Points of Sail – Sailboats

If you've recently started sailing you may have heard about the Points of Sail - but what are they?

The points of sailing are the different directions or angles that you can sail in, relative to the wind. And, when learning to sail, it's handy to know all of them by name, and their associated sail and boat settings, in order to sail efficiently.

This informative poster illustrates all the different positions in an easy to understand format with all the names, angles and sail settings for each point.

Learning the points of sailing is vital if you want to be able to do more advanced manoeuvres like coming alongside a pontoon or man overboard recovery, as you'll need to follow a set of different positions in order to complete the tasks under control.

If you'd like to test your knowledge after memorising this poster, try our Points of sailing Labelling exercise and our Points of sailing - Sail setting activity (where you can draw in the sails for each direction).