How to sail: basics about sailboat before you leave port

I have found that there are not as many information about basic sailing on the internet about sailing and some of them are even confusing or misleading so I have decided to post some basic "how to sail a sailboat" manual. All skippers and amatuer sailors are welcome to post comments.

First of all I would like to mention that it is smart to have some experienced skipper on the sailboat when you are going sailing for the first time. However there are some things that you can learn before you step on the sailboat.

How to easily stop a boat
You gain your confidence when you know how to control the boat and best thing is to know how to stop it. If you know how to stop it there are not any barriers to stop you with trying something new. None of the boat has a switch that can stop the boat immediatly. You can stop the sailboat if you turn the boat against the wind. This will stop the boat. Even better is to lower your sails and turn the engine on because it is easier to manouver.

On the water there is additional problem. Be careful on currents. If there is strong current best thing is to turn the boat away from the current and put the boat slightly in a reseverse so the boat will not move.

5 Things you need to do before you leave the port:

• check wether forecast
• prepare navigation plan
• brief crew
• check engine and if there is enough fuel
• prepare sailboat (sails, ropes...)

Those are basics thing that you need to take care of. And if you are going out from the port for period longer then 2 hours it is advisable to take care of food and beverage for the period that you will be on the open sea. Weather forecast it is one of the most important things. Although it look sunny it can get messy really fast on the open sea and the storm can make a nice sailing day awful.

You need to know where you are going and especially what is your destination. Maybe this destination is not reachable in time and you will need to sail during the night - do not forget to prepare the navigational plan.

No mather if you are taking with the sailboat friends or some people that you have never seen before you need to brief them and tell that sailing is serious and that they need to cooperate with you by controling the sailboat, because especially in leaving the docks and going back you will need their help.

What is boat without the source of power? Is nothing more then a raft. This is why you need to take care that your engine is working and that you can control steering.

Check also other part of the boat that everything is working. If the sails are ready to sail, which ropes are tighten to the docks and if the boat has moorings or anchor? If you are going on longer trip check also refrigerator, radio and power generator. Do not forget about the water tanks.

This is only the beginning and will write about more basics in furter post.

Sailboat Skipper dream: Being in charge on Maltese Falcon

Probably all the sailors have heard about Maltese Falcon. It is officially the biggest sailboat although sailboat Athena is 6 feet longer if the length is measured from tail to nose instead of the waterline.

Anyhow the Maltese Falcon is the proof of development and new materials. With the carbon build sailboat the boat is pretty light for its size and can sustain stronger winds and leaning to a wider angle. The sailboat Maltese Falcon was built in 2006 (Valletta, Malta) and since then had receive a lot of awards for astounding design.

And why is this sailboat so special to sail with beside its length. Whenever there is no wind sailboat has two 1.800 horsepower engines that can speed up the sailboat until 23 mph or 37 km/h, which is 20 knots. This engine should not make almost any waves and almost no vibration.

Maltese Falcon has a permanent crew of 18 people. However most of them are in charge to help guests in this fancy Hotel. The boat is otherwise pretty easy to control with its 3 masts. Each mast is approximately 190 feet (58 meters) high and have 5 sails that can roll out and in automatically by the press of a button.

Besides all the luxury that Maltese falcon has (fitness, luxury rooms, Jacuzzi and so on) there are also a lot of toys on boar to play on. Such as 4 small sailboats (laser type), Jet tender, Pascoe RIB Tender and many other small stuff that make your life easier.

And what is the price for the sailboat? If you want to buy it the price is around 100.000.000 USD. Maybe you can afford to rent it but also this price is pretty high: 325.000 USD till 335.000 USD.

How to Control bigger yacht compared to smaller boat?

Is it difficult to control bigger yacht compared to a smaller boat? Of course it is. Although you have much electric assistance it is much harder to control a yacht.

