How to gybe with a dipping pole

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Last week we were out on a Beneteau First 45 to participate in a local regatta race series. Until now I’d been working the main and Genoa but this week I wanted to step up and run the spinnaker sheet. Not usually a problem because I’ve done it plenty of times before … but this […]

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How to Pull on a Line

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Here’s a quicky sailing tip that isn’t documented in too many places. And you might think it’s a bit basic but I’ve even seen old time sailing instructors doing this the wrong way. One day their luck is going to run out. Fortunately we got to you just in time. I was out racing last […]

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When to reef a sailboat

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While all sailboat designs are different and will sail optimally at different heel angles and reef points, there are a few generalities that we’ll cover in this sailing blog. General reefing point number 1 through infinity: Don’t scare the beegeebees out of those on board by heeling the boat over too much. While you may […]

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Twist in the mainsail

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Here is a question from a student regarding letting out the main traveller in a gust. I referred them to this post https://www.nauticed.org/blog/sailtrim/stopping-rounding-up-dead-in-its-tracks/ which talks about moving the traveller upwind and letting out onthe mainsheet to increase twist at the top of the sail and thus reducing the forces aloft. >>>>>>>> Greetings from Northern Michigan […]

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Reefing a Catamaran

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Here’s a question from a student. >>>>>>> Grant, I would like some clarification on the steps taken to reef a main sail on a cat.  I’m going out on a 48ft cat and prob want to reef the sail before i go out…. Do i reef it while at the dock or in the water […]

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More about Heaving-to in a sailboat

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This is an add on to the last post we did on heaving to. I was looking over our Storm Tactics online sailing course and found this image we created which best shows a boat in a heave-to situation in a storm. They say a pic is worth a thousand words so with this blog […]

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How to Sail with a Jockey Pole

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Last weekend we were out racing and one of the legs was very similar to a race we’d done a few weeks back with the same wind condition. On that previous race we’d lost huge ground over the other boats solely because the sail configuration and hull design etc on this boat doesn’t allow the […]

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