Carbon fibre construction has become almost universal in high-performance sailing, and it's easy to understand why, as it's incredible strength, stiffness and light weight have enabled boats like this IMOCA 60 to sail more than 600 nautical miles or 1,100km in 24 hours - in the past this kind of performance was only possible with much larger monohulls or multihulls. Given this it's not surprising to see carbon fibre construction making its way into production boats, and two of the most watched sailing channels, Sailing La Vagabonde and Gone with the Wynn's have both taken delivery of all carbon cruising boats in the last year or so. But while carbon fibre construction is not only appropriate, but almost necessary in high-performance racing boats, it does have a number of dark secrets which cause me to question whether it really belongs in cruising boats, as the Wynn's have come to discover as they encounter a myriad of issues with their new boat, and others have as well. Carbon fibre is about five times lighter than steel, 50% lighter than aluminum, and 30% lighter than glass fibre, and because it is so strong you can get away with using much less of it, and this weight savings has a dramatic effect on sailing performance. But when you add the weight of all your earthly possessions you seriously blunt the performance benefits and still have to deal with all the drawbacks. Carbon fibre costs 10-15 times more than glass fibre, it emits 15-20 times more CO2 during its production, and it requires highly skilled labour to build and repair. In addition to being 30% lighter than glass fibres, carbon saves even more weight by using less cloth and resin than fibreglass, so the layup of materials needs to be done to a very high standard and is less forgiving of errors in workmanship, as Riley and Elayna found with this crack in their boat. The Wynn's also experienced first hand how errors in workmanship could lead to significant galvanic corrosion of their engine anodes, propellers, deck hardware, and even anchor and chain. Stray current due to wiring errors can cause rapid corrosion of propellers and shafts on any boat, especially if you're plugged into shore power in a marina, and it could even be your neighbour's boat that is the problem. But such extensive corrosion of deck fittings, anchors and chains in only a few months is almost unheard of on fibreglass boats. The problem with carbon is not just that it conducts electricity, but that it does such a good job of attracting the electrons of other metals that it is frequently used in batteries. So when a boat builder drills a hole for a bolt to secure a deck fitting, and a piece of carbon fibre comes in contact with a bolt you have a battery, and LOTS of corrosion. The solution is for the builder to ensure that the carbon doesn't come in contact with any other metals. This is such a pain that many carbon boat builders use integral composite fittings and avoid metal altogether. Or carbon and Dyneema soft padeyes that are stronger than steel and also contain no metal. Because carbon fibre is incredibly stiff, carbon boats are also more brittle than boats made with fibreglass as Alex Thompson learned when he encountered structural damage in the 2020 Vendee Globe. By comparison fibreglass is much more elastic and can deform twice as far and rebound back to its original shape without breaking, which is another negative for cruising when the word's oceans are littered with hull-crushing debris. And if you still think you can sleep soundly on a carbon cruising boat, just know that all that carbon stiffness is incredibly good at transmitting every single sound throughout the boat. So as cool as these carbon cruising boats are, I think I prefer to keep carbon for racing and use fibreglass for cruising, except for maybe a few key areas requiring extra stiffness. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

