It’s important to understand the sailing basics and the boat rules of the road—avoiding collisions with anything that might damage your boat. What do you look at before you leave an anchorage or port? Once you’re underway and sailing, how soon do you pay attention to known obstacles, like reefs and channel markers? What about[Read More]
How To's
Long Sailing Passage Preparation Checklist
In this Long Sailing Passage Preparation Checklist, you’ll find action items for safety and medical, communications, passage plans, provisioning, crew briefing/watch schedules/duties, and last-minute preparations. What is a long sailing passage? If you’re going in the open ocean and won’t be close to land I consider that a long passage even if it’s a few[Read More]
Tacking & Jibing (Gybing)
Did you know that one of the biggest hurdles new sailors have is to easily grasp the concept of tacking and jibing (US) / gybing (UK)? It might sound crazy because to tack or to jibe simply means to turn the boat left or right. How can that be so complicated? Well, tacking and jibing is[Read More]
Dinghy And Outboard Theft
As a sailing cruiser, it’s very important to learn how to avoid dinghy and outboard theft. The key concept is to make your dinghy more difficult to steal than the next person, but how do you do that? Watch the video or read below to find out. Dinghy And Outboard Theft – How To Avoid[Read More]
Top 20 Mistakes New Boaters Make
Mistakes new boaters make – are there many? How can you ensure you don’t make them too? Read this article to avoid some of the common pitfalls so to flatten your learning curve quickly. 1. Saying “over and out” on the VHF radio. When speaking over the VHF radio only one person can speak at[Read More]
Avoiding Ship Collisions Video
One of the scarier things about navigating by sailboat is dealing with cargo ships and cruise liners. As you’ll see in our avoiding ship collisions video we offer a situation where things didn’t go to plan. If you have an AIS system on your plotter navigating is easier because you know the CPA, or Closest[Read More]
Avoiding Ship Collisions
Did you know that there are several steps you can take to ensure that you’re not bulldozed over by a ship while out sailing? Avoiding ship collisions is an important part of being a confident sailing cruiser. Quite a few new sailors get nervous when tankers or cruise ships are in the area. Tankers are[Read More]
How To Tie Onto A Cleat
One of the first things you’ll learn when becoming a sailor is how to tie onto a cleat. Like most things in sailing there are options. There are two main recognized knots used for fastening a line to a cleat. The first is the cleat hitch and the second is called the OXO method. American’s[Read More]
How To Make Your Boat Shine
Here’s how to make your boat shine – we demonstrate the best way to make your metalwork sparkle, remove rust from your Gelcoat, and make your engine nice enough to eat off of! How To Make Your Boat Shine Video Links to Products Mentioned in the Video Autosol Marine Products (From Autosol) Star Brite Rust[Read More]
How To Fix A Leaky Mast
Boats leak from a variety of places, the mast being one of them. In this video, Simon will demonstrate how to fix a leaky mast using amalgamating, or self-bonding, tape. You can purchase this kind of tape on Amazon, at a boat chandlery, or any hardware store. The great thing about self-bonding tape is that[Read More]