Enterprise dinghy racing on the Marine lake in Southport. Wind blowing at about 30-40mph. Increased later to 66mph (force 11)!

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• Saiboat Dinghy Racing Capsize — Surviving Total Inversion (boatsafetymaintenance.suite101.com)

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1. Find Out All You Need to Know to Start Dinghy Sailing
2. Cheap way to get on the water? Buy an Inflatable Dinghy
3. ISAF : The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009-2012 – Amendments Effective 1 January 2010

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 you have a vehicle that is powerful enough to tow a heavy boat and trailer. Make sure you check the recommended towing weight for your car and do not exceed this.

Also check the trailer thoroughly, especially if you bought the boat and trailer second hand. Get it serviced so you know it isn’t corroded, that the ball bearings and axel are properly greased and that the brakes actually work.

And if you are buying a boat on a trailer, make sure you get a light board with a road legal registration number plate on the back with the correct length of cable. A bit of cardboard taped on the back with no light board is illegal.

I believe that if you’d plan to be safe on the water there is no excuse for not being safe (and legal) on dry land.

To keep you safe when towing a boat, here are four useful videos produced by Practical Boat Owner (PBO) with their partners Land Rover. They show how to check the trailer is safe before setting off, how to reverse with a trailer on the back of the car, how to launch the boat from the trailer and how to recover the boat back onto the trailer from the water.









Related posts:

1. How to Tow a Boat Behind a Car Safely, Reverse, Launch and Recover
2. How to be Safe at Sea – IT’S WET
3. How to Reduce Spills When Fueling a Boat

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 sites to list a boat, can we please ask you to consider placing the same item for sale with our little green friend?

Here are our Top 8 (plus 1):

1. BoatShed.com (Broker) – Easy to work with, lots and lots of photos (up to 70) with an excellent on-line presence. In fact the broker personally photographs every boat in minute detail so they can vouch for the state of the boat before anyone comes to view it. They are the new breed of brokers that are growing because of a great reputation and service. Because their online presence is so good, many boats are sold to overseas buyers on the strength of the details and photos alone. If they were not being so honest and open this would not be possible and the fact that they are continuing to grow shows the level of trust people have with this organisation. I have met the team behind BoatShed and they are an impressive bunch. In fact I very nearly bought a franchise from them back in 2008. (www.boatshed.com)
2. BoatBid.com (Auction) – BoatBid.com is part of BoatShed.com and enables people to have their boats auctioned rather than advertised at a set price. The model is not the same as the ebay type auction most are familiar with, as potential bidders need to be registered  (£4.95 one-off) and the process is managed by the BoatBid team. This could be an excellent way to maximise the sale price of your boat if you are selling, or to pick up a real bargain if you are buying. You bid and if you are the winning bidder, you pay 10% deposit within 5 days. Then you have 21 days to complete a survey and the transaction in full. (www.boatbid.com)
3. Boats and Outboards (Classified) – They regularly boast more than 13,000 adverts everyday from both private advertisers and brokers. Many of the brokers also list their ‘stock’ on Boats and Outboards so you get the best of the brokers’ and private sellers’ offerings. For a private seller to place an advert it is free for any item and they can then pay to have lots of photos or to be featured. I’ve used this site to advertise a business and to sell a boat. The response to the ‘boat for sale’ was pretty good. The listing process is easy and does not require any registration, and the only problem I had was that it took rather too many attempts to upload the photo. (www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk)
4. Ebay (Classified, Auction and Buy it Now) - At the time of writing there are over 50,000 items on ebay.co.uk under the search category of ‘Boats’. Of course not all are Yachts or Dinghies, but this shows that it is a very active market place for all things boating. You can place auctions, classifieds or items as a ‘Buy it Now’. With ebay being the biggest on-line marketplace you get the benefit of lots of people getting exposure to your listing but there are some downsides too – like the expense. I recently sold an old Laser Dinghy on ebay for £765 and paid almost £45 in fees which I think is pretty expensive. The more expensive the item though, the lower the percentage cost (as final fees are capped at £40). For lower priced items, bank on losing 10% plus insertion/photo fees. Now if you are a buyer, using ebay can be excellent, but you need to be careful and make sure you know the seller’s ratings, and that you get all questions answered before the final bid. I know of a couple of young guys who buy cheap boats and accessories, tidy them up and the re-sell them on ebay again for a profit, so if you’re buying, you can bag yourself a bargain if you are careful and thorough. (www.ebay.co.uk)
5. YBW Boats for Sale (Classified) – YBW.com 0r Yachting and Boating World is owned by IPC Media which also owns many other magazine titles, including ‘Practical Boat Owner’ (PBO), ‘Yaching Monthly’ and ‘Motor Boat Monthly’ to name just a few. In addition to a great deal of high quality news, info, reviews, etc on their site, there is a section devoted to boats for sale. There are 2 sides to this section, ‘Brokerage Boats’ and ‘Private Boats’. As you would expect from the largest marine publisher in the UK, there are all sorts of packages for the private seller, ranging from web only to web plus all magazines, and these vary in cost depending on what type of advert you want, in how many publications and for how long. As well as large and expensive boats, they also have a special section on Boats for Under £10,000. (www.ybw-boatsforsale.com)
6. BoatShop24 (Classified) – More than 102,000 adverts from over 15 Countries from both the Trade (Brokers) and private sellers. This is also a free site to advertise your boat for sale. The site also includes links to tests of boats from BoatTest.com which is a nice touch. Where there is one posted, and where it is relevant to the boat you are interested in this can be really useful. (www.boatshop24.com)
7. Apollo Duck (Classified) – Thousands of adverts on the UK part of the site from fishing boats to yachts and everything in between. To place a basic advert is free but for £39.95 the advert can be upgraded to have multiple photos, videos and lots of other information besides. Apollo Duck is an international site with listings from virtually every country of the World. (www.apolloduck.co.uk)
8. Boats.com (Classified) – Boats.com is a US based site that has been over in the UK for quite a while at http://uk.boats.com as well as France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy and Australia. They have over 150,000 boats listed from Brokerage to Private sale. For private sellers, this is a huge marketplace that has been established for a long time so is a good choice, though they haven’t yet woken to the idea of free basic adverts. A basic advert will cost £11 for a 2 week period with just 1 photo. This seems like a lot to me. Their upgrade packages provide unlimited photos for 6 weeks at £31, and a premium 12 week version for £49. If they sell your boat you won’t mind paying this but with many other free sites you might think twice before placing an advert here. (http://uk.boats.com)
9. BoatGoblin.com (Classified, Auction and Buy it Now) – This is a little bit of self-promotion as our little friend ‘Hex’ the friendly Boat Goblin has only been out and about in his little motor boat for a little while. BoatGoblin.com is a Harbour Exchange venture and the site enables people to list items as either auction or classified free of charge for a basic listing. It’s not yet in the same league as the big boys above which have been established for many many years, but our little Goblin is already making waves as you’ll be able to see from the site logo. Free to join, free to list, free to use. (www.boatgoblin.com)

