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.
Sailing and Wind Forces
A sailboat moves in upwind and downwind directions. Downwind is intuitive; it just gets blown downwind. But just how does a sailboat move into the wind?
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.
Bilge Pumps on a Charter Boat
Boats have two types of pumps to empty bilge water; electronic and manually operated.
Sailing Safety Introduction
Emergencies at sea extend from simple and almost funny episodes to major challenges that are extremely serious.
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.
Getting Familiar with the Charter Boat
Prior to releasing the boat to you, the charter company will give you a reasonably extensive walk through the boat.
Plumbing and Tankage – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
A diaphragm pump below directs flow from the water tank(s) to various faucets throughout the boat. You'll always begin a charter with full water tanks but understand that water conservation is still required.
Charter Local Area Familiarization
Once you’ve arrived at the charter base, the company will give you an extensive briefing on the local area, where to sail, where not to sail, and they’ll also give you a recommended route to take for the time that you have allotted.
Weighing Anchor
“Weighing the anchor” simply means raising it. If raising the anchor is to be done by hand...
Understanding Weather Systems
Weather is a highly complex natural phenomenon. Globally, it is all connected and operates on a multitude of physical laws.
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Action by a Give-Way Vessel
The Nav Rule Every vessel which is directed to keep out of the way of another vessel shall...
Terms Port – Starboard – Forward – Aft
In discussing sail trim, certain terminologies must be understood and so we are presenting a few basics to get you started
Sailboat Design
Surely, the first sailboat was invented by a five-year-old child with a block of wood. He or she stuck a twig through a piece of animal skin and then down into a knothole in the wood.
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.
Propeller Entanglement
If there is a sudden slowing or stopping of the engine while motoring it is possible that you have picked up some floating line, hopefully not from your vessel.
Understanding How Airflow Creates Lift
Understanding how Airflow creates lift and the need for smooth airflow when sailing...
Sail Twist Basics
How can the wind direction be different between the top of the mast and the bottom?
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.
The Nautical Chart
Safely maneuvering a vessel while using positions derived from various coastal and near coastal sources is called coastal navigation.
Propwalk factors – The p factor
There are two combined reasons that work in unison to create propwalk.
Towing
The following diagram shows how you can tow another vessel. Form a “bridle” from the rear cleats...
Diesel Fuel
The search, discovery, refinement and resource control of fuel has a rich and very sordid history. But just like...
Types of Anchors
Anchor design has been the focus of much research over thousands of years, and as a result, there are
