Sailing Education Archives

Shhhh be vewy vewy quiet – don’t tell the power boaters

May 24, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Sailboats are much more maneuverable than power boats – but don’t spread the word because all the powerboaters will run to their congressmen to get the Navigation Rules changed.

Mooring Accident

April 23, 2009/by Grant Headifen

While it is generally accepted that mooring is safer than anchoring, there are still some considerations. The following photo from Waiake beach in Auckland, New Zealand is proof of this. Whilst visiting New Zealand for the purpose of spreading the NauticEd word, we came across this early in the morning after an overnight mild storm. […]

Gybing trick

March 17, 2009/by Grant Headifen

When you’re getting ready to gybe, take the jib lazy sheet and wrap it around its winch and pull quite tight. This will pull the jib towards the windward side of the boat just a little. Now when you gybe, you don’t have to be so busy about pulling the jib sheet across quickly because […]

Weather Helm Versus Lee Helm

March 15, 2009/by Grant Headifen

What are they and what’s the difference? These two terms were established when vessels were fitted with tillers rather than wheels and so the term weather helm refers to having to pull the tiller (helm) “to weather” in order to sail in a straight line. Lee helm is when you need to push the tiller […]

Learning to sail in gusty conditions

March 10, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Yesterday I was out teaching on our new Beneteau 373. The conditions were extremely gusty. Lake Travis in Austin Texas is a great lake for sailing all year round and in the summer the water is so incredibly warm that you can swim while anchored in a cove still at 2am. There are lots of […]

New Course on Celestial Navigation

March 7, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Well it is finally here – one of our most requested courses yet – focused entirely on Celestial Navigation. The Introductory course gives a good introduction to spherical geometry and also to the theory of a noon solar sight. It takes the student through an actual sighting and uses real tables to calculate the Latitude […]

Anchoring a sailboat

March 6, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Learning to anchor a boat is an integral part of your learn to sail lessons. There are lots of considerations. Here we’ll cover one of those considerations – swing! Care must be given to swing. As the wind changes during the night your boat will move with the wind and can put you into a […]

Docking continued

March 3, 2009/by Grant Headifen

In the previous blog we dealt with end ties. Now we get onto the more common configurations of boats in a slip. SLIPS (5) Wind coming into the slip channel. Your boat is stern to. This is best handled by steering out of the slip and then immediately down wind. Back out of the slip […]

More on Docking

February 28, 2009/by Grant Headifen

This is the continued series on how to leave the dock in a sailboat (3) Wind pushing into the dock and current from behind. You can use exactly the same method as described in (2) above. (4) Wind pushing you onto the dock and current coming from forward. If the wind is light you can […]

Leaving the Slip

February 24, 2009/by Grant Headifen

This is the first in a series of blogs on leaving the slip or end tie. Some combinations of wind and current can get complicated and some are easy. The first shown below is the easiest. Stay tuned to this series and we’ll show all.