BoatsExplained.com

WHERE do you keep things like binoculars, hand bearing compass, GPS, flashlight and sandwiches while under way? Some cockpits are well furnished with handy little cubby holes - and others have coamings which are big enough for you to build in a
couple of cave lockers. But if you aren't so lucky, where can you stow all those things that are so useful to have to hand?

Your sails are your Insurance

GENTLE tradewinds were blowing off the village at Huahine, French Polynesia as the crewman secured the anchor, then attached halyards to the sails. The skipper held the tiller and motored the 35ft sloop toward the half mile long channel through the reef surrounding the island. Halfway through the pass, the motor died, stopped, quit. The crew, Chuck Ryan, a lifelong sailor from San Diego, California, watched bemused as the skipper dove below decks into the engine compartment. With barely a pause, Chuck laid his hands to the halyard and raised the headsail. He walked back to the cockpit, trimmed the jibsheet for a beam reach, then relaxed as the sloop gained way and the stem began to part the green waters of the 50 fathom deep pass.

Your sails are your Insurance 2

The crews described in the fIrst two incidents found that sailing skills and handy sails were the key to their escape from danger. Although it's unlikely that there'll be absolutely no wind when your engine plays up, Murphy was a sailor, so we like to include anchors as the extra element in making sure that an engine shut down means only a smooth switch to sail-power or anchor-grip - and doesn't become the topic of water¬front gossip at your expense What allows you to make that smooth transition are handy sails and your personal sailing skills.

Your sails are your Insurance 3

To keep yor sail insurance fully topped up, and just in case the wind changed and blew in from seaward, we put two reefs in the mainsail and left the staysail and its sheets fully rigged before we turned in for the night. Sails of the correct size for the worst case conditions, and instantly ready for use. In the event of an emergency, all it would take would be sailing skills... and the confidence to use them.

Weatherfax:WHAT WHERE AND WHEN

.
BETWEEN the UK and The Mediterranean, the most important wx info stations are The Met Office at Bracknell, the RN at Northwood, and Deutscher Wetterdienst at Hamburg (ex Offenbach).
Most serious users seem to rely almost totally on the latter, not only because everyone seems to experience problems with the UK pair, but also because the German info (amongst the guff) is extremely compre¬hensive. Like all wx stations, Hamburg transmits on several wavebands simultaneously, so no matter what the radio 'wave skip' dis¬tance, the boat should be able to access one of the frequencies suffi¬ciently clearly. Naturally, proper selec¬tion according to conditions and loca¬tion is essential for good reception. [see info box]

More...

<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next > End >>

Results 28 - 36 of 79

[ Back ]