Sailing Vocab: Headsails

The first Russian novel that I really enjoyed came from a friend who included an index card listing the names of the characters, including their various nicknames and honorifics.

Turns out that Russian names really are complicated. Alexander becomes Sasha. Also Alexi. And something like Alexandrushka among friends. Or they might call him Ivanovich, because that's his middle name. Another time, the same guy is referred to as Alexander Ivanovich or Alexander Dolohkov. Dolohkov being his last name, although the reader has probably long forgotten it. And so on. The index card was both a kindness and a necessity.

It's a little the same with boats. That triangular sail at the front of the boat?

​Called a headsail, a jib, a foresail, a genoa (or "jenny" between friends), an overlapping jib, a 130%, a number 1, a trysail. Or maybe it's a jenniker or a code zero. So many terms for what's at heart the very same thing.

Of course there are technical differences between them. A genoa is gennoally bigger than a jib (see that? I slay myself!), A trysail is usually the smallest possible headsail, saved for the windiest of conditions.

Does it matter what you call it? Kind of no, but kind of yes. It's the difference between a socket wrench and a open-ended one. A pencil or a pen. A steak knife or a cleaver.

In this case, here's a video clip of Spawn from the 2016 Everglades Challenge. The boat is winging along under jib and main.  ​​