Cruising Education
Troubleshooting Marine Outboard Engines
We’ve all been there. Eager to jump in the dinghy and land on shore after laying anchor on the mothership. Just one problem, the dinghy outboard wort start.
Education Safety Sailing Basics
Servicing Type V Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs)
If you’re like a lot of recreational boaters, you may not pay a much attention to your life vest. You might not even know what PFD stands for – Personal Floatation Device. You may have even purchased a type V PFD with your #1 criteria being comfort. You throw it on each time you go out, mainly just to make a show of it, and take it off as soon as you’re outside the marina – confident that you’ll remember to put it back on if the weather picks up.
Cruising Education
Best Coffee Brewing Methods for Cruising Sailors
Coffee is life. If you’re like me, you need your cup of joe first thing every morning. There is nothing quite like a great cup of coffee onboard as the sun comes up over your favorite anchorage. Unfortunately, today’s common methods of brewing coffee are harder to come by onboard Read more…
Education Skills
How Much Scope to Lay at Anchor
You probably know the rules of thumb. Something like 7:1 scope if you’re staying overnight, 5:1 if you’re just there for a few hours. But where do these rules come from, and what if you can’t lay that much scope – say you’re up against the shore line, or the swing radius is too big. I took an engineering approach to calculate what scope you actually need, depending on the relevant variables.
Education Skills
Tacking and Jibing
As we’ve seen, a sailboat cannot sail directly into the wind. The “no-go” zone covers approximately 45° on either side of the wind, so how does a sailboat move toward a desired point that is located upwind? The answer is by tacking back and forth on a zigzag-like path. While Read more…
Education Skills
Useful Sailing Knots
You don’t need to be an Eagle Scout to sail. There are entire books written on how to tie knots for everything from baiting a fishing hook to decorating your living room. Fortunately, there are a handful of knots that you can learn that will cover just about any situation Read more…
Education Skills
Steering a Sailboat
Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “It’s not like driving a car. It’s like driving a boat.” If you sail a few times you will understand exactly what that means. You might even start using the phrase yourself after you see how perfectly the analogy applies to so many real life Read more…
Education Skills
Spinnaker Handling
One of the most beautiful and majestic experiences in sailing is using the spinnaker, also known as the “chute” or “kite.” You may have had the chance to see a picturesque ocean horizon filled with the colorful teardrop shapes of distant spinnakers. If so, it will be tough to resist Read more…
Education Skills
Small Sailboat Tactics
Larger, more stable boats that have a keel tend to keep you fairly dry under most conditions. If you should choose to sail on smaller boats from time to time for practice or the occasional thrill, there are a few special tactics that you’ll need to know. For our purposes, Read more…
Education Skills
Sail Trim
Sail trim refers to the various means by which the sails are configuration to harness power from the wind. Sheeting Angle As discussed earlier in the section on wind forces, the primary variable used to control the sails is the sheeting angle, which in combination with the boat heading controls Read more…