Sail Trim Archives

Tag Archive for: Sail Trim

Sail Trim – How do sails work?

March 2, 2023/by Trisha Evelyn

Learn how to raise or unfurl sails in this brief glimpse into one of our introductory sailing courses.

How to Raise or Unfurl Sails

January 12, 2023/by Trisha Evelyn

Learn how to raise or unfurl sails in this brief glimpse into one of our introductory sailing courses.

How do Polar Plots Work on a Sailboat?

November 23, 2022/by Grant Headifen

The polar plot on a sailboat shows the speed the sailboat goes at a specific angle to the wind at a specific wind speed. Read this article to understand how they work and how to read a polar plot.

The Chicken Gybe (Jibe)

November 18, 2022/by Grant Headifen

Sometimes in sailing it’s smart to stay safe and not take the dare. The safe maneuver is called the chicken gybe (jibe).

What is Sail Twist and how to use it

October 18, 2022/by D Henderson

Managing sail twist can increase the performance, speed, and control of the sails. What is Sail Twist and how to use it…

How to rig a temporary Barber Hauler on a Catamaran

March 14, 2020/by Grant Headifen

Following on from last week’s excellent post by SVN Magazine on Barber Haulers, this week we show how to make your own very simple Barber Hauler while on a catamaran on a sailing vacation (or on your own catamaran). The issue is that the catamarans have their jibsheet track on the rooftop of the salon. […]

The Barber Hauler User Guide

March 7, 2020/by Grant Headifen

The barber hauler owes its name to the Barber brothers, who introduced it for the first time in the 1950s to move the jib clew laterally and inwards to close the jib-mainsail channel and get a tighter angle on the wind. Over the years it has undergone a remarkable development….

Sailboat speed versus sailing angle

September 27, 2017/by Grant Headifen

I nabbed this image off Pinterest via (https://hobiecat16.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/points-of-sail-vs-boat-speed/). It is a pretty good image that represents the speed of a sailboat versus the sailing angle to the wind. It is pretty easy to read – at dead downwind in a 10-knot breeze the fastest you can get this boat to go is slightly less than […]

How does heeling angle create airfoil shape?

April 6, 2017/by Grant Headifen

A student asked this question “How does heeling angle create an airfoil shape in the sails”. He was using SeaTalks nanoforum that we have on every page of our sailing courses. So my first thought was Huh? What the heck is he talking about? Then I remembered that I wrote that. So it must be right, right? […]

FREE Basic SailTrim Sailing Course

October 5, 2015/by Grant Headifen

If you like that we made this course for free, LIKE us over there —-> The NauticEd FREE Basic Sail Trim online sailing course is now available as a regular course – still FREE. We did this for a few reasons. (1) We wanted to incorporate the valuable information into the more advanced Sail Trim […]