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.
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...
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.
Advanced Catamaran Maneuvering – Using the Rudders
There are some other cool things you can do when you consider the propeller thrust over a Catamaran's rudders.
Sailboat Battery Charging
Like a water bucket, batteries have a specific storage capacity and must be refilled/recharged when their contents of energy are depleted.
Mooring on a Charter
Most developed chartering locations throughout the world have established zones in which mooring balls have been permanently implanted.
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...
Sailboat Gear and Throttle Controls
Sailboats, and boats in general, use their gears and throttle to control momentum. It’s unlike driving a car in that you have no brake! Instead, you use your forward and reverse gears and throttle to both increase and decrease speed...
Kids on a Sailing Charter
If you're considering a charter and considering taking your kids - DO IT.
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.
Types of Anchors
Anchor design has been the focus of much research over thousands of years, and as a result, there are
Sailboat Balance
Below is an animation that shows the balance of forces: actually it is technically the balance of a concept called “moments.”
Navigation Units
Sailors are forever measuring stuff. This brings us to the subject of navigation units. As we all remember from the good ol’ school days, measurement is the process of comparing something with an established standard.
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.
Good Captainship
Being a good captain on a bareboat charter is a real skill. It is very unlike being a good captain on a military or commercial ship or even a captain in a local yacht race.
Using Prop Walk
You can use prop walk to turn your boat in a tight marina by applying forward and reverse gears at appropriate times, leaving the rudder locked to starboard.
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.
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.
Topping Up your Energy on a Sailboat
There are several methods to top-off your energy on a sailboat.
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).
Latitude and Longitude
The latitude and longitude coordinate system is the key navigational concept for sailing. It is the mariner’s coordinate system.
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...
Seamanship Nav Rules
Navigation rules refer many times to good seamanship, The best advice we can give here around seamanship is to get experience...
Dual Rudder Monohulls
When a monohull sailboat has dual rudders, the boat will act with different characteristics than with a single rudder. Thus, the point of this module is to help you maneuver a dual-rudder monohull sailboat.
