gin to feel that you are exceeding the speed limit, or your legs begin to vibrate from the rough ice, swing the sail flat over your head, and you will very soon come to a stop.
One of the first things you will learn in navigating with the skate-sail is that the sail must never be held as a point-blank target to the wind. Why not? Simply because the skate-sailor travels faster than the breeze. To illustrate: Suppose there is a 17-mile wind blowing. The inexperienced sailor, thinking to take full advantage of this, holds the sail directly at his back, presenting a point-blank target to the breeze. Of course he goes off like a shot, and gradually increases speed until he is going about 211⁄2 miles per hour. What happens, then, to the 17-mile-an-hour breeze? It cannot keep up with the sailor, and the result is that there is a sudden vacuum behind the sail, which is often of such intensity as to cause the sailor to lose his balance.
The correct way to sail before the wind is to hold the sail at a very slight angle away from the breeze, so that you zigzag down the wind instead of scudding directly before it. You go just as fast, and, because you are running more or less across the wind, you eliminate the disturbing factor of artificial "air pockets."
When you travel this zigzag course to the right, the sail is carried on the right shoulder, and with the right foot forward. When you desire to veer off to the left, the sail is rolled across your back, keeping the tail end low, so that the long spar comes down on your left shoulder, while your foot position is changed so that the left foot is to the fore.
You will speedily learn that you can go directly across the wind, that is, at right angles to it, by slanting the sail a little and leaning against the wind. When sailing in this manner, your skates, biting into the ice, act in the same capacity as leeboards on a sailing canoe, and prevent you from "drifting."
By slanting the sail still more away from the breeze, you will find yourself practically going against the wind. That is, the breeze will be coming direct from the north, and you will be sailing northeast. This is nautically known as "beating to windward," and your northeast course is called a "tack." After you have covered a fair distance on the northeast tack, you start on the northwest tack, and by alternating these two directions you eventually arrive at your destination, due north.
In beating to windward, it is necessary,
