If you ask any of the crew what is their least favourite task, most of them would say "wooling". And you may ask yourself, what's that? Our larger sails are the spinnakers, we have three of them, from the lightest and biggest code 1 to the heaviest and smallest code 3. And these sails are so big that if you tried to hoist them while the wind is filling them it would not be possible, they'd just be too heavy. So what we do is that we tie them up with a lot of pieces of wool. These are strong enough to keep the sail from inflating while you hoist it. Once hoisted you pull on the sheets of the sail and the pieces of wool will start breaking and the sail will inflate.
So whenever you drop one of these sails you need to prepare it for the next hoist by carefully tying it up with these little pieces of wool. And this is what we call "wooling" and that is the task that everyone hates.
And why do we hate it? It is a lengthy and boring task, it can take a couple of people almost an hour. It is an uncomfortable task, you do it down below in cramped spaces, with the boat jumping around you, possibly with a lot of heat. It is a thankless task, nobody is going to congratulate you on a well done wooling. It is a never ending task, you'll wool a sail only for it to be hoisted and dropped, needing to wool it again in a couple of hours. This is something no-one is going to miss.
