Sailing Archives

Preventing an autotack in a sailboat

June 5, 2009/by Grant Headifen

In continuing our learn to sail series of blogs we discuss the annoying problem of autotacking. Scenario – A gust of wind comes ripping through and causes the sailboat to round up and autotack or you’ve given the helm to a novice, they’re not paying attention and sail too close to the wind and they […]

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 […]

Further elaboration of true vs apparent wind

February 7, 2009/by Grant Headifen

There has been a request for further elaboration of the wind vectors as to why the true wind is always behind the apparent wind. Previously we used this diagram and the confusion is that the true wind vector is in front of the apparent wind vector. The following diagram explains the vectors better perhaps. The […]

Understanding true vs apparent wind

February 4, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Here is an easy description of true wind and apparent wind. Put you hand outside the window of your car traveling at 60 miles per hour on a still day and your hand will feel a 60 mile per hour wind. That’s apparent wind yet the true wind is zero. What if the car was […]

Sailboat Rigging and Some Nomenclature

January 24, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Learning to sail can be a bit overwhelming at the start because of the nomenclature. But don’t worry it’s just a matter of learning a few at the start then adding to them as you progress in your sailing education. The following illustration shows the parts of the sail and associated control lines. Of note […]

Learn to Sail

January 23, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Just how hard is it to learn to sail. I meet people on airplanes all the time and their comment is many times “sailing? Isn’t that hard”. Well, was it hard learning to ride a bike? Kinda. Is it easy riding a bike now? well … yes. So learning to sail is similar. There are […]

Moving the car forward under tension

January 6, 2009/by Grant Headifen

Moving the jib sheet car forward when the jib sheet is under tension presents a bit of a problem and many times you’ll just wait until you tack to the other side to move it. Or more dangerously, you can release the tension a little then put your foot on the jibsheet forward of the […]

Reef un reef reef unreef

January 3, 2009/by Grant Headifen

When you’re racing you need to get the most out of your rig and that’s exactly what we had to do in the Austin Yacht Club Red Eye January 1st Race event. While one weather channel was predicting 6-8 knots another was saying 15-20. In the last sailing blog I’d mentioned that we were going […]