Category Archives: How to

Enterprise Dinghy racing at Southport in gale

Enterprise dinghy racing on the Marine lake in Southport. Wind blowing at about 30-40mph. Increased later to 66mph (force 11)! Related articles by Zemanta Saiboat Dinghy Racing Capsize — Surviving Total Inversion (boatsafetymaintenance.suite101.com)

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How to Tow a Boat Behind a Car Safely, Reverse, Launch and Recover

Having a boat you can trail means having the best of all worlds. If you are happy to spend the time and effort putting it in the water and retrieving it again afterwards, you can have the freedom to go boating wherever you choose. It’s critical you know what you are doing though and that…

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Top 9 Websites to Buy or Sell a Boat

Image via Wikipedia Harbour Exchange’s ‘Top 9 Websites to Buy or Sell a Boat’ includes a little-known and not-yet-well-used ‘New Entrant’ in the guise of our friendly little Goblin named ‘Hex’. As it is free to register and list an item for sale on BoatGoblin.com, if you are going to use one of the other…

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How to be Safe at Sea – IT’S WET

Every year in the UK more than 8,000 rescues are made by the RNLI, with more than 50% of these being responses to leisure sailors like us. While many of these are real accidents that no-one could have forseen, a great proportion are rescues or incidents that could have been avoided by better preparation before…

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How to Tie a Clove Hitch (Regular & One Handed)

A hitch is any knot tied to a fixed object, and the clove hitch is very useful for all sorts of uses on board a boat. I would typically use everyday for tying the fenders to the guard-wire/rail. It’s a very versatile knot with a number of different variations. Here are a couple of videos…

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Quick Release Knot

This is a really useful knot that we could all do with learning – the Quick Release Knot. When rigging up a slip for easy exiting from a berth you could try this one instead.

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The Flying Bowline

I promised you in the article on how to tie a bowline with only one hand that I’d show you one with a difficulty rating of 12/10. It’s so quick that if you want to master it you’ll need to watch it over and over and over and…. again. You will also need a good…

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ISAF : The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009-2012 – Amendments Effective 1 January 2010

We have looked at the interpretation of rule 18 in previous posts. Here the ISAF are making changes to avoid dangerous tactics that were resulting from the new rule. Rule 18.2(c) will be changed to prohibit a newly discovered and potentially dangerous tactic that was an unintended consequence of the current wording of this rule….

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Want to Race on a VOR70?

You have to be slightly mad. I mean to spend 8 months with no women around, sharing a pillow with 11 other men, sleeping in 4 hour shifts and having to ‘dump’ on a gimbled toilet. Madness! Oh yes, and you are permanently wet from spray or sweat, you’re dirty and the food is pretty…

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How to tie a Bowline – Part 2 (normal way)

OK so the rope is pink, but that makes it easy to see it. The butch American accent and the bright pink of the rope make me laugh. But my issues aside, this is a good lesson for anyone wanting to learn to tie a bowline (the normal, non-one-handed way). Also, if you have an…

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