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.
Air Flow over the Sails
Similar to steady flight, we've got to keep the air flowing over the sails smoothly...
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.
Fishing on a Charter
Bring a fishing rod and reel with a 20 lb break strength line. Even if you’re not typically a fisher, few things in life are better than catching a fish for your crew, cooking it, and serving it that evening. It will increase your hero status.
Sailboat Balance
Below is an animation that shows the balance of forces: actually it is technically the balance of a concept called “moments.”
Mediterranean Mooring – Long Line Ashore
The long-line-ashore is a useful Mediterranean mooring method. It is mostly used in the Mediterranean as a customary way of mooring a lot of boats along a shoreline.
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.
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...
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.
Docking Force Alignment and Moment Balance
When you are docking, if your boat pulls on a line attached to the dock, the line pulls back on your boat. If the forces are aligned, then nothing really happens.
Mediterranean Mooring with an Anchor
Another factor when Mediterranean Mooring with an anchor is that the wind direction determines who is in control...
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.
Fairlead Control
The fairlead is the first control device that the jib sheet passes through on its way back to the cockpit. You can move the fair lead forward or backward.
Electronic Communications
Nowadays, gigabytes of data can be sent in a second as a digital signal. It is all a complete Wow!
Shore Power Connection
One of the more common sources of fire on a boat is a loose connection of the shore power to the receptacle plug on the stern of the boat.
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...
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?
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.
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Lights on ATONS
Lights are installed on some ATONS. The lights are usually alternating on and off on some consistent interval to distinguish one ATON from another.
Risk of Collision when Sailing
The Rule of Risk of Collision is that every vessel shall use all available means appropriate to the prevailing circumstances...
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.
The Geography of Confidence
Unlock your boating potential by gaining knowledge. Explore how boating confidence through education expands your horizons.
Basic Surface Geometry
Below is a brief summary of how locations are commonly expressed on different surfaces.
