Matthew PellicerNo matter the course scheme you choose, the course you are doing, you will encounter a Man Overboard (MOB) exercise at one point. If you choose not to do any courses, I do recommend you practise these with your regular crew to gain confidence when you need to pick something out of the water. If … Read more
You’ve seen pictures and videos of people out on a yacht for a week and you want to do the same. So how do you do that? There are many options such as bareboat charter, flotilla or skippered charter. So you’ve chosen option 1 or option 2. That means. that if you want to holiday in the Mediterranean Sea … Read more
As a professional sailor, I carry quite a lot of stuff with me from one boat to another. I could write an entire blog post just on that and I will, I promise. The biggest problem I face is that on some boats I sleep with my bag and thus don’t want my nice hard … Read more
I was hesitant, at first, to write about tying knots. I feel like knots are something to be practised and are hard to describe. I then found myself googling certain knots as I’m trying to get better at them. There are about as many techniques to tie a bowline as there are people in this … Read more
My First Time Before making this passage, I read up quite a lot on it. There are plenty of blog posts that exist if you Google the name of the passage. Some people call it the Oh-My-God-A Passage. The real question is, “Why?” Well, I still can’t answer that one. As a delivery skipper, I … Read more
You’ve got on the boat, you see all these lines everywhere and now you need to make the boat go forward. There are two or three things to understand about turning wind energy into forward energy on a sailboat. We call this process, “trimming the sails.” To keep things simple, I’ll only discuss making a … Read more
There are many different schemes you can follow to get certified to be on the water. The three more internationally accepted are the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), International Yacht Training (IYT) and the American Sailing Association (ASA). If you want to know more in detail about the RYA scheme, I recommend you read my previous … Read more
Although I never wish to have to test this one in real conditions, I have been wearing my life jacket quite a lot and can give an idea as to my impressions of it. If you’re just looking to buy one, I included some links at the end. Features As with most offshore life jackets, … Read more
Of the many different series of courses available around the world, the most recognized is the Royal Yachting Association’s learning scheme. This is for many reasons including the history of boating but I’ll avoid boring you on the details. The main reason is that the higher levels can be commercially endorsed by the Maritime and … Read more
What Makes Sunscreen Ocean Safe? As we become more conscious of our environment, we realize that many of the products we use are harming our planet. Being exposed to the elements means protecting your skin from UV rays. I won’t go convincing anyone that overexposure isn’t good for their skin. To first understand the harmful … Read more
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