My heart always sinks when I see a sailing yacht on the beach, because it not only means the end of somebody's dream, but maybe the end of their home as well. And yet many of these losses are completely preventable with just a $30 part, which for the sake of manufacturer's profits most boats happen to be missing. Fortunately it's an easy retrofit that I installed on my boat after a close call with a freighter at night and that's exactly what we're going to talk about in this video Although the sails provide power for many conditions, most sailing yachts have auxiliary diesel engines like this one for maneuvering in marinas and docking, and for staying off the rocks when there is not enough wind to sail like this boat, or if somebody falls overboard and you need to rescue them in these conditions. While auxiliary diesel engines are extremely reliable most of the time, there is an unfortunate combination of physics, biology, and poor design which causes them to stop working when you are likely to need them most in an emergency - like in very rough sea conditions when you're being blown onto the shore. And although we weren't in rough sea conditions when our engine died in a shipping lane at night with a freighter coming straight at us, we had been earlier in the day, which definitely contributed to the problem. In a standard marine diesel system the fuel flows in a loop starting in the tank, then through a fuel/water separator to remove water and big particles, then to a fuel lift pump that actually sucks the fuel out of the tank, then to another fuel filter for very fine particles, and finally the injection pump and injectors into the engine. The unused fuel flows back to the tank and the cycle repeats. If you give a marine diesel engine clean fuel it will happily run like this for thousands of hours, and keep you safe and moving when you're not sailing. But when it's rough there's another problem. Being in a damp marine environment moisture always finds its way into the tank. And it's not the water itself that's so much of a problem, because there's a fuel/water separator, but the microbes that like to grow between the fuel and the water. These microbes form a sludge that stays harmlessly at the bottom of the tank, with clean fuel above it, until you encounter rough conditions and it gets stirred up and sucked into the fuel/water separator, completely blocking it. One minute your trusty marine diesel is purring like a kitten, and the next minute it's not, and there's nothing you can do to restart it with that blocked fuel/water separator, which is at least a 20 minute job to fix under ideal conditions. You had better hope you have lots of sea room and a strong stomach! But what if you had two fuel/water separators, with a clean one already installed that you could use in seconds with the flick of a $30 switch? Most smart boaters already carry spare fuel/water separator elements so worst case you need to spend a few extra dollars on another housing. If your tank is really dirty the second one will probably plug soon too, but it will likely be enough to get you away from that lee shore and out of immediate danger. Clearly it's a good idea to keep your tank clean, but if you can't get around to that before motoring in rough conditions, just fill the tank as full as possible before heading out to reduce the amount of sloshing, as you're most likely to have problems when your tank is less than half full. If it's too hard to keep your tank clean then install an access hatch, which is just a piece of metal with some screws and a gasket. It really blows my mind that it's legal to make and sell a boat without redundant fuel/water separators, because it's such a common problem and such an inexpensive way to make sure your engine is available to get you out of trouble. But then again, maybe the manufacturers don't mind it if a yacht or two washes up on the shore, because then they get to sell you another one paid for by the insurance company. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

On January 7, 2024, six of the largest and fastest sailing yachts ever constructed departed Brest on the west coast of France for a sailing challenge so extreme it has only been accomplished by four people in the history of mankind - to sail a multihull around the world, nonstop, alone in the Arkea ULTIM Challenge. And these aren't just any multihulls, but the biggest and fastest ever built, fully foiling, 32 metres long, 23 metres wide, weighting about 15 tons, and able to reach speeds approaching 50 knots on the open ocean. In this video we talk about the challenges these skippers will face as they not only chase the blistering record of Francois Gabart of 42 days, 3 hours, but just try to survive without destroying their foils. Arkea ULTIM Challenge: https://www.arkeaultimchallengebrest.com/en Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #foiling #hydrofoil #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

I love sailing at night, not only because it's beautiful, but because it's night about half the time through the year, so if you're cruising you can double the distance you can cover, and if you're racing, well we've won lots of races by sailing faster than our competitors at night. So in this video I'm going to share some tips and tricks I use to sail at night, including: How do you prepare? How does night vision work? How do you find things? How do you stay safe? How do you trim the sails? How do you maintain a heading? How do you avoid collisions? Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #howtosail #night #learntosail #sailingtips

The foiling boats of the America's Cup and SailGP appear to glide effortlessly across the water at more than three times the true wind speed. But the effortless appearance hides the fact that some of the best sailors in the world are working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep them under control. And even then sometimes things don't go exactly as planned resulting in some spectacular wipe-outs. In this video we'll explore the foil controls used in various types of foiling sailboats, including the AC75 of the America's Cup, The F50 of SailGP, and ocean going Ultim trimarans. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #foiling #hydrofoil #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

I love multihulls, and I love Sailing La Vagabonde, so I was probably just as excited as Riley when he announced they were getting a Rapido 60 trimaran, and just recently launched it in Viet Nam. But I'm also just a bit concerned they've bitten off more than they can chew, as I'll explain in this video. Their last boat was an Outremer 45 Catamaran, which they sailed across the Atlantic several times, including once with Greta Thundberg. This was a great boat for Riley and Elayna, and introduced them and their huge audience to the wonderful world of multihull sailing. Through the years Riley has had the opportunity to sail on some great performance multihulls, which opened his eyes to the exceptional speeds they can achieve, so I wasn't at all surprised that their next boat would be a Rapido 60. They just launched the Rapido and did a 600NM shakedown sail with the President of Rapido and a few other skilled crew. They encountered some of the expected teething problems with a new boat, like engine and electrical issues, but there were also some things that leave me concerned that this might be too much boat for them. Riley and Elayna's shakedown cruise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RION-LCbxY Rapido Trimarans: https://rapidotrimarans.com Karver Halyard Locks and Reef Hooks: https://www.karver-systems.com/en/ Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #LaVagabonde #Rapido #Trimaran #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

