Sailboat Cruising

When anchoring in a river, take note of the prevailing and forecast wind directions. Will the wind at any time oppose the current (A)? If it does, the boat will not lie well to its anchor. It may even sail around enough to pluck the hook out of the bottom. If at all possible, choose a section of the river where the prevailing wind is blowing across the current (B). The boat will tend to lie with

If you need to tie up to a short pontoon, you’ll have to rethink your usual arrangement of dock lines. You’ll have to lead the stern line forward—which is far from ideal—and take a short spring line from a midships cleat to the same dock cleat as the stern line (as shown above). Use two bow lines, if possible, to keep yawing to a minimum. If your boat doesn’t have a midships cleat, resist the

How do you get a man-overboard out of the water and back on the boat without special equipment?By John ConollyIf your boat doesn’t have dedicated equipment for getting a person in the water back on board with a minimum of effort—this includes a boarding ladder or a sugar-scoop transom—you’ll have to improvise. In the course of many MOB location and retrieval exercises

Simple strength training for sailingBy Michael BlackburnBeing strong makes racing more enjoyable, but many strength-training programs are complicated to follow and necessitate gym access and ample free time. Luckily, you don’t need a gym to improve your sailing-specific strength. You can do this short workout anywhere. Allow three weekly sessions (20 to 30

Most embarrassing situations on the water happen because someone hasn’t bothered to think out the maneuver ahead of time. Athletes in all sports train themselves to imagine the steps they need to take to achieve success. A downhill racer, for example, will run a course in her imagination as many times as it takes train the muscles involved in each turn to react subconsciously and produce the

We always try to collect rainwater aboard our Serendipity 42 so we can enjoy plenty of cool, sweet-tasting water without having to run our watermaker. To do this we designed our shade awning so that it is also a super-efficient rainwater collector. We shaped the awning with a belly on each side where water can collect; a rope running along each side of the awning forms a gutter. A

When you’re outfitting a cruising boat’s galley, it’s wise to select flatware that has no pattern. Leave the Climbing Rose and Parthenon patterns at home. When you’re on the water, particularly salt water, you want the surface of your eating utensils to be as featureless and smooth as your chainplates—for the same reason. Every ripple and crevice in a piece of patterned cutlery can harbor

I know this idea isn’t popular with a number of cruisers, but I don’t think it is ever seamanlike to tow a dinghy when on a passage. For starters, the drag is considerable and a real impediment to sailing speed. There are many other reasons, of course, starting with the fact that towing a dinghy is bound to be a distraction. Then there’s the question of potential danger to the crew if the

We stopped overnight at North Minerva Reef on our way from Tonga to New Zealand. Our friends aboard Layla, a 40-foot sloop, were also headed to New Zealand. They anchored first, and, when they were satisfied their anchor was set, they called us on the VHF and asked us over for pizza. Because we were in passage mode, our dinghy was securely lashed on deck, but we didn’t want to miss Layla’s

Practice with paper instead of plasticBy Chris LabDuring a passage along the South American coast on our Passport 40, Aquamarine II, we ran into a strong storm cell with lightning, high winds, and rain. In the hopes of preventing damage from a lightning strike, we unplugged our GPS, radar, radios, and chartplotter and put as much of the gear as we could in the