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.
Tacking and Gybing Maneuvers
Tacking when you want to sail in a direction to exactly where the wind is coming from— guess what—you can’t! The best we can do is to follow a zig-zag course by sailing at about 30 to 40 degrees off the wind...
Bilge Pumps on a Charter Boat
Boats have two types of pumps to empty bilge water; electronic and manually operated.
Luffing and Backwinding Sails
Luffing is when the sail is flapping in the wind. Back winding happens usually right before luffing occurs.
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.
Starting the Engine – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Regarding the starting procedure, we’re assuming that since you’re actually commanding a sailboat you pretty much know how to turn the key and all the other safety precautions.
Basic Telltale Control continued
Controlling the telltales by making course adjustments - when making the woolies fly by making course adjustments the rule is...
Showering on a Charter Boat
Charter boat guests use the showers not only for basic hygiene, but must also rinse off seawater after swimming to avoid nasty skin rashes (sailor’s sores).
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?
Docking Maneuvers with Dual Rudders
With Dual Rudders there is no ability to spring the boat onto or off the dock! You have no water velocity over the rudders from either boat velocity or propwash.
Basic Surface Geometry
Below is a brief summary of how locations are commonly expressed on different surfaces.
Diesel Raw-Water System
Raw-water means that the water is straight from outside the boat. It might be seawater - it might be
Narrow Channels and Traffic Separation Schemes
Rules 9 and 10 deal with narrow channels and traffic separation schemes, and mainly refer to larger commercial traffic...
Boat Safety Sound Signals
Sound signals are defined and prescribed in the Navigation Rules for International and Inland Waters. Sound has an advantage over light signals, in that it can be used when vision fails.
Ferrying Docking Technique
Ferrying is a docking technique whereby you can maneuver your boat in high wind and current easily.
Electric Windlass
An electric windlass is a powerful electric winch that greatly helps in the lowering and raising the anchor.
Towing
The following diagram shows how you can tow another vessel. Form a “bridle” from the rear cleats...
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.
Selecting an Anchoring Spot
Selecting an Anchoring Spot - Charts, both electronic and paper will tell you where the reliable anchoring spots are.
Sailing Heave To
When you have successfully hove-to (heaved-to), your sailboat will be in a stable situation with the mainsail and headsail still up. Your forward speed will be minimal and...
Fire on a Sailboat
Putting out fires quickly is essential. The sooner you find the source the quicker the fire can be extinguished.
Water and Water Making on Bareboat Charter
Aboard, drinkable water is indeed a limited supply - very limited.
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.
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.
Sinking
A boat sits down in the water until it has displaced the same weight of water as the weight of the boat. It is a universal arrangement between boat and water...
