Boating Safety Tips, Tricks & Thoughts from Captnmike

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Posts Tagged ‘sailing’

How to use a Winch on a Sailboat

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Winches, Lines, Grinding and Tailing



What we use winches for: Winches provide the mechanical advantage to hoist and trim the sails and running rigging on a sailboat. There are usually no powered winches. Depending on circumstances, there can be thousands of pounds of pressure on a line, so don’t be casual when working with lines and winches.

Grinding and tailing: The act of rotating the handle is grinding, pulling on the line being tightened is tailing. Because the winch won’t pull the line unless the line is tight on the winch drum, both actions need to occur simultaneously. Sometimes one person does both actions, sometimes it takes one person for each action. Thus the person pulling is the tailer, the person grinding is the grinder. One little joke we do from time to time (but not on races) is to get halfway through a tack and then not pull hard on the line. The grinder just keeps grinding but the sail doesn’t come in at all.

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Tags: crew skills, sailing
Posted in Sailing and Boating Skills | No Comments »

Crew Tips from George

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Good manners on the boat:

Always stow your gear

Bring something for everyone to eat / drink

Do NOT talk about work or personal problems…we’re out there to get away from it all, not bring it all with us.

Be supportive, even if you’re the best sailor on the boat.

Be on time or call if you’re delayed or need to cancel.

Clean up the boat and put stuff away before you leave.

If you don’t know where stuff goes, leave it alone.

Take your garbage with you.

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Tags: Boating Etiquette, sailing
Posted in Safety Thoughts, Sailing and Boating Skills | No Comments »

Boating Etiquette

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

What a skipper expects your mother to have taught you about proper boating manners.

The skipper is always in charge, they are responsible for the safety of the vessel and crew. Most skippers are quite relaxed but sometime things happen suddenly requiring action, they can quickly become very formal and firm, if this happens, PAY ATTENTION, STOP TALKING, your safety and the safety of the vessel may be at risk. Understand what needs to be done and help in a timely and safe manor.

One very helpful duty crew can do while underway is to help keep watch for other vessels and junk in the water, even if you are not ask to help. Sails can hide a large vessel for a long time. Hitting a log or another vessel can really mess up the trip.

Remember you are a guest on the skippers vessel:

Skippers Pet Peeves or How to Really Upset the Crew & Skipper (What not to Do)

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Tags: Boating Etiquette, sailing
Posted in Safety Thoughts, Sailing and Boating Skills | No Comments »

Interesting and Useful Boating Books

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Here are a few books from my library that I refer to on a regular basis or have found very interesting.  They are listed in no particular order.  This list is not intended to be all inclusive or safety only.  I assume everyone has Chapman’s, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship and the other “Major Reference Books.”  Some of the books are below the radar so to speak, but worth a second look.  Good books all and recommended.

Good luck and happy reading.

(more…)

Tags: boating, boating library, books, reference, sailing
Posted in Safety Thoughts, Sailing and Boating Skills | 2 Comments »

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