Marinero › Boat & wind explorer
Three ideas, one boat. The wind hits one side (windward — which names the tack) and the sails go out over the other (leeward). Those two swap as the wind moves. Port and starboard never do — left and right facing the bow, red and green. And the angle between the wind and the bow is the point of sail. Drag the arrow and watch all three at once.
Use the focus chips to change what the caption explains, then switch to Challenge to be asked instead of told.
Read it as one sentence and it stops being confusing: the wind comes over the starboard side — so starboard is windward, we are on starboard tack, the sails are out to port, and at 90° to the wind we are on a beam reach. Every instruction you hear on a charter is built out of those four facts, and one drag of the arrow changes all of them together.
Where beginners come unstuck is assuming leeward is a place on the boat. It is not — it is wherever the wind is not. Tack, and the side you were sitting on becomes the wet one.
Port and starboard are fixed to the hull — left and right facing the bow, red and green, forever. Windward and leeward describe the boat’s relationship to the wind, so they swap sides every time you tack. The point of sail is the angle between the two: bow versus wind.
The wind arrives on one side (windward, which names the tack), the sails go out over the other (leeward), and the angle between the wind and the bow is the point of sail.
The tack is named for the windward side — the side the wind comes over. Wind over starboard is starboard tack, and it has right of way over a boat on port tack.
Inside roughly 45° either side of the wind the sails cannot generate lift; they flog and the boat stops. That wedge is the no-go zone, and getting somewhere upwind means zig-zagging across it.
Then test it: the free sailing test asks twenty real course cards, or read the knot guides.
10 modules, 330+ cards, ad-free. The boat, the wind, the lines and the manners — ten minutes a day.