Category Archives: General

Sailing ABC  by Marianne Wheeler A is for Anchor – Anchoring, VI Anchors hold a boat best when they are allowed to dig in and stay flat on the bottom while the rode runs far back at a flat angle … Continue reading →

Sailing ABC  by Marianne Wheeler A is for Anchor – Anchoring, V Cruising boats that lie at anchor for long periods of time and that are likely to anchor in rocks or reefs often use an all-chain rode. Many modern, … Continue reading →

Recently, during the Clipper Round the World Race, a person fell overboard while changing a sail. Why he wasn’t tethered to the boat and why he did not have a personal EPIRB, we do not know. In all such incidents, … Continue reading →

Sailing ABC  by Marianne Wheeler A is for Anchor – Anchoring, IV Ground tackle, the anchor with the anchor rode work together to keep a boat from getting underway without its skipper at the helm. The length and strength of … Continue reading →

When things go wrong, there usually isn’t any warning and it happens very fast! Take for example a line wrapped around a shaft and/or prop. Take it from personal experience; there is no warning at all, until the motor stops. … Continue reading →

Sailing ABC  by Marianne Wheeler A is for Anchor – Anchoring, III Most anchors are made of strong steel (so they don’t float) and have points called flukes that dig into the bottom or grab onto rocks. They also have … Continue reading →

“You may not operate boats under power or sail between sunset and sunrise.”  The sentence in the club manual is such a simple statement, and yet there is so much confusion over it. It’s March 21, 2014, and I just received … Continue reading →

In general, I am quite a fan of archaic sailing arts. Some of them I can even justify under the heading of safety, like knowing how to use a sextant. But for practical reasons, I hesitate to recommend splicing braided … Continue reading →