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.
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.
Vessel Lights and Shapes
Nighttime can be a beautiful time to sail. However, night vision is not the same as day vision and so rules have been established to ensure safety.
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...
Seacocks – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Seacocks are designed to let water flow out of the hull safely. They are not one-way valves so any loose clamps around the seacock itself create leaks around the hoses and can allow water to enter into the boat. This is usually bad – right?
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.
Seamanship Nav Rules
Navigation rules refer many times to good seamanship, The best advice we can give here around seamanship is to get experience...
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.
Charter Freezer and Fridge Management
Freezers are typically top-loading and very deep. Take from home 4 -5 fabric shopping bags to stow similar items in the freezer. In doing this you...
Seasickness on a Bareboat Charter
Here is some education about sea sickness that can help you and your crew overcome it.
Anchoring with multiple anchors
Setting multiple anchors has multiple advantages. It reduces swing, reduces the holding load required by each anchor, and can act as a backup.
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.
Personal Flotation Devices
The terms “life jacket” and “PFD” are interchangeable, with the latter used in the USA and the former used in most of the rest of the world.
Holding a Constant Heading while Adjusting the Sails
We're heading to a specific point on land or a compass heading. Thus we need to keep the sails flying effectively...
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.
High Wind and Gust Management in Sailing
Professional sail trimmers deal with high winds and gusts by managing the traveler and mainsheet simultaneously. The fairlead position...
Dock Line Release
Have a dock line untying plan based on the wind and the current direction and then communicate this to the crew. Depending on which is stronger...
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Deploying the Anchor
It is important that the person deploying the anchor and the helmsperson are in agreement about the anchoring plan first. Discuss the placement, the direction, the depth, the desired scope, and the setting plan.
Heave To
Heave To in sailing is a way to stop the boat with full sails still up. You might do
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.
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.
Typical Sailboat Energy Usage
Here we show the devices and how much energy you would typically use on a sailing boat on a sailing vacation each day.
Electronic Navigation
We are well into the 21st century. Chances are that within 30 feet (10 meters) of you right now there are 2-3 GPS-enabled potentially lifesaving devices...
Why Anchor?
There are many reasons for anchoring your boat...
