres to land the boat' while beating windward
I'm not sure there is a direct translation as such,
I'd be saying things like, raise the plate to half, tack until the plate grounds, then put her head to wind & drop anchor (or leap out with the paynter), then, drop the sail.

Perhaps somebody else can make a suggestion

Rex

Thanks Rex, I will go with 'leeward shore' because it is boat-related. Apparently there is no direct translation for 'lagerwal'. Lagerwal would describe the shore where flotsam washes up on, independent of your position (on land or on a boat). Maybe flotsam-shore?

Charan

Flotsam washing up would make it a lee shore in my mind, even though the flotsam drift and fetch up may be influenced by a combination of current and wind.