Xebec Sailing Characteristics

[DeRuyter]

Explanation of Dipping: On square riggers, whenever the sails are drawing, the yards are on the downwind side of the masts. With Xebecs, this is not always the case. If the yard is on the downwind side, the sail billows in the traditional, dramatic way. But, a xebec can use its sails with the yard on the windward side. The sail then presses against the mast yielding a less than perfect result, but still functional (the disadvantaged tack).

When tacking, a xebec crew may choose to keep the yard on the downwind side, but to do so requires the forward tip of the yard to be moved behind the mast. This is dipping.

A gaff sail (the sails on schooners) is like a lateen without the portion sticking past the mast and therefore is much faster to tack. It just happens, no dipping required.

Dobbs, if I remember correctly on the Kalmar Nyckel we used to furl the lateen sail on the mizzen before dipping (when that was done which was not often). I would suspect they'd have to furl the sail on a large xebec rig before dipping. I have seen some videos of traditional lateen rigging Mediterranean fishing craft but I am not sure they are shown tacking. I may have posted one in the forum somewhere.

[Dobbs]

Dobbs, if I remember correctly on the Kalmar Nyckel we used to furl the lateen sail on the mizzen before dipping (when that was done which was not often). I would suspect they'd have to furl the sail on a large xebec rig before dipping. I have seen some videos of traditional lateen rigging Mediterranean fishing craft but I am not sure they are shown tacking. I may have posted one in the forum somewhere.

Good to hear from you, Eric! Near as I can tell from my research, you don't have to furl to tack. I would not say that I am an expert though, just a curious observer. I have been watching dhow racing videos for sail handling clews, oops, clues

That might work in jibing, but not in a combat or chase situation. I suspect that if a a captain was on an advantaged tack and wanted to be advantaged on the other tack, he would choose to tack instead of jibe as a timesaver. I have seen a lot of examples of lateen yards on the windward (disadvantaged) side of the mast.

I did see one interesting video from Zanzibar where a crew apparently jibed the sail like an asymmetrical spinnaker, letting the clew fly toward the bow then trimming it in on the other tack. The camera didn't show the yard, but the yard must have gone vertical during that to get it on the right side of the mast.

[Dobbs]

Dobbs, if I remember correctly on the Kalmar Nyckel we used to furl the lateen sail on the mizzen before dipping (when that was done which was not often). I would suspect they'd have to furl the sail on a large xebec rig before dipping. I have seen some videos of traditional lateen rigging Mediterranean fishing craft but I am not sure they are shown tacking. I may have posted one in the forum somewhere.

I have pretty much convinced myself that a xebec could dip while wearing by doing something like this. Perhaps I should amend my xebec rules to say that you can wear from an advantaged tack to an advantaged tack if you spend one turn in the blue arc (sailing directly downwind)? If you skip over the blue arc, the sail trimmers don't have time to dip the yards and you end up on a disadvantaged tack.