page_title: Tack (sailing)
section_title: Wind direction on sailing vessel
hierarchical_section_title: Tack (sailing) / Wind direction on sailing vessel
caption_attribution_description: Pride of Baltimore II at OpSail 2000
context_page_description: A tack is a nautical term both for the lower, windward corner of a sail and, separately, for the side of a sailing craft from which the wind is coming while under way—the starboard or port tack.
context_section_description: As a point of reference, tack is the alignment of the wind with respect to a sailing craft under way. If the wind is from starboard side of the sailing craft, it is on starboard tack, and if from port, on port tack. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea for vessels underway declare that when the courses of two sailing vessels converge, the vessel on port tack must give way to a vessel on starboard tack. The maneuver of changing a sailing craft's course from one tack to the other with the wind coming across the bow is called tacking or with the wind coming across the stern is called jibing for fore-and-aft rigged sailing craft or wearing ship for square-rigged vessels.
caption: This vessel is on port tack with the wind coming from the port side.
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