Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/212

 CHAPTER X

THE ART OF COASTING

How to use Charts—Sounding—Heaving the log—Tides—The Barometer—Getting a slant—Weather-wisdom—Storm signals—Weather forecasts.

A yacht of small tonnage, such as I have described in this book, is unfit for an ocean voyage; but, as I have already said, she can be safely navigated from one end of Europe to the other, provided she be a boat of the right sort, and the skipper knows his business and is not foolhardy. 'Coasting' is a wide term, and to cross the North Sea where it is four hundred miles in breadth would still be reckoned as coasting work. On a coasting voyage to the Baltic, for example, one would often be out of sight of land for many hours at a time. A knowledge of navigation in the strict sense of the term—that is, the determination of a vessel's position at sea by observation of the sun, moon, and stars, and her guidance from land to land by dead reckoning, as carried out in the orthodox fashion by working traverses, and so forth—is not needed by the coasting seaman. A rough-and