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.
Key Sailboat Instruments
Sailboat Instrumentation can be very sophisticated and intelligent. Most electronic displays provide a wide range of menus of useful information...
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...
Bilge Pumps on a Charter Boat
Boats have two types of pumps to empty bilge water; electronic and manually operated.
Ferrying Docking Technique
Ferrying is a docking technique whereby you can maneuver your boat in high wind and current easily.
Sailboat Maneuvering Topics
With practice, wind direction and current direction are not too much of a problem. But what can get you into trouble is extremely high winds. Be prepared to change...
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?
Sailing Safety Introduction
Emergencies at sea extend from simple and almost funny episodes to major challenges that are extremely serious.
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.
Action to Avoid Collision
When you reach the section on who is responsible to give way to whom - in certain circumstances...
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Dock Line Release
Have a dock line untying plan based on the wind and the current direction and then communicate this to the crew. Depending on which is stronger...
Latitude and Longitude
The latitude and longitude coordinate system is the key navigational concept for sailing. It is the mariner’s coordinate system.
The Nautical Chart on a Charter
Even though most sailboat charters are within island groups where the next landfall is typically within sight, every boat should be equipped with complete large-scale charts of the area.
True Wind vs. Apparent Wind
Learn the basic difference between True Wind and Apparent Wind...
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.
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.
What is an American National Standards EDU-4 Instructor
EDU-4 is the American National Standard that describes what high-quality on-water instruction must look like: clear objectives, structured lessons, appropriate safety and student ratios, objective assessment, and continuous improvement. NauticEd requires its instructors to follow these principles in every training session.
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.
High Wind and Gust Management in Sailing
Professional sail trimmers deal with high winds and gusts by managing the traveler and mainsheet simultaneously. The fairlead position...
Basic Telltale Control continued
Controlling the telltales by making course adjustments - when making the woolies fly by making course adjustments the rule is...
Charter Provisioning
Many charter companies can stock and provision your boat before you arrive. This is a good idea for the basics but there is usually little imagination in the food that is supplied.
Air Flow over the Sails
Similar to steady flight, we've got to keep the air flowing over the sails smoothly...
Docking onto End Ties
Wind blowing you off the dock end ties, plan a fairly steep approach so that you are facing more into the wind.
