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.
Seamanship Nav Rules
Navigation rules refer many times to good seamanship, The best advice we can give here around seamanship is to get experience...
Towing
The following diagram shows how you can tow another vessel. Form a “bridle” from the rear cleats...
Sailboat Battery Charging
Like a water bucket, batteries have a specific storage capacity and must be refilled/recharged when their contents of energy are depleted.
Holding a Straight Course in Sailing
Holding a straight course is an imperative skill to master as you learn to sail. As an experienced sailor, nothing is more distracting to a good day out sailing than a novice helmsperson swinging the boat in all directions.
Water and Water Making on Bareboat Charter
Aboard, drinkable water is indeed a limited supply - very limited.
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.
Fire on a Sailboat
Putting out fires quickly is essential. The sooner you find the source the quicker the fire can be extinguished.
Bilge Pumps on a Charter Boat
Boats have two types of pumps to empty bilge water; electronic and manually operated.
Action by a Stand-On Vessel Nav Rule
Strangely enough, the written text for the action of a Stand-On vessel is longer than that of a Give-Way vessel.
Basic Telltale Control continued
Controlling the telltales by making course adjustments - when making the woolies fly by making course adjustments the rule is...
Securing Your Sailboat
It is convenient to have dock lines that are pre-set to the right length with loops on the end and are permanently mounted onto the marina cleats. Now, when you return to the dock you simply slip the loops over your vessel cleats.
Basic Surface Geometry
Below is a brief summary of how locations are commonly expressed on different surfaces.
Weighing Anchor
“Weighing the anchor” simply means raising it. If raising the anchor is to be done by hand...
Seasickness on a Bareboat Charter
Here is some education about sea sickness that can help you and your crew overcome it.
Kids on a Sailing Charter
If you're considering a charter and considering taking your kids - DO IT.
Understanding the Safety Position in Sailing
Learn how the Safety Position — a controlled, depowered close reach — helps sailors pause safely without losing steerage. Ideal for MOB drills, instruction, and more.
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.
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.
Clouds, Fog, Thunderstorms
Clouds can give a relatively easy and quick look at what might be coming in the future. These clouds then are a good indication of possible changing weather in the next few days.
Returning a sailboat to the Slip
Time flies when you are sailing. But sadly, the moment comes when you must return and put your vessel back in its slip.
Docking onto End Ties
Wind blowing you off the dock end ties, plan a fairly steep approach so that you are facing more into the wind.
Catamaran Maneuvering Mastery
As now learned, Cats can turn inside their own length, they can vector sideways, and using the bulldozer effect you can instantly rotate the Cat to point in any direction, you can do almost anything.
Momentum on a Sailboat
While sailboats are primarily powered by wind, the use of an engine (technically your sailboat engine is “auxiliary power”) is crucial for certain maneuvers and situations. All of this begins with understanding the momentum of a sailboat!
Sailboat Balance
Below is an animation that shows the balance of forces: actually it is technically the balance of a concept called “moments.”
