Docking a boat

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Docking, maneuvering, handling, parking a boat while under power is an easy skill to learn. Many people are intimidated when entering the marina and with good cause – that is where 99% of damage to boats occur. But with some practiced skills, the intimidation changes from fear to excitement to see how close to perfect […]

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Beating Seasickness

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One of the best forms of cure for seasickness when sailing a sailboat is for the skipper to give up the helm to the ailing crew member. Strange and unnatural as it may seem this will usually work within 3-4 minutes. Why? Well you’ve always heard that a seasick person should concentrate on the horizon […]

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Reefing

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After a cold front came through last week we decided to go out sailing – hey it’s Texas we can still sail this time of the year. The wind was up 20-25 knots. The not so great thing about sailing on Lake Travis in Austin however is the high hills and valleys surrounding it tend […]

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Cold Front again

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Bamm another cold front right behind the other. And this is what it looks like now as it has moved off into the gulf. However – today is different from yesterday. The sky is completely clear and this is shown by the high pressure over Austin right now. High pressure means air is moving out […]

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First Weather Blog

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This is the first weather blog and fitting as it is – a cold front ripped through Austin Texas, NauticEd’s HQ,  last night dropping the temperature from 76 deg F yesterday to freezing rain overnight,  32 deg F and a sharp wind direction change from west to north. The cold front looked like this. This […]

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Why the crew course?

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We wrote the crew course because of quite a few instances when running my sailing company. Often a spouse of a member would call up and ask for private lessons with out her husband on board. And so becoming a marriage counselor seemed to be part of the job. Actually it really turns out to […]

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High winds

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Yesterday we went out in our Beneteau 373. And the winds were really cranking to 25 knots but very gusty as is typical with Lake Travis. The winds channel off the tops of hills and down through the valleys leading into the lake and they create gust after gust. When we went to come back […]

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