In the 2014 Volvo Ocean Race Team Vestas Wind smashed into a charted reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The crash destroyed their boat, and left the sailing world wondering how could this happen to a team of professional sailors with the best equipment available. That's exactly what we're going to find out in this video. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #VolvoOceanRace #VolvoOcean65 #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

There isn't much better than getting out and sailing the world's oceans on a well-founded sailboat. But with so many options available how do you decide which one to get? Boat manufacturers would like you to think that buying and owning a boat is like buying and owning a car. I'm going to explain why it's not, and how you should approach buying a boat instead. Big car manufacturers make hundreds of thousands of cars every year, and have ability to make most parts of the car themselves. Much of the manufacturing process is highly automated, so there is a high degree of consistency amongst cars that came off the production line days or even months apart. They also have local dealerships and service centres which are a big part of the ownership experience. In other words, they are largely responsible for all aspects of the success or failure of the car. But even the biggest boat manufacturers only make hundreds of boats each year, much of the work is still done by hand. And they are very reliant on third party manufacturers for pretty much everything that isn't the hull. Pretty much everything that makes boats function comes from a third party, and not the boat manufacturer itself. If anything fails you don't go back to the boat manufacturer, you go to a local boatyard which will be reimbursed by the manufacturer if it's a warranty job. The same boatyard will serve all manufacturers. They will also repair all the attached components, so there's very little reliance on the original manufacturer. In many ways, buying a boat is much more like buying a house than a car - you look at the layout, how well the previous owner has cared for it, and what equipment is installed. You look for the best fit for your lifestyle and how you plan to use it, regardless of the builder, and you should do the same for a boat. Now that I've said the manufacturer doesn't matter, there are a few areas where it does, but not for the reasons you'd expect. Bigger manufacturers have larger production runs, and owners of their boats form amazing support communities, where you can ask any question about your boat, and somebody else has likely encountered that problem and solved it. For example, the owners of more than 1,000 Catalina 42s have formed robust owner support network to help you solve pretty much any problem imaginable. On the other hand, you may find yourself feeling isolated and struggling with issues on one-off custom builds, or smaller production runs, even if they are technically better built. Boats with larger production runs are also easier to sell, because there is a larger market looking for them, because people feel more confident in having something to compare to. One-off boats can sit on the market for months or years because buyers are afraid of them, which is a shame because many of them are actually better. So if you're asking which brand of boat is best, you're essentially asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is "What layout is best for how I intend to use the boat, and which makes and models of yachts meet that criteria. An even more important question might be "What is the condition and installed equipment?" and the answer to this has much more to do with the previous owner than the manufacturer. What's your boat buying experience? Leave a comment below and let us know! Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #pick #sailing #yacht #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

The bowline is one of the most popular knots in sailing because it holds well and is quick to tie and untie. And Dyneema is one of the most popular synthetic lines because it's stronger than steel. But Dyneema is slippery and knots can pull right out, so some say you should NEVER tie a bowline in Dyneema. In this video we strength test a Dyneema bowline and see what happens. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #tie #bowline #knot #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

This video follows a handful of sailing yachts through the Swiftsure 2023 race: - 10m Custom Trimaran Dragon: Broke Juan de Fuca course record; - 8.2m F-82R Trimaran Unleaded: Broke rudder, finished race; - 10.6m Riptide 35 Monohull: Broke mast, finished race, broke course record!!! Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #farrier #corsair #trimaran #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

In this video we demonstrate how to set, gybe, and douse an asymmetric spinnaker on our Farrier-designed F-82R trimaran Unleaded while sailing double-handed in the 2023 Cow Bay Regatta / Northwest Multihull Championships. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #farrier #corsair #trimaran #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

In this video we explain how the Bluetti AC60 portable power station and B80 expansion battery makes it possible to race and cruise our Farrier designed F-82R trimaran. BLUETTI AC60 and B80 link: https://bit.ly/3DquEfj , Enjoy the super early bird price C$799 Use the code: SailingAC60 to get extra C$20 off till July 20 Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