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1. 10 Reasons to use BoatGoblin.com
2. Over 2,700 Marine Businesses Listed at BoatGoblin.com

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 setting off.

The Lifeboat service is voluntary and the men and women that brave all weathers deserve a little more consideration. Should they really have to launch in truly foul weather, risking their lives, to rescue a yachtsman who didn’t check the weather well enough, or who didn’t have the right equipment on board before setting out? I’d argue that our own families deserve a little consideration too, as do the crew that trust in us as their all knowing skipper on what for them should be a pleasant day out.

The RNLI have a mnemonic for safety at sea: IT’S WET

1. I – Inform. Tell others about where you are going. Make sure others know what your pasage plan is and make sure they know when to raise the alarm if they don’t hear from you. Shortly Harbour Exchange will be launching a service to help sailors do this effectively.
2. T – Training. Think about you and your crew. Do you all have enough knowledge of the plans, how to sail or handle the boat? Would they be able to cope if it got rough or if the skipper got sick or injured? Make sure there are at least a handful of experienced sailors and the longer and more involved the planned journey, the more experience you should have on board.
3. S – SOS Device. What if you got into trouble? Do you have a working VHF with DSC and just as importantly does your crew know how to use it and what the calling protocols are? If you are on a longer passage offshore, do you have an EPIRB, SART or other means of raising the alarm if out of VHF range. It can take minutes for a problem to become a disaster at sea and so having these in easy reach (with a hadheld VHF and personal EPIRBs in the grab bag) and a well briefed crew is essential.
4. W – Wear a lifejacket. It’s so obvious that it’s trite to say it, but a lifejacket can only save a life if it is attached to a living being. Othervise it is just an inflatable bag with straps!! Wear it or drown. I see a lot of people sailing in the Solent with no lifejacket, oblivious to the effect of the cold water should they hit the ‘drink’. To demonstrate the effect, a few years ago some of our Olympic swimmers were tossed in to a cold Solent without lifejackets and they struggled to swim. The cause: the shock of the cold water. If our Olympians struggle, imagine what an overweight, middle-aged, booted and foulweather-geared up crew member would do – and you don’t even need to be submerged to drown – you can drown in the spray you cause trying to stay afloat. Worth thinking about. Wear it!
5. E – Engine and fuel check. Do you have enough fuel for your journey? What if the wind dies and you need to motor all the way? What if you need extra power to get out of danger? Is the oil at the right level and do you have enough spares in case something breaks? Obvious things to ensure you have are spare impellers. If you have ever been thrown around in a rouch sea, you may know that the cooling system could get an airlock and not circulate when you fire up the donkey. Do you and at least one member of the crew know how to prime the system and get it back to life so you don’t ruin the engine or worse still cause a fire?
6. T – Tides and Weather. Check the weather regularly before setting out either online or via radio/TV. The best sources are the shipping forecast on BBC Radio 4 or the Coatguard’s broadcast following announcements they make on Channel 16. Marinecall.co.uk is also a good source, and if you phone them for a weather update, a portion of the cost of your call supports the RNLI. You can also check out our weather pages on for a range of up to date services. Then there are the tides – make sure you know what these are doing even if you are only day-tripping, as a strong spring tide ebb could make it impossible to get back to your morring if your engine is under-powered. Also a ‘wind with tide’ passage is bound to be much more comfortable for you and your crew than a ‘wind against tide’ passage. Check out some good tide resources on Harbour Exchange.