People thought that when they pass theoretical exam for skipper and have a few experience with a dinghy already know how to control a yacht. But the truth is far from that. With the bigger the yacht is, more difficult to control it. This is why bigger yacht have additional crew that is helping with the control of the boat. It is not that difficult to control a yacht in open sea (there is a bigger momentum between when you turn the steering wheel and when the vessel starts turning), but bigger problem is when you are in a port. All marinas have wide corridors and most of the time a lot of place. Now image to go on the same spot with 4 times or even bigger yacht. 

This yacht fills this wider corridor by itself so it is not that much space for coordinating the yacht.
It is the same with errors. When you control small boat you can quickly correct error and get the boat back on the track. But when you have done a mistake on a yacht you can already crashed to the pier.
There are many new technological devices that are helping you with a landing. Such as remote controls - allows you to control the yacht from the shore. Detectors of how far are you from the shore (similar to the ones that cars have). Cameras in front and in the back of the yacht that allows you to can see the distance that you usually can not saw.

One of the biggest advances in helping control the yacht is additional crew. People that you can rely on and are on the places that you can not see. They act as yours additional eyes and pair of hands.
Do not underestimate the length of yacht. Sometimes one meter is already too much.

Dream job: being Skipper to a largest yacht Eclipse

Have you already heard about the largest yacht in the world owned by a private owner? Probably you heard about Roman Abramovich russian business man and owner of the football club Chelsea (4th in Premier League).

Biggest yacht of the world Eclipse was build in Germany by 2 companies: Blohm and Voss. Yacht is designed for maximum comfort and luxury: it have own submarine and 3 landing boats that are impresive by itself. Yacht with the range of 536 feets (163,5 meters)  and with it's tonnage of 13.000 GT it should be  difficult to handle. However it has a strong engines that alows to move this yacht with cruising speed of 22 nautica miles per hour and top speed of 25 knots. 25 knots is almost 30 miles per hour and if you though that you are moving almost a skycraper with that speed it is impressive.

Luckly yacht has few bow thrusters that help this boat turning. Bow thruster is a propeller built in the front of the yacht that is helping to move the boat left and right. With the landing and navigating the boat there is around 10 people that is helping to control the boat all the time. There are also around 40-60 crew on boat that are able to help with the controling the boat.

And why is this a dream job? Beside one of the best salaries you are all the time on dream locations. Bermudhas, Nice, Monaco and other top spots are just the example where you can moor this giant Yacht. And with your free day of you can spend it in the most luxuries cities or just on the yacht that has its own disco plus two swmimming pools.

Beside all technology that there is on the yacht that helps to control the boat, there is also special device that disable paparazzi to take a picture of the yacht. With a laser that is directed automatically to different cameras you are unable to take  picture of the yacht.

Difference between smaller and bigger Sailboat

What is the difference between smaller sailboat and bigger sailboat? How come you need additional crew if you have everything electronically connected and all work is done with one push of a button?

When you start learning how to sail you start with smaller sailboats. Children are taught how to sail on sailboats such as Optimist that is really small. Later on you get on bigger boats. Reasons why you are thought how to sail on these smaller sailboats are because there are fewer things to worry about. On sailboat type Optimist there is only one sail and a rudder and this is almost everything that you need to care of. Going to bigger sailboats you have additional sail - Genoa and additional ropes to look for. Smaller boats are much easier to flip over. Reason for that is also because they have lighter heel that does not insure you enough weight to flip sailboat into normal position even when the wind is gone.

Another problem with bigger sailboat is also maneuvering. You can imagine that a truck needs much more meters to stop then a normal car. It is the same with the sailboats and because there is not any brake you can image that maneuvering bigger sailboat is much more difficult then smaller ones. Most of bigger sailboats (larger then 45 feets/15 meters) have a bow thruster. This is a propeller in the front of the boat, helping sailboat to easily turn front side of the boat.

To conclude: it is difficult to handle bigger sailboats. I advice you to start with smaller sailboats and then go slowly, on bigger boats. When you are switching to a bigger boats ask someone to help you with that. After all it is better to be safe then sorry and damaging bigger sailboat is not small money.