I started sailing as a boy on my father’s heavy, wooden ketch, the Windjob, on Puget Sound. Then as a young man, I began to learn about real seamanship as crew on Jack Carstarphen’s 74-foot, gaff-headed ketch Maverick in the Caribbean. Both ships had plenty of control lines, especially Maverick, and both had pin rails at the base of the mainmast and shroud-mounted pin rails at the mizzen shrouds. There were always plenty of belaying pins on which to tie the sail control lines, and it was easy to attach each line onto the proper pin at the mast because…
