Grant Headifen

About Grant Headifen

My vision for NauticEd is to ensure that families and friends get out on the water not only safely but with true COMPETENCE, confidently savoring every moment of their valuable time.

Achieving this means being the pinnacle of sailing and boating education—offering comprehensive multi-media theoretical instruction coupled with hands-on, on-the-water training through our global network of American National Standards Instructors. We steadfastly avoid becoming a mere certification mill; our focus is on delivering genuine competence, ensuring our students are well-prepared for enjoyable, real-world boating experiences.

Entries by Grant Headifen

How to Spring off the Dock with a Catamaran

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Next week we’re going to Tonga and the island of Vava’U for a week long NauticEd Flotilla sailing trip amongst the archipelago. After a rainy and relatively cool winter in New Zealand this year its going to be a welcome and fun trip. We’re bareboat chartering three catamarans from the Moorings. 21 adults and 3 […]

Heaving To And Something About It That You Might Not Know

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Most sailors already know how to heave to so I’ll give the quick part of this tip up front. The Quick Bit When heaving to, and if you have the choice, do it so that your boat is on a starboard tack. This way you are the “Stand-on” vessel in an approaching situation with other […]

Even whales want to learn to sail

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Oh My Goodness This story is, almost unbelievably, one hundred percent real – included here is a pic of a southern right whale who, it seems, accidentally breeched on to a sailboat in Capetown, South Africa. I actually think it was, most likely, just jealous. I believe it simply wanted to get in on the […]

Come Join us for the Rolex Regatta on a Maxi Race Yacht

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Join us on an 80 ft Maxi Yacht in the Rolex Regatta. In the movie “Hunt for Red October” the XO came to Sean Connery and said: “Captain, it is time”. It was the time to make the decision to go for it – or not. And it is now one of those classic movie lines […]

Going on a Yacht Charter Vacation? Here’s a tip!

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Here’s a great tip for yacht charter vacations. Problem: You buy provisions at the start of the trip. You load them carefully into the top loading freezer with the best intentions of using everything. Through out the week every thing gets messed up. Stuff ends up at the bottom. At the end of the week […]

Types of Anchors and bottom types that they are best suited.

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As you learn to sail, you should be also learning about anchoring. There is more to tossing the hook so to speak. After doing some research on the internet and looking at some of the tests performed on holding power, I’ve made a quick summary of what I learned. Anchor types are selected based on […]

How the Tides Work

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As a new sailor, just learning to sail, the thought of figuring out how tides work can be quite intimidating. Let’s talk about them.

Slow Tack or Fast Tack – That is the question

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I once sailed with an ex-submarine captain who would turn the boat through a tack extremely slowly. When asked why, he had several good reasons. (1) Look behind you as you come about. If you are leaving swirling water eddies behind the rudder, these are a sum of kinetic energy that was previously in your […]

Leeway and a Bottle of Rum

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Leeway is just one of those things that is a law of the universe that we have to put up with. It’s just like gravity. Still with gravity – the advantage is that it’s highly predictable. And so then is leeway. Leeway is the sideways slip motion of our sailboat downwind from the pressure of […]