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.
Alternating Current and Direct Current
In your house, your wall outlets deliver alternating current (AC) electricity. The electricity provided to your house and your marina from the national electric grid is AC. Most of the devices...
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...
Using Spring Lines for Docking
A spring line is just a dockline that is placed strategically from the boat to the dock to help maneuver and turn the boat in place - get it safely into the dock or safely away.
Mediterranean Mooring Techniques
Mediterranean Mooring Techniques is where the rubber meets the road—or, in this case, where the gel coat does not touch the big bad hard concrete wall.
Operating the Engine – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Many modern sailboats are equipped with integrated engine throttle and transmission shift systems; called the push-pull cabling system.
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.
Basic Sail Telltale Control
Controlling the Telltales by Trimming the Sail. The concept here is actually pretty simple. The golden rule is, when...
Motor Sailing
If the wind is light and your time is short you might want to consider motor-sailing—using your auxiliary engine...
Learning sailing while on a Yacht Charter Vacation
Learn to sail while on vacation with the Instructional Skipper Program. Gain real-world skills and practical experience in beautiful destinations.
Sailing Safety Equipment
There is a plethora of equipment specially designed for a variety of emergencies at sea. Some are inexpensive...
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.
NED Sailing Simulator
Before you play with NED, the sailing simulator, read this first. The graphic below is representative of a real wind meter on...
Weather Warnings
Weather services will also provide weather warnings, such as small craft or gale warnings for a certain area, as well as fog predictions.
Marine Batteries
The source of DC power is usually one or more marine-grade batteries, normally 12 volts each. They are similar to automobile batteries, except sturdier—and of course more expensive.
Selecting an Anchoring Spot
Selecting an Anchoring Spot - Charts, both electronic and paper will tell you where the reliable anchoring spots are.
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
The Autopilot on a Charter
The autopilot is a great tool for those long hauls and it’s probably better at holding a straight line than most of us.
Fishing on a Charter
Bring a fishing rod and reel with a 20 lb break strength line. Even if you’re not typically a fisher, few things in life are better than catching a fish for your crew, cooking it, and serving it that evening. It will increase your hero status.
Using Prop Walk
You can use prop walk to turn your boat in a tight marina by applying forward and reverse gears at appropriate times, leaving the rudder locked to starboard.
Spinning Propeller
As you sail along, the water flowing over your propeller will cause it to spin. Some sailboats are fitted with a special alternator that will create electricity...
Advanced Catamaran Maneuvering – Using the Rudders
There are some other cool things you can do when you consider the propeller thrust over a Catamaran's rudders.
Sailing Personnel Emergencies
As the skipper of a vessel, you are expected to be able to handle situations thrust upon you at a moment’s notice. Many of these situations are boat-related issues, but there are also crew injury issues for which you should be prepared to assess and handle at least enough until professional assistance arrives.
Weather Predictions
While we have touched on weather concepts in this Module, no one can expect you to be a meteorologist (unless you are one) and do a good enough job at predicting the weather with enough quality to guarantee your safety.
Good Captainship
Being a good captain on a bareboat charter is a real skill. It is very unlike being a good captain on a military or commercial ship or even a captain in a local yacht race.
