"I have the feeling that turning is somehow frowned upon, something like the saying: If you brake, you lose," says long-distance sailor Sönke Roever. Indeed, the maneuver doesn't seem to be popular with everyone. "Breaks in the wind are something for the sensitive," Astrid Erdmann quotes her husband Wilfried with a wink. "Indeed, I can't remember that when there was a good wind but not yet a storm, we shortened more cloth than necessary. Especially not to take a rest or to prepare a meal," said the circumnavigator. Roever, on the other hand, says: "Turning around is not a disgrace and for us it is an integral part of everyday life on board."
The alternative to lying around is usually uncomfortable and strenuous: something like the cross in a strong wind
The aim of turning is to trim the yacht to the wind and waves so that it moves as little as possible. It should be so balanced that nobody has to row. "Turning around creates an incredible calm, no matter what happens around you," says Roever.
Twisting, by which the introductory maneuver is meant, and then bending, that state of equilibrium, are recommended for various purposes. Again and again in literature it appears as a tactic to weather a storm. But opinions are even more divided than on the question described at the beginning of whether it is considered a good style.
