If you want to trim your rig correctly you should have some idea of the tension in the shrouds and stays, either by rules of thumb or a more exact…
How to
How to pass your Yachtmaster Practical Exam
The RYA Yachtmaster Offshore has long been the qualification that cruising yacht sailors, both amateur and professional, have aspired to. Quite aside from the fact that it is the gateway…
How to improve power management on a yacht
I confess, I’m not a marine electrician, and my understanding of boat electronics is at best rudimentary, but I’ve now been managing my boat’s power generation and consumption for three…
How to prepare for your Yachtmaster Offshore exam
Many very competent and highly experienced yachtsmen and women don’t have any qualifications at all and are content to keep it that way, but for some reason, not being a…
How to avoid this collision in fog while sailing a yacht?
Martin and Barbara, along with their teenage son, Rob, have sailed across to the Channel Islands from the Solent in their 10m yacht. Rob has crewed regularly and already has…
How to rig a preventer and boom brake: Our expert guide
A well-designed preventer system is just as important as any other part of the rigging, but it’s often an afterthought, sometimes little more than an old mooring line tied around…
How we installed a new engine on our yacht
Auxiliary engines, as they were called in the old days, were hot, noisy, smelly lumps of metal that weren’t usually powerful enough to motor into wind or tide. My first…
What can be learned from these 4 major accidents at sea?
There are few incidents on board more destructive than a crash gybe. The power unleashed when the wind catches the wrong side of the mainsail is hard to overstate, and…
How to rig a yacht’s mooring lines to avoid chafe
Jenny and Ted are cruising with their two teenage children on board their 10m yacht Oyster Catcher. Forecasters have been warning of wet and windy weather for the next few…
A beginners guide to easy yacht navigation
When you first start to learn about yacht navigation it can seem complex and pretty nuanced, but in reality what you are doing falls into two overarching styles. The first…