Safety & Seamanship

Getting over seasickness as quickly as possible must be the focus and responsibility of all on board. Having dealt with 400 seasick sailors (out of 1,200 sail-training students) on ocean passages over the past 42 years, I have become very experienced at prevention and treatment. The following steps to avoid or lessen the severity of seasickness has served well over those years.

Foam life jackets can be hot and cumbersome on a long passage-especially if youre a kid and like to move around a lot. With Spinlocks debut of the Deckvest Cento Junior auto-inflatable PFD with a harness, sailing youth-and petite adults-now have an alternative to those bulky foam PFDs.

When we talk about safety and sailing, the topic inevitably focuses on seamanship, equipment, and maintenance, not potential health risks linked to harmful chemicals. In fact, one of the reasons many of us go sailing is to escape to a cleaner place.

For maximum maneuverability, the control lines-one port, one starboard-should attach at the widest part of the boat. This maximizes leverage and places the effort close to the center pivot point. On a catamaran, closer to the transom works because of the wide beam, but for monohulls, attaching near the pivot point at the keel will be more responsive. For maximum responsiveness, the drogue should be as close to the transom as practical-this results in more responsive steering and minimal drag. We found the best compromise to be around 65-80 percent of the way aft, where there is still enough beam, but less risk of the control lines fouling.

When a fire strikes at sea, you need to respond quickly, aggressively, and with a cool head, and you will not give up easily. At some point it is going to be prudent to leave the boat; serious burns will make survival in a raft difficult and gasoline and propane can explode. If the fire is well developed or started with an explosion, there may be time only for a quick Mayday call and to abandon ship.

Over the last few decades, theres been exponential growth in the availability of accurate weather forecasts and the net result is safer voyaging. Government spending on weather data gathering and forecast development has soared. Satellites and data buoys have filled in some of the oceanic gaps caused by an absence of weather balloon sampling at sea. State of the art, algorithm-driven, model data and ensemble-based forecasting have turned electronic guesswork into a better understanding of atmospheric volatility. The net result is an increase in the validity and reliability of marine forecasts and a trend that has stretched 24-hour forecast accuracy into 48- and 96-hour time frames. So, if anything deserves the label don't leave homeport without it, it is todays, better than ever, marine weather forecast.

Spring is when many sailors have to bite the bullet and have their liferaft inspected, an expense that costs 10 to 30 percent of the price they paid for the raft-or more.

Its hard to describe the curiosity I felt when I first saw the above photograph on the cover of the 2017 catalog for Defender Marine. The man reminded me of my late grandfather, Howard Nicholson, someone Id never expect to see on the cover of anything related to boating.

Practical Sailor 2016 Index

Oceans may interconnect the planet, but they also act as a barrier, isolating the sailors on opposite shores. Some cruisers and racers bridge the gap, while most keep track of international sailing events and incidents online. Well-run international regattas, around-the-world yacht races, and the globalization of the boatbuilding industry help to spread the word, but-despite such publicity-not all sailing trends reach the opposite shore. Thats why the crew at Practical Sailor does its best to note whats trending. Usually, its a new boat design or piece of hardware that draws our attention, but in this article, we focus on a seafaring controversy: the growing inclination toward renting adventure.