Talking about lee shores last week I was reminded of an exhibit in the Salcome Maritime museum
The old time square riggers could only just sail a little closer to the wind than a beam reach .
With few charts and only basic navigation aids they tended to sail close to the shore whenever possible .
In a storm they might discover that they were unable to weather headlands ahead or astern so became “embayed” having to tack back and forth fighting the wind and tide until overcome by exhaustion they were driven on shore! Nasty
Sailing for fun
I looked up info on foil sailing and found a wealth of info .
Basically as water is more dense than air even a foil small shaped like an aeroplane wing can at speed generate enough wind to lift the boat up out of the water .
Here is one of the more lighthearted versions
Take a look at this video on YouTube:
Maybe Paul or Peter could upgrade one of our Oppies over the winter!
Run a tight ship
Incompetent crew.
The RNLI published a list of the five most common reasons for call out which in reverse order are
Sinking -skin fittings prop shafts exhausts
Human error -navigation trio planning
Stranding or grounding -check tides and depth sounder
Equipment failure – power, halyards, shrouds, masts
Machine failure blocked impellers etc ( this happened to Rog)