Tag Archive for: Mainsail

Names of things on the mainsail

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Included below is a fun and interactive image that includes the names of things on the mainsail of a sailboat. Take a look at the image and test yourself and your knowledge of the mainsail. Do you belive you can get 100% of the names correct? Click on a letter to expose the proper name […]

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Essential Reefing a Sailboat Tips

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A good sailing tip would be to reef your boat early before the wind hits but even more essential reefing tips are embedded in this recent sailing event in Sydney Harbour, Australia. You can’t visit Sydney with out a sailing trip out on the harbour and Matt Hayes, owner of Sydney by Sail charter company […]

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Reefing a Sailboat – HTML5 Animations

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Just posting here some fun and helpful animations of reefing the sails. The animation below represents where sails must be lowered. In the case of the headsail, it needs to be replaced with a smaller sail. Remember, the higher the number, the smaller the sail. This specific one represents where the boat is fitted with […]

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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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Trim the main sail

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When learning to sail the main thing we’re excited about doing is getting the boat moving, but as we become more advanced, we really want to understand the different forces on the boat and maximize the efficiency. Proper understanding of sail trim can help us achieve that. This post is a good example of exactly […]

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Rrrrrrrripp

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That’s the last sound you want to hear when sailing. Now you have to pull the sail down, fold it up, carry it up the dock to the car (it’s heavy) wait for a week day to take into the sail maker, beg for them to fix it fast, pick it up on a week […]

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