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.
Weather Warnings
Weather services will also provide weather warnings, such as small craft or gale warnings for a certain area, as well as fog predictions.
Dock Slips Docking Techniques
Wind coming into the dock slip channel and your boat is to be docked stern-to, steer into the slip channel...
Seamanship Nav Rules
Navigation rules refer many times to good seamanship, The best advice we can give here around seamanship is to get experience...
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.
Anchoring Rode and Scope
To hold a sailboat, the anchor must naturally be attached to the vessel. This is accomplished by using “rode,” which is either all chain or a combination of rope (nylon line) and chain. Learn from this interactive animation.
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...
Take Note When the Boat Heels Over or Stands Up
At a sailing group meeting, someone mentioned they were having trouble determining if the boat was pinching or not.
Unfurling or Raising the Sails
You have motored your vessel from the slip into open water and are now ready to either unfurl or raise the sails, depending on your setup.
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...
The Engine – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
While this is a sailing boat propelled by the wind and mostly without the need for burning fossil fuels the most devastating breakdown besides hull failure is the engine.
Sailboat Running Rigging
A sailboat’s running rigging consists of those items controlling the sails and helping the sails to capture the wind’s energy.
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.
Seacocks – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Seacocks are designed to let water flow out of the hull safely. They are not one-way valves so any loose clamps around the seacock itself create leaks around the hoses and can allow water to enter into the boat. This is usually bad – right?
Selecting an Anchoring Spot
Selecting an Anchoring Spot - Charts, both electronic and paper will tell you where the reliable anchoring spots are.
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.
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.
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.
Holding a Straight Course in Sailing
Holding a straight course is an imperative skill to master as you learn to sail. As an experienced sailor, nothing is more distracting to a good day out sailing than a novice helmsperson swinging the boat in all directions.
Diesel Fuel
The search, discovery, refinement and resource control of fuel has a rich and very sordid history. But just like...
Communications while Underway on a Charter
Contact between vessels, or a boat and a land station, is usually carried out using VHF (Very High Frequency) radios.
Head-on Nav Rules Situation
The Rule (a) Unless otherwise agreed when two power-driven vessels are meeting on reciprocal or nearly reciprocal...
Sail Twist Basics
How can the wind direction be different between the top of the mast and the bottom?
The Types of Sailing Charters
There are two types of sailing charters; captained and bareboat. The captained charters have a professional captain on board to navigate and operate the vessel, and usually...