These are real basis ‘Sailing 101′ tips, but given that more than 4,000 call outs are made to yachties each year it seems like we could all be doing with a refresher.

And the last thing….if you aren’t already a supporter of the RNLI then go to http://www.rnli.org.uk and support them. You hope never to need them but if you do you’ll feel so much better knowing you conributed to their efforts to keep us safe.

No related posts.

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 as a tutorial.

Video 1 – The normal way to tie a clove hitch

Video 2 – The one-handed clove hitch

Related posts:

1. How to tie a Bowline – Part 1 (one-handed)
2. The Flying Bowline
3. 100ft trimaran Oman Air Majan smashes single-handed Round Britain record

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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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 light-weight rope and enough space to practice so you don’t knock off the photos and other chintz from the mantelpiece.

I’d like to hear from the first person to perfect this. Post a comment and let us have a video of you achieving the flying bowline. I also want to hear from anyone who manages to do this on the foredeck while edging up to the pontoon to berth. If you can do a flying bowline and then use the knot to moor up then I’ll take my hat off to you. You will indeed be the Governor or the ‘Honorary Commodore’ no less.

Related posts:

1. How to tie a Bowline – Part 1 (one-handed)
2. How to tie a Bowline – Part 2 (normal way)
3. Just like flying

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. The revised rule will no longer permit a boat to tack just before she reaches a mark and, as a result of her tack, become entitled to mark-room from boats that had been clear ahead of her when they reached the zone.

A parallel change in rule B3.1(c) outlaws a similar tactic in a sailboard race. The definition Obstruction will be changed so that a boat racing will no longer be an obstruction to other boats that are required to give her room or mark-room. This change will simplify the analysis of some situations near a mark in which both rules 18 and 19 apply, and it will not otherwise change the ‘game’.

Additions will be made to the definition Party to correct unintended omissions. The revised definition will mean that, whenever redress is requested for a boat by the race committee or considered for a boat by the protest committee, that boat will be a party to the resulting hearing. Also, a race committee that requests redress for a boat will also become a party when its request is heard.

A new rule, rule C2.12, will be added to the Match Racing Rules. It will prohibit a tactic at the windward mark that the match racing community does not wish to allow.

After the 2009 rulebook was printed, ISAF revised its Advertising Code and, in so doing, eliminated all references to Category A advertising. References to the Advertising Code in Appendices J, K and L will be changed to make them consistent with the revised Code. Click here to show the changes made in detail.

See more at their website sailing.org

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1. Rule 19 – Room to pass an obstruction
2. When does the new Rule 18 NOT apply?
3. Rule 18 – when does it apply?

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 bad too.

The upsides are….that you get a colour chart to check your urine to see if you’re clinically dehydrated and a lovely crew uniform – waterproofs, jackets, caps….

These guys are purists in the extreme. The goal is to sail. Sail fast. Sail the right weather pattern. To beat the opposition.

What most normal and sane people consider to be basic needs are of secondary importance to the VOR racer. He has one goal in mind and nothing gets in the way……sailing fast and winning…in a giant surfboard with sails.

Me? I’m happy to let them do their thing and to watch their progress from the comfort of my own computer.

If you want to see what it’s like have a look at this video:

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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 iPhone, check out the article we wrote on top iPhone apps for sailors a few weeks back and get yourself the ‘Knots’ application. (http://www.harbourexchange.com/top-sailing-applications-for-the-iphone/)

Related posts:

1. The Flying Bowline
2. How to tie a Bowline – Part 1 (one-handed)
3. Top Sailing Applications for the iPhone