When Guyot Environment crashed into 11th Hour Racing near The Hague in the final leg of The Ocean Race 2023, many people were left wondering - how can two IMOCA sailboats crewed by some of the best sailors in the world possibly collide in moderate conditions with good visibility? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this video. Most of the around the world Ocean Race, as the name implies, takes place in the open ocean, far from land and other boats. These boats sail at insane speeds in very rough conditions, and the decks are often completely awash in very cold sea water. Because of this, one of the most significant risks to these sailors is being swept overboard, because the likelihood of being able to retrieve somebody alive is slim to none, especially at night in rough conditions. As a result, many of these boats have fully enclosed cockpits, where the crew can operate the boat from inside, which for most of the race is much safer and more comfortable than being on deck. However, because much of the race is in the open ocean, race organizers have been adding more inshore elements to the Ocean Race to increase visibility and spectator interest to keep the sponsors happy. In the Hague the boats had to complete two laps of a square inshore course before heading off to sea and the final stop of Genoa Italy. And it's on these inshore legs that the enclosed cockpit design of these boats is really quite sub-optimal. It's ironic that a boat design feature that has made the boats much safer for parts of the race has arguably made them more dangerous for others, but as they say, everything in sailing is a compromise. This video contains content for educational purposes under fair use. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #sailing #invertedbow #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

This video follows the Farrier-designed F-82R trimaran Unleaded through Swiftsure 2023 when we lost our rudder and sailed 30 miles to safety with an improvised emergency rudder before a gale arrived. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #farrier #corsair #trimaran #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

Unfortunately many catastrophic keel failures on monohull sailing yachts end in tragedy, like the Beneteau 40.7 Cheeki Rafiki, which lost her keel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which led to all four sailors on board tragically losing their lives. But there are rare cases when keel failures don't end badly, and the crew miraculously managed to sail home, like the crew of this Hotfoot 27 Hay Tor. This video describes how they did it, and provides some tips on what you can do if you find yourself with large holes in your boat. For more examples, including a test of the tarp method, Sail World did some great videos comparing various techniques for dealing with holed boats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRhcXBtmPQs (part 1) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUg3TUmnQBs (part 2). Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

When you start your day scraping windows, and your plan is to do a 125km overnight race in a planing sport boat, you know there is going to be a story to tell and lessons to learn. In this video we sail a Cheetah 30 sport boat, designed by Bob Amos and built by Corsair Marine, in the 68 nautical mile or 125km Blackline Patos Island Race. We encounter everything from ghosting conditions, to upwind bashing, to a glorious spinnaker run. Some boats reported frost on their decks at night, but we avoided that by thoroughly dousing the entire boat in seawater at several times during the race. Bluetti kindly provided their new 400Wh AC60 for us to review in this video, but unfortunately the B80 expansion pack that would have provided another 800 Wh didn't arrive until after the race: https://www.bluettipower.ca/pages/ac60?utm_source=%20%20sailingtips&utm_medium=youtube Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

How is it even possible for a boat to sail faster than the wind, let alone 2-3 times faster, like this AC72s of the 34th America's Cup? That's exactly what we're going to find out in this video. Early sailing ships looked like this, and pretty much used their sails as big parachute like drag devices to pull themselves along in the same direction as the wind. This isn't very efficient and it's also impossible for any boat like this to sail faster than the wind. This is because as the boat accelerates the wind effectively disappears as boat catches up to it. Instead, modern sailing boats work much more like airplanes which use their wings to generate lift. Except on a boat the wings are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. One wing is the sails in the air, and the other is the daggerboard or keel in the water, also called a foil which is short for hydrofoil. The foil produces just as much lift as the sail even though it's much smaller, and that's because water is 800 times denser than air. Modern sails look much more like a streamlined airplane wing than a baggy parachute. They also generates lift in the exact same way. As the wind flows over a modern sail from front to back, the sail generates lift perpendicular to the surface of the sail, just like an airplane wing. Underwater foils like the keel on this monohull come in all shapes and sizes, but like the sails in the air they also generate lift perpendicular to their surface as the water flows over them from front to back. Except unlike an airplane, where the wings both generate lift in the same direction to lift the plane off the ground, the sails and foils on a sailing boat generate lift in opposite directions, and this is what propels the boat forward. The tighter the angle between the lift from the wind and water, the faster the boat will go. And the faster the boat goes, the more apparent wind it generates to flow over its sails, which generates more lift, which makes the boat go even faster. And this cycle will continue until the friction with the water prevents the boat from going any faster. That's why the fastest boats have underwater foils that provide lift in two directions - a horizontal side force to counteract the forces of the sails and drive the boat forward, and a vertical component to lift the boat out of the water and reduce friction. None of this would be possible without high tech materials like carbon fibre, epoxy, and Dyneema, which can create structures stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight. The square rigged ship in this video is the Batavia, which was built in Amsterdam in 1628, more than 200 years before people really began to understand how wings generate lift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(1628_ship) And thanks to Trent Palmer for the flying footage - love his channel! https://www.youtube.com/@TrentonPalmer Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

