Good suggestion. I ALWAYS wear gloves, since your hands will end up a "mess" before you even notice...West Marine sells some good, but cheap gloves (under $20, I think.)
As for spelling errors and confusing terms, I noticed I wrote "gybe". Ha! Where the heck did that come from?
As for all the confusing terminology, as I tried to explain to my wife--it really makes things simpler. A downhaul, a vang or a cunningham are very specific tools for modifying sail shape. When someone talks about the "luff" or "leach", or the "tack" or "head" of a sail (okay, as opposed to the head down below) you will know immediately what they are talking about.
The "starboard side" is always starboard no matter which way you are looking. To say "grab the spinnaker halyard and haul it in", or "trim the starboard sheet" is easier to say than "grab that line...NO, not that one, the other one! No, THAT line there!"
Of course, this is usually where the wife or non sailing friend gets mad and pouts while you try to trim and drive the boat at the same time.
Been there. Done that.
For example, a conversation from my last sail, where we were sailing an overpowered Newport 33 in some pretty heavy winds:
"Pam, we're coming up on a spoil bank and we have a drilling rig hard to our lee side. We need to come about right now."
"Ah, what?"
"A spoil bank. A big pile of mud on the side of the ship channel. We are going to get stuck if we don't tack now."
"Okay. Let me get the handle thingie and wrap that blue rope around the wrench. Let me know when to unwrap that rope on the other side."
"Okay", I sigh. It's a winch, I wanted to say.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"Ready about", I told her.
All of a sudden all he** breaks loose. The genoa is flogging up a storm and I see that Pam let the sheet go prematurely. We were still hard over, but now were are losing our pointing ability and are falling off toward the rig. I scrambled around the boat, reset the sheet and powered up a bit before coming up and tacking the boat over myself.
"What were you doing?" I shouted when I finished. "I didn't tell you to let go the sheet!".
"Yes you did! You said you were READY!"
"I didn't say 'helms alee' or 'helms over', I said 'ready about'!"
"Well, you said READY! That means you were ready! That meant you were ready for me to untie that stupid rope thingie! Use REAL words next time!"
Ever the diplomatic sort, I through in, "Well, I'd never want to run track against you. I guess you would start running when the starter said 'Ready' and before he said, 'set , go'!"
She didn't talk to me for an hour after that....
(Sailing is SO relaxing, I tell myself over and over and over....)
