Sailing skills

If you are an expert sailor, welcome aboard, this is going to be a great trip. 

If you know nothing, don't worry we will teach you. Frank was a Glenans certified sailing instructor in his twenties and holds captain's licenses from three different countries. You are in good hands. 

Anyway sailing is easy, even little Westland Terriers can do it, although Max did fall overboard once... 

Below are a few tips to help you prepare for sailing.

It is fun to practice knots be fore the trip, it is a good way to get into the sailing spirit. As always there is an app for that and I like using "Grog Knots" They have nice animations on how to tie the knots.

The four most important knots on a boat are:

• Cleat Hitch  -  Tying off to a cleat to moor the boat in a harbor
• Bowline -  Tying the sheets to the sails and a host of other things
• Clove hitch  - Tying a fender to the railing. 
• Double sheet bend - To tie two lines together, this know is particularly useful when the lines have different diameters. 

While we are on the topic of lines, please remember that the boat has two propellors. The main propulsion at the stern and the bow thruster at the bow.  When mooring and during harbor maneuvers, it is very important to pay attention to the lines and make sue they stay clear of the propellors.  

Back in the old days only the officers knew how to navigate. Discipline was enforced by flogging and keel hauling, but the main reason the crew did not throw a bad caption in the ocean is that he was often the only person who could get them back to home port.  Celestial navigation is not so easy. Charts were expensive. Just one generation ago, it was not unusual for sailboats to spent more than a thousand dollars on charts. 

Since president Clinton decided to make high accuracy GPS available to everyone, the world has changed. Now every sailboat has the Navionics App and for just $50 you can buy all the maps of the Mediterranean (Croatia is extra).  Navionics allows you to run the app on two devices, i.e. you and your spouse or your iPad and iPhone. It needs to be a device with GPS, an android tablet generally does not work. 

If you are interested in navigation, it is worth to get the app and the maps, it will also allow you to track everywhere you have been. 

To select anchorages, ports and to reserve a berth, we use Navily it is a quick and easy web-based pilot that captures the comments of fellow captains.  For weather forecasts, Windy and Windfinder are the two apps that are most popular. 

It is easy to throw a rope once you know how. Coil the rope and divide it in two equal parts. Throw the first set of coils and follow it with the second set while holding on to the end! A good throw has the entire rope roll out in a straight line. This is an important skill when we arrive in port as we often have to pass a line to someone onshore to tie off the boat. 

To store a rope, coil it and then use one of the many knots to keep the line in an orderly manner. 

There are a few words that are useful to know:

● Port         ●  Starboard      ● Bow

● Stern       ● Boom              ● Standing rigging

● Mast        ● Genoa             ● Mainsail

● Jib           ● Headsail         ● Halyard

● Sheet       ● Outhaul          ● Furling system

● Winch      ● Cleat

Winches are the work horses on the boat, they haul up the sails and can be used to moor the yacht and trim the sails. On our yacht all six winches can both be operated electrically and manually. 

The right way to put a line on a winch is to coil it around the winch three times clockwise and then over the guide into the jaws on top. 

Place the rope around the winch three times in a clockwise direction (the same direction that the winch turns). Start at the bottom and put each coil on top of the last one. After the third coil place the line over the shiny chrome self-tailing winch arm. Then place the line into the jaws on top of the winch drum. The winch is now ready to be used. 

Camino has six electric winches that can pull the line at the push of a button. Each winch has two buttons: fast and slow.