How does a massive sailing ship “tack” in the same way a dinghy does? Especially those with big rectangular sails like a galleon
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A square rigged ship can angle those sails 45 degrees or more off the ships long axis. And the sail hangs on the boom ahead of the mast. The last is one of the advantages of square rigged ships vs say, lanteen sails. Lanteen ships (dhows and similar) hung the sail from a boom, but the triangular tail was anchored on either side aft of the mast. Great as long as you didn’t want to turn much, which would require hauling the “tail” around the front of the mast to a new anchor on the other side of the ship. A full rigged ship could simply change the boom angle as needed.
Running before the wind would have a rigged ship sails across the beam. Running at full tack into the wind would have the sails mostly fore-and-aft aligned, so you’ve got the equivalent of the dinghy’s sail position working tack into the wind. The tack angle into the wind might not be much (15-20 degrees, sometimes better) but it adds up. And the sails could easily be adjusted for the counter tack to repeat the process, if you call hauling the lines on 12 or more full sails easy!
It was more difficult, mostly because square riggers couldn’t sail much closer than 60° off the wind, so they had a bigger angle to turn through. There were many men aboard so handling all the sails at the same time could be done. At least it could be in naval vessels which had huge crews but merchantmen were more likely to wear instead of tacking, if there were plenty of sea room. Wearing means turning away from the wind and then continuing the turn until you were on the other tack, avoiding the need to ever point into the wind.
>How does a massive sailing ship “tack”
Not well.
On a dinghy or yacht you have enough speed and momentum to swing the bow around through the wind.
On a full-rigged ship you don’t. Instead you set the sails on the fore- and aft masts to induce a rotation in the ship.
Also you go backwards a bit during the tack.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRbcTsm2rc) has a full explanation and demonstration on how to do it.
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