Sailing Education Archives

Springing a sailboat On and In

May 24, 2024/by Grant Headifen

Coming up to a Tee-head is more the situation where you need to spring on. The need for accuracy in your maneuver is heightened when the space is tight.

Docking Maneuvers with Dual Rudders

May 24, 2024/by Grant Headifen

With Dual Rudders there is no ability to spring the boat onto or off the dock! You have no water velocity over the rudders from either boat velocity or propwash.

Sailboat Gear and Throttle Controls

May 22, 2024/by Grant Headifen

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…

Getting the General Feel of Maneuvering a Catamaran

May 19, 2024/by Grant Headifen

Some have compared maneuvering a catamaran with driving a bulldozer. Well . . . perhaps!

Propwalk factors – The p factor

May 16, 2024/by Grant Headifen

There are two combined reasons that work in unison to create propwalk.

Mediterranean Mooring Techniques

May 15, 2024/by Grant Headifen

Mediterranean Mooring Techniques is where the rubber meets the road—or, in this case, where the gel coat does not touch the big bad hard concrete wall.

Dual Rudder Monohulls

May 13, 2024/by Grant Headifen

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.

Planning to use springlines when docking

May 13, 2024/by Grant Headifen

Like a work of fine engineering, a spring maneuver requires a design. The key is to plan the maneuver by considering the wind, current, and other obstacles, then design the placement and directions of the forces and moments.

Advanced Catamaran Maneuvering – Using the Rudders

May 9, 2024/by Grant Headifen

There are some other cool things you can do when you consider the propeller thrust over a Catamaran’s rudders.

Mediterranean Mooring – Long Line Ashore

May 6, 2024/by Grant Headifen

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.