What are they and what’s the difference? These two terms were established when vessels were fitted with tillers rather than wheels and so the term weather helm refers to having to pull the tiller (helm) “to weather” in order to sail in a straight line. Lee helm is when you need to push the tiller […]
Yesterday I was out teaching on our new Beneteau 373. The conditions were extremely gusty. Lake Travis in Austin Texas is a great lake for sailing all year round and in the summer the water is so incredibly warm that you can swim while anchored in a cove still at 2am. There are lots of […]
Well it is finally here – one of our most requested courses yet – focused entirely on Celestial Navigation. The Introductory course gives a good introduction to spherical geometry and also to the theory of a noon solar sight. It takes the student through an actual sighting and uses real tables to calculate the Latitude […]
Learning to anchor a boat is an integral part of your learn to sail lessons. There are lots of considerations. Here we’ll cover one of those considerations – swing! Care must be given to swing. As the wind changes during the night your boat will move with the wind and can put you into a […]
In the previous blog we dealt with end ties. Now we get onto the more common configurations of boats in a slip. SLIPS (5) Wind coming into the slip channel. Your boat is stern to. This is best handled by steering out of the slip and then immediately down wind. Back out of the slip […]
This is the continued series on how to leave the dock in a sailboat (3) Wind pushing into the dock and current from behind. You can use exactly the same method as described in (2) above. (4) Wind pushing you onto the dock and current coming from forward. If the wind is light you can […]
This is the first in a series of blogs on leaving the slip or end tie. Some combinations of wind and current can get complicated and some are easy. The first shown below is the easiest. Stay tuned to this series and we’ll show all.
Here is an exercise that everyone should do. It’s taken from the Maneuvering a Sailboat Under Power course which gives 20 different exercises to be able to confidently maneuver a sailboat. Exercise 1: Under power, and going down wind, move towards a marker or buoy and stop the boat with the buoy abeam of the […]
1. Reduce sail to the appropriate sail plan early. 2. Make storm sails ready. 3. Secure all deck gear 4. Fill fuel tanks from jerry jugs if necessary 5. Secure companionway slides and hatch closed and sealed from the deck. 6. There should also be a mechanism ready to secure the hatch from below. 7. […]
There has been a request for further elaboration of the wind vectors as to why the true wind is always behind the apparent wind. Previously we used this diagram and the confusion is that the true wind vector is in front of the apparent wind vector. The following diagram explains the vectors better perhaps. The […]
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