Seamanship

For a quarter of a century, GPS (Global Positioning System) and other GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) have steadfastly provided excellent time and positioning information to mariners of vessels great and small, across oceans and ponds, in all seasons and in all weathers.

For those of us whose boats winter over in the water, one thing we must always be prepared for is the arrival of winter storms.

It’s a dark and squally night in November 2014. Vestas Wind, one of the boats participating in the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race, is romping along at 16 knots in the Indian Ocean.

Storm drogues and sea anchors can vastly improve your comfort level at sea. Often confused as the same piece of equipment, a speed-limiting storm drogue and a sea anchor serve two very different purposes.

A coastal Florida Rescue highlights several safe practices to use on the water when in the face of an oncoming thunderstorm.

Trawler gurus, Rudy & Jill Sechez share some of the best utilitarian, amd largely DIY, solutions they employ or have seen other cruisers use to make everyday-cruising life more manageable.

We, and I speak for all skippers, have been lectured ad infinitum about how to prepare and what to do when the electronics go zap. But the one thing that seems to be overlooked is weather. When the black boxes literally go black, so does our connection with weather prediction.

Dive deeper into the science of properly setting you anchor. After all, when it comes to staying in place on the water, only one piece of gear is touching the earth. Make sure it stays that way.

Believe it or not, there is much more to simply tossing your anchor overboard. Check in with cruising contributors, Rudy and Jill Sechez and discover part 1 of the anchor math equation.

I watched a fairly new-to-boating couple bring their mid-sized boat in to tie up. Difficulties ensued and the docking procedure disintegrated into chaos.

Sometimes you end up in less than optimal situations no matter how you try to plan. We had been keeping an eye on Sandy for about a week when we pulled into Portsmouth, Virginia, one of our favorite stops along the ICW.

Not all women are that ambitious, nor do we need to be, but a few boat skills are worth knowing. If you are intimidated, but have the desire to learn, there are several less-than-daunting ways to get started.