Before turning attention to the problems of heavy weather sailing in yachts it is useful to attempt to define what a yachtsman considers to be a gale.

When I first took up ‘going foreign’ in my own boats cones were hoisted at signal stations when winds of Force 7 or above were anticipated. Thus it may be said that gales started at Force 7, but skippers of commercial craft such as Brixham trawlers (in which I occasionally sailed), barges and other coasters did their own forecasting and used their own judgment of what constituted a gale without bothering too much about the Beaufort notation. Amateurs followed suit in this matter and when wind or sea rose too high for their own particular yachts they would describe the conditions as a gale. It was not until the radio became a commonplace in yachts that a more scientific approach came to be made. Of recent years few yachtsmen will make even a cross-Channel passage without first receiving a weather forecast and the tendency is to rely entirely on forecasts. In passing, I would comment that the vagaries of the weather are such that some of the severest gales have occurred with only very short warning.