Coastal Navigation Archives

How to read a polar plot for sailboats

October 11, 2012/by Grant Headifen

The polar plot is the navigator’s friend. Below is an example for one particular boat for one particular true wind speed.

Coastal Navigation: The Math Behind It

February 27, 2012/by Grant Headifen

Currently we’re working on a cool project with SimRad to create a training simulator for a gps device. But to do that and to write the code and the statement of work for the programmer we had to be very clear about the math behind it all. At least to me, it’s all pretty interesting and […]

Tides and Tidal Currents

February 16, 2012/by Grant Headifen

Tides and tidal currents came to mind today as I strolled along the harbor’s edge watching the behaviour of some sailboats racing. Remembering a recent race regatta series I participated in in the Auckland New Zealand harbor last winter also brought up this topic of tides and tidal current. In one race in the series, […]

Coastal Navigation and Anchoring in Inland Waterways of Australia

January 6, 2012/by Grant Headifen

Where were you over the holidays? Sailing? If you tried to email us over the holidays, you would have gotten a polite “out of the office notice”. We were busy catching up with our Canadian friends who have been sailing the world with their three kids for the past four years on a 42 ft […]

Simplistic Explanation of Latitude and Longitude Determination

October 3, 2011/by Grant Headifen

The posting here is not a course in celestial navigation by any means. However it’s meant to simplify a few principles for you so that you’ll at least have some sort of celestial orientation. And… perhaps it’ll inspire you to learn the aging art. This was written by Grant Headifen, Educational Director of NauticEd. NauticEd […]

Sailboat Mast Height

March 9, 2011/by Grant Headifen

Know your sailboat mast height! Some lessons learned from encountering over-water power lines during a bareboat sailing trip.

Sailing Education is Supposed to be Fun

January 18, 2011/by Grant Headifen

We had a blast putting this Ocean Navigation Discussion video together.

How to Get to a Waypoint

September 11, 2010/by Grant Headifen

Recently on our NauticEd flotilla with the Moorings to the Kingdom of Tonga we wanted to pass through the Fanua Tapu Pass which is a gap in the reef to get to the eastern islands of the Vava’u archipelago. Normally the gap is marked by a series of buoys, however the latest storm ate them. The […]

How the Tides Work

July 3, 2010/by Grant Headifen

As a new sailor, just learning to sail, the thought of figuring out how tides work can be quite intimidating. Let’s talk about them.

Leeway and a Bottle of Rum

June 22, 2010/by Grant Headifen

Leeway is just one of those things that is a law of the universe that we have to put up with. It’s just like gravity. Still with gravity – the advantage is that it’s highly predictable. And so then is leeway. Leeway is the sideways slip motion of our sailboat downwind from the pressure of […]