Hollywood Sailing

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Hollywood has historically loved sailing ships. There's an entire genre organized around them. Hollywood is also basically incapable of depicting a sailing ship actually, you know, sailing. When there's a real ship being used, it will be obviously motoring. When it's animated, whether traditionally or via computer, the sailing will make no sense. Sister trope to Artistic License Ships, which is about modern naval ships.

Common Indications of Hollywood Sailing:

• All of the square-rig sails of a tall ship are all down and pulled tight, at the same time, regardless of wind condition. Even with 'ideal' wind, this essentially never happens in reality, except as a subset of a more complex sail pattern being used, or when the wind is so light that every square foot of sail is needed (in which case they will not be full). But the big mainsails and topsails look dramatic, so there they are. Bonus points if they're flat as a board and pushed back against the masts they're supposed to be PULLING on.
• Ships can turn quickly and reliably in any direction at any time, with nothing more complicated than spinning the wheel a lot and occasionally a single boom (the spanker boom, above the wheel at the back of the ship) switching sides. Bonus points if the spanker boom is so low that it hits someone on the head when it swings unexpectedly.
• Ships can proceed in any direction however they like, regardless of where the wind is coming from.
• Studdingsails, great big extensions that make the sails of a ship almost twice as wide as normal, never make an appearance, despite their being a key feature for speed and maneuverability in naval battles.

Examples of Hollywood Sailing include:

• The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is a major offender, with extensive yelling about naval maneuvers, which never accomplish anything, as all the ships continually sail in any direction in every weather with main and topsails square to the masts at all times. Bonus points for Captain Jack Sparrow yelling for adjustments to pieces of rigging his ship does not even possess: "Scandalize the lateens!" Note that the torn and tattered sails of the Pearl and the Dutchman do not qualify, as they are both supernatural vessels.
• Partial aversion: Master and Commander The Far Side of The World manages to avoid most of the list except for hiding the fact that the ship is actually motoring in a few shots, as indicated by the sails being pushed backwards against the mast by the wind, while the ship continues forward.
• Waterworld manages to multiply the sins, by having a fore-and-aft rigged Trimaran that is powered by wind so reliable the main character felt it wise to build a giant wind turbine on his mast. Lord only knows what would happen if the wind ever went slack and the sail slumped back into the turbine.
• Some players of Pirates Of The Spanish Main build their models with the flag (properly called pennant) flowing backwards (although that would indicate that the ship is sailing directly into the wind) because they find it looks funny the other way around.
• Invoked in Munchkin Booty - several of the level up cards depict the characters entangled in ropes, with the card name describing what they are doing: "careen the futtock-shrouds," "splice the forecastle" and "belay the aft topgallants". None of these make any degree of sense.
• There was an illustration in a Robert Lawson book which pictured a 3-masted ship, all the sails full of wind, with flapping flags facing the wrong direction (i.e, flags were pointing to the stern). The flags and the sails are affected by the same wind, and so the flags should be pointing more or less toward the bow.
• H.R. Pufnstuf's intro includes an especially severe example. A sailboat is scudding along on a broad reach, sails properly filled and trimmed, then when Witchiepoo dispels her illusion, the boat turns sinister, the weather turns dark, and the boat is now "sailing" directly into the wind.
• The Hunting of the Snark had fun with this - see "Fit the Second".
• The 1997 French cartoon "Barbe-Rouge" averts this one very carefully.
• The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker takes some care to play sailing realistically: Link can quarter by turning the sail at an angle to the boat so that it catches the wind fully, and goes faster when the wind is directly behind. However, Link doesn't need to turn the rudder while doing this, can quarter at a right angle to the wind, and, by picking up speed and making a sharp turn, can sail against the wind. Since lacking these abilities would make the game immensely tedious and frustrating, this can be filed under Acceptable Breaks From Reality.