Sailing questions

[Hanuman]

1) I am a bit confused by entering and leaving a harbor. If you enter do you just stay anywhere in between the red port side harbor light and the green starboard side light? or should you try to keep your starboard side close to the green light, while remaining inside the two lights?

And when you leave harbor, you have to stay outside of the two lights?

2) When sailing during the day, are you supposed to have nav lights on? The red/green lights at the very front of bow is what I mean. I think they are the navigation lights.
What lights are you required to have on at night?

3) Dumb question but; do you ever only sail with the jib up? or do you always have mainsail+other sail or mainsail only?

4) https://sailing-blog.nauticed.org/3-reasons-to-twist-your-sail-out/

Really cool article and in eSail its covered but once you put twist in your sail, do you have to do this every time you raise your sails or do you do this once in awhile.

Thank you

[Mr. Clipboard]

For question 3: Yes and no. It depends on your level of comfort and knowledge of how to handle the boat. Knowing how to trim and what it does is the difference between reefing in high winds or skimming along at 12 knots.

Sometimes you will want to only have your jib. Handy for slow maneuvering if you're trying to dock without using your motor. Unfurling your jib before hoisting your mainsail can be useful to give you steerage and to keep you in irons (or you can use your motor, lazybones.) Under most circumstances, however, you will want to be using as much sail as you can. The "other sail" you mentioned is called an asymmetrical spinnaker, as well.

As for putting a twist in your sails, I know you have to set your topping lift to atleast 75% and release the kicker before you can hoist.

[cbaldwin256]

Its a good article. The way a boat responds to adding twist (and exact sail type / manufacturer) varys a lot. I was on a racer the other day. They had traveller over on all points of sail = maximum twist. But on a lot of cruisers like the eSail boat, the main traveller is pain to operate and also the mainsail seems to work better traveller in the middle. So experimentation is the main thing.

You really have to set the traveller after each tack.

[cbaldwin256]

The harbour lights are a useful refernce point. But really you should check your chart and depth sounder to know where you can go.

[cbaldwin256]

And no you don’t need nav lights in the day (unless visibility is poor).

At night you want the stern light and bow lights. If under power use the steaming light too (may be called something different in eSail).

[Hanuman]

Thanks so much Mr. Clipboard and Cpt. Baldwin