"try another tack"

[ladorada]

In a conversation of two people, if one of them is trying to convince the other of something and comes with all sorts of things to give reason, but does not succeed and suddenly he or she says "I tried another tack", what does this mean? What does "tack" mean in this phrase?

[stuckinfirst]

Is it something to do with sailing? I think to take another tack in sailing means to try a different course by repositioning the sails.

[Clanad]

Actually, stuckinfirst is approaching the correct answer. Tack in sailing is the ability of the ship or boat to sail into the wind. The ability of most sail powered craft to sail into the wind is limited to sailing at and angle to the desired destination, making a turn to a heading that, again, is at an angle to the destination and continuing these manuvers until arrival. The manuver is achieved by close hauling, that is when its sails are trimmed in tightly... but that's the answer to another question... At any rate, the manuver and angle is called the tack... or more correctly to tack...

[Loosehead]

As above it's a sailing term, to expand the analogy: As described above it is possible to sail into the wind but not directly the steepest angle is 45 degrees so a sail boat can sail to a destination by sailing at 45 degrees starboard to the perpendicular and then changing direction 90 degrees so it is now 45 degrees port to the perpendicular, continuing this will eventually reach the destination. Each 90 degree change is known as tacking so in your example the person was alluding to the fact that he tried a different approach to reach the same result, so "I tried another tack" os analogous with this.