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.
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...
Understanding How Airflow Creates Lift
Understanding how Airflow creates lift and the need for smooth airflow when sailing...
Some Navigation Rules Terminology
Understanding Navigation Rules begins with learning some basic Navigation Rules terminology...
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...
Navigation Introduction
The history of navigation is fascinating and dates back to as many centuries as we can imagine.
Maintaining a Lookout
The Rule Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as...
The Complete Guide to Boat Footwear
Find the best tips in The Guide to Boat Footwear for choosing the perfect boat shoes for your boat outings.
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
Aids To Navigation (ATONS)
Aids to Navigation include buoys, lights, lighthouses, and markers, among others...
The Nautical Chart on a Charter
Even though most sailboat charters are within island groups where the next landfall is typically within sight, every boat should be equipped with complete large-scale charts of the area.
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.
Propwalk factors – The p factor
There are two combined reasons that work in unison to create propwalk.
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).
Know Your Chart!
Always familiarize yourself with any chart before using it for navigation and plotting of positions; there are significant differences between charts that could lead to mistakes.
How to Book a Sailing Charter
There are a few things you need to know about booking a charter.
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.
Sailboat Battery Usage
Batteries are a vessel’s major source of power for many essential functions both when in the slip and while sailing.
Motor Sailing
If the wind is light and your time is short you might want to consider motor-sailing—using your auxiliary engine...
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.
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.
Bilge Pumps
An emergency bilge pump(s) is a very significant electrical device on any vessel. This pump is used to pump out water that may collect, for whatever reason, in the bilge.
True Wind vs. Apparent Wind
Learn the basic difference between True Wind and Apparent Wind...
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.
Crew Overboard
Crew ("Man") Overboard (MOB) is fortunately relatively rare, but chances are that in your sailing career it will happen.
