LET'S say we're coming into the -- weather mark on a starboard tack and bearing off to port. The foredeck chief and crew will hoist the spinnaker pole. The bow man jumps into the forward hatch and hooks in the guy, sheet and halyard to the spinnaker. As we round the mark, the foredeck crew hoists the spinnaker and lets down the jib. The navigator holds the jib on an auxiliary sheet as the port tailer releases the jib sheet. The port tailer is then free to take in the spinnaker sheet while the other tailer takes in the after guy. Then the two grinders below turn the winches that hold the sheet and guy, and the tailers trim the sheets.

O.K., is all that clear to everybody? Of course it isn't, except to fairly serious sailors. What it is, approximately, is Skipper Bus Mosbacher's explanation of what his Intrepid crew does when rounding a buoy on an America's Cup racecourse. Taking such esoteric language uttered by experts in their field--whether it be computers (see U.S. BUSINESS) or toxicology (see MEDICINE) or catechetics (see RELIGION) or sailing--and turning it into a story that a non-expert can understand is a facet of our job that we consider of major importance. Bridging that language gap between specialist and reader often, if not always, can be done best by people who are not necessarily experts in the field under discussion.

Only one of the crew that worked on this week's cover story can be classed as a bona-fide expert sailor. He is Charles Lundgren, a noted marine painter who has been sailing for more than 40 years, once was in the crew of a boat that won the Bermuda race, sails his own 37-ft. sloop and is a longstanding member of the New York Yacht Club. He sketched and photographed Sailor Mosbacher in action from the deck of Mary Poppins, Intrepid's tender, and at the dock, and revisited his sub ject and scene until he was sure he had exactly the right bearing. "I wanted this cover painting to be authentic," he said. "I have friends in the Yacht Club who would raise the devil if I made a mistake."

Senior Editor George Daniels (deep-sea fishing), Writer Charles Parmiter (hunting), Reporter Mark Goodman (football) and Researcher Geraldine Kirshenbaum (sky diving) make no claim to expertise in sailing--but they were just as concerned as Painter Lundgren, because they have readers who raise the devil when they make a mistake. To help bring the language through, they turned to the glossary and diagram that appear with the cover story, as well as to their skill at translating the expertise.

Getting the information for Cartographer Robert M. Chapin's diagram of Intrepid posed a particularly sensitive problem. While Bus Mosbacher, his crew and his family were generously cordial and cooperative throughout the intensive reporting and research for the cover story, a certain gentlemanly reserve surfaced when we requested details tor a cross-section drawing of the boat that would make features of its design graphically clear to readers from Newport to Sydney to the Isle of Wight. When Researcher Mimi Conway called at Mosbacher's office in New York to discuss the dia gram, he smilingly said, "I think I have exactly what your editors want for this." Thereupon he handed her a folder that turned out to be a promotion piece for the TIME-LIFE Books volume, Age of Exploration, containing a diagram of the Mayflower. Ultimately, though, he and his associates supplied all the special information we needed for graphic as well as verbal explanation.

From the beginning of the project until this issue went to press, our experts were applying their own specialty, which is, essentially, making things clear.

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