Boating Knowledge Base
Have a sailing question? Access NauticEd’s sailing and boating knowledge base, and gain in-depth answers to your sailing questions. If you’re interested in powerboating, visit our new powerboating blog.
Electricity and Charging Your Devices on a Charter
It’s a given, we can’t live without electricity. At home, we have all the conveniences and all the chargers we need. But what about on a boat on a sailing vacation? What can I charge and what voltage is available?
Wind
Winds can be gentle, hardly felt, like zephyrs flitting about in a local area, or they can be vast movements of air moving swiftly across oceans and continents at low and high altitudes.
Sailboat Gear and Throttle Controls
Sailboats, and boats in general, use their gears and throttle to control momentum. It’s unlike driving a car in that you have no brake! Instead, you use your forward and reverse gears and throttle to both increase and decrease speed...
Weighing Anchor
“Weighing the anchor” simply means raising it. If raising the anchor is to be done by hand...
Mooring a Sailboat
Mooring a vessel means attaching it to a float that is firmly and permanently anchored to the sea bottom.
Sailboat Design
Surely, the first sailboat was invented by a five-year-old child with a block of wood. He or she stuck a twig through a piece of animal skin and then down into a knothole in the wood.
Raising the Alarm in Emergencies
A comprehensive list of how and the equipment used to raise the alarm in sailing emergencies
Navigation Tools
No matter the chart in use, the navigator’s work largely involves the determination of direction and distances. The most useful tools for actual chart work are...
Basic Sail Telltale Control
Controlling the Telltales by Trimming the Sail. The concept here is actually pretty simple. The golden rule is, when...
Navigation Units
Sailors are forever measuring stuff. This brings us to the subject of navigation units. As we all remember from the good ol’ school days, measurement is the process of comparing something with an established standard.
Hull and Keel
A sailboat’s hull and keel receive considerable attention from a sailboat designer since they determine the capacity of the vessel, how fast it will go, and the degree of safety and comfort.
How to Book a Sailing Charter
There are a few things you need to know about booking a charter.
Non-Electronic Communications
Sailing has been around for thousands of years. Electronic Communications has been around for less than 100 years (not counting the telegraph).
Crew Overboard
Crew ("Man") Overboard (MOB) is fortunately relatively rare, but chances are that in your sailing career it will happen.
Global Positioning System
GPS stands for global positioning system. It uses a network of satellites in orbit. Although the GPS is used as a navigation device, it is also a form of communication to the vessel.
Sailing to a Mooring Ball
Sailing up to a mooring ball is an advanced skill. It will definitely prove your finesse for handling the boat and managing the crew.
Sailboat Running Rigging
A sailboat’s running rigging consists of those items controlling the sails and helping the sails to capture the wind’s energy.
What is an American National Standards EDU-4 Instructor
EDU-4 is the American National Standard that describes what high-quality on-water instruction must look like: clear objectives, structured lessons, appropriate safety and student ratios, objective assessment, and continuous improvement. NauticEd requires its instructors to follow these principles in every training session.
Mediterranean Mooring with an Anchor
Another factor when Mediterranean Mooring with an anchor is that the wind direction determines who is in control...
Sailboat Inverters
Sailboat Inverters are devices used to convert 12-volt DC battery electricity to AC 110-volt or 220-volt electricity. Special electronics in
Helpful Hints about Wind
Since the existence of wind is the primary reason we can sail, it is prudent to know all we can about it.
Crew Briefing Video
It is important to know how much experience your crew has before you embark on any sailing adventure. For our boat, we created a video walkaround introduction to the boat covering safety items and also just general items on how we want our boat looked after.
Prop Walk Bests You
There is one situation where you are just going to have to suck it up, admit defeat, and work with the forces of nature.
Communications while Underway on a Charter
Contact between vessels, or a boat and a land station, is usually carried out using VHF (Very High Frequency) radios.
