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flow·ing-sheet

In sailing free or large, is the position of the sheets or lower clues of the principal sails when they are eased off to the wind, so as to receive it more nearly perpendicular than when they are close-hauled, although more obliquely than when going before the wind; a ship is therefore said to have a flowing-sheet, when the wind crosses the line of her course nearly at right angles; that is to say, a ship steering due north with the wind at east, or directly on her side, will have a flowing-sheet; whereas, if the sheets were hauled close aft, she would sail two points nearer the wind--viz. N.N.E. This explanation will probably be better understood by considering the yards as plane faces of wedges--the more oblique fore and aft, the less head-way force is given, until 22° before the transverse line or beam. This is the swiftest line of sailing. As the wind draws aft of the beam the speed decreases (unless the wind increases), so that a vessel with the wind abeam, and every sail drawing, goes much faster than she would with the same wind before it.

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