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.
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.
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.
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...
Anchoring Courtesy
After safely and securely anchoring your vessel, there are certain factors to contend with - most are common sense.
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.
Sailboat Wind Power Generators
Wind-power generators are typically installed only on ocean-crossing vessels, where the vessel is away from the marina for extended periods of time and where there is a need for conserving onboard fuel.
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!
DC Electrical System on a Charter Boat
Batteries power the 12 Volt DC “house” electrical system. There may be one or several batteries linked together to supply power...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Diesel Fuel
The search, discovery, refinement and resource control of fuel has a rich and very sordid history. But just like...
Sailboats vs Sailboats Nav Rules
Sailboats On The Same Tack The Rule 12 a(ii) when both have the wind on the same...
Navigation Tools
No matter the chart in use, the navigator’s work largely involves the determination of direction and distances. The most useful tools for actual chart work are...
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.
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...
Boat Heading vs Sail Set and Forces on the Sail
The set of your sail depends on your sailing angle to the wind. You're working to maximize the aerodynamic forces on the sail.
Sailboat Fire Extinguishers and Requirements
Fire Extinguishers Fire Extinguishers are given a letter rating that matches the type of fire they will be battling.
Vessels in Restricted Visibility
What is the safe speed at night, in fog? As safe as it needs to be under good seamanship.
The Job of a Sail Trimmer
Sail trimmers in world-class regattas spend years reading and understanding the wind relative to the sails. Sometimes they trim the sheets only a few inches/cm...
Sails – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
We’re pretty certain here that you know how to operate sails on a sailboat, however – chances are that you’re chartering a boat much bigger than you’re normally used to.
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).