In this video I describe my journey from lead acid, to lithium, to a Bluetti EB3A for powering my instruments and devices on my small sailboat. Link to review/purchase a Bluetti EB3A and support my channel: http://bit.ly/3HDOJBC My F-82R trimaran came with a Group 24 lead acid battery which was heavy and there was no battery monitor, so it was hard to tell how much power was going in, coming out, and how much there was left. I upgraded to a LiFePO4 battery which had an internal BMS and optional monitor, which was excellent, but then I also had to upgrade my charging infrastructure, which was increasing the cost, weight, and complexity beyond where I wanted it. I purchased a Bluietti AC50S after a storm that knocked out the power at my house for several days, which had a larger battery, but smaller inverter and also charged more slowly. I started using that in my boat and was considering doing a video on that, when Bluetti offered to send their newer EB3A. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

The Sydney Hobart is one of the pre-eminent mixed-fleet yacht races in the world. The race takes place every year starting on December, 26, Boxing Day, and this year more than 100 yachts ranging from 34-100 feet embarked on the challenging 628 nautical mile race from Sydney to Hobart, and across the notorious Bass Straight. The race attracts the top monohull racers from across the globe, but there is one curious thing that separates the Sydney Hobart from other major mixed-fleet races around the world: The Sydney Hobart doesn't allow multihulls. But why exactly is that? Only the race organizers know for sure but I have a pretty good idea. A while back I did a video on why multihulls are so fast, where I compared Comanche, who won line honours in this years' Sydney Hobart, with IDEC Sport, the fastest trimaran to circumnavigate the globe. And while IDEC Sport wasn't even on the podium in this year's Route du Rhum, so it isn't even a fast trimaran by today's standards, it's still close to 50% faster than Comanche. This means multihulls are pretty much assured to get line honours, or first to finish, in any mixed fleet race they are allowed to enter. To level the playing field in mixed fleet races, there is generally some kind of handicap system which gives the slower boats a chance to win on corrected time, but the real prize for many is line honours, or first to finish, regardless of handicap. There is just something about being the first boat to cross the line that isn't quite there when winning on corrected time. So line honours is a big deal for the fastest boat owners, their skippers, and perhaps most importantly their sponsors. This years' Sydney Hobart line-honours leaders are Andoo Comanche, LawConnect, Black Jack, and last but not least, Hamilton Island Wild Oats, which has won line honours a staggering nine times. These are all Australian owned or chartered boats, and sponsored by Australian or regional companies or events that have close affiliations with the owners or charterers. For example, John Winning Jr, is an Australian appliance mogul, and his sponsor Andoo is a major regional appliance retailer, so winning line honours in the Sydney Hobart is a big deal for both him and his sponsors. Now if we look at another major mixed fleet race, the Fastnet, which is slightly longer but takes place in the waters off the UK and France, we start to get a sense of why the Sydney Hobart organizers don't want multihulls: Pretty much all of the major ocean racing multihull campaigns in the world are owned, skippered, and sponsored by the French. So including multihulls in the Sydney Hobart would all but guarantee that Australian owners, skippers, and sponsors would be ousted from the line honours podium and replaced by the French, and because sponsorship is such a big deal that's a bitter pill the race organizers don't want to swallow. Of course it could also promote Australian investment in major multihull campaigns, but that's a risk the race organizers aren't willing to take, at least for now. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips

In this video we describe why sailors use knots and nautical miles to navigate instead of kilometers. Locations on the earth's surface are typically marked using degrees of latitude and longitude. Degrees are further broken down into minutes, and one nautical mile is defined as one minute of latitude, so it is very easy to calculate the distance between two points on the surface of the earth. Airplane pilots tend to use knots and nautical miles for the exact same reason. Disclaimer: - This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment. - There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose. - There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing. - The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew. - Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of. #howto #navigate #sailing #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips