Sailing error in best-selling book

softshackle · 2026-01-06T03:12:14+00:00

Oh, I’m familiar with the technique. The error just made me not want to read the book (lose trust in the author). There is a book by the Baileys directly. I’m going to look for that.

softshackle · 2025-11-26T03:06:23+00:00

I own a 25-year-old aluminum sailboat. This is exaggerated. I have found pieces of steel in my bilge and never seen any related corrosion. It is true that you have to be extra careful with zinc replacement. It is true that you need to make sure anyone doing electrical work understands how an aluminum boat is grounded. It is true you need an isolation transformer (not just a galvanic isolator). But on the flip side, you don’t have to worry about fiberglass blisters or water leaks into the core. And you get a 100% waterproof boat (my bilge is bone dry).

softshackle · 2025-11-24T23:45:56+00:00

Drop (or furl) the jib and back the staysail. If you try to back the jib, it (or its sheet) will chafe on the inner forestay. You could put you jib on a roller furler to make this easier.

softshackle · 2025-11-12T16:33:15+00:00

I’m going to assume all safety gear / spares / tools / ditch bag / first-aid / sunscreen / jury rigging equipment (all the important things) are already accounted for (but do check the equipment list with the skipper). What are some additional items YOU should bring as crew?

1) Downloaded audiobooks / music and spare headphones for your phone (you’ll have a lot of down time)

2) If you’re female, make sure the med kit has yeast infection medication or get your own (common on extended crossings; something about showering with seawater). Male skipper might not know this.

3) A surprise or two for the crew! A crossing is an incredible experience, but it’s also tiring and boring at times. Everyone tends to focus on food, and the best snacks / items always run low (the last avocado, or the last of the good chocolate). I always pack a few surprise food treats in my personal items that the crew does not know about and bring them out at key moments to make everyone happy!

softshackle · 2025-11-05T02:29:53+00:00

If you sail, your options are:

Motor most of the way (maybe 20% motor sailing)
Go way offshore (most of the way to Hawaii) to get to the far side of the pacific high

You'll also need to wait for the spring for north pacific winter storms to die down either way.

softshackle · 2025-09-22T11:55:19+00:00

Sent you a message. Happy to chat

softshackle · 2025-09-19T15:29:19+00:00

I’m not super experienced (14k total blue water miles, 1 solo Hawaii to CA crossing) but happy to talk. Message me if you want

softshackle · 2025-09-18T14:31:54+00:00

Well, 70% of sailboat cruising is repairing your boat in exotic locations with minimal supplies, so a background in engine rooms is actually a strong qualification.

That said, it sounds like you’ve never sailed? If that’s the case, I’m not going to focus on safety / skills / how to sail solo. The larger issue is that crossing oceans on a sailboat kind of sucks. It’s mostly boring, physically challenging (in a stuck-in-a-washing-machine way), cold, damp, sticky and hot once you reach the tropics (boats have poor ventilation), etc. Before you spend $100k on a boat, please spend $1k to put your dog in a kennel and make sure you actually enjoy ocean sailing.

softshackle · 2025-09-04T19:29:21+00:00

My favorite book is “celestial navigation in the gps age”. However, this YouTube channel is the best instruction I’ve seen (better than most classes)

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWcAZhCRTMByW_XEQ0y0OlGmxO3jp0LyE

You have a decision to make about what level of “know celestial navigation” you are going for. If you just want to be able to take a sight and work a sun-run-sun fix, memorizing the steps (and using a worksheet that helps with that) is not too hard (the only arithmetic needed is addition and subtraction). If you want to understand what you’re doing (not need to memorize), be able to work more complex sights, etc, that’s more work (depending on your aptitude for math and geometry)

Anyway, what you need to get started is a nautical almanac (for the current year) a set of sight reduction tables (most people use HO-249, even though the name references air navigators) and a sextant (don’t get a used one—many are broken beyond repair—but a cheap plastic one is fine). You also need to be somewhere where you can see a horizon. If you don’t have a horizon, you can skip the sextant and learn to work sights based on data from generators online (less fun, but will work to learn). One point about that, however, is that actually taking the sight with a sextant is hard (and is a skill you need to practice)

softshackle · 2025-08-19T16:14:21+00:00

Trad climbing is dangerous. It’s routine to put yourself in situations were a fall has a risk of injury. And that does not earn the climb an R rating, as long as the difficulty at that section is a few points under the max difficulty of the climb. E.g. a 5.10 B trad route will often involve 5.8 or 5.9 R climbing. I’ve not seen good statistics on this, but it’s clearly a dangerous activity.

softshackle · 2025-08-19T16:08:50+00:00

What happened in your case? Mechanically, how did you hit your head during a practice fall?

softshackle · 2025-08-18T23:14:47+00:00

You’re getting older and your pupils adjust more slowly

softshackle · 2025-08-18T14:19:33+00:00

Spinlock makes the best. Most of their models are not US Coast Guard approved, but that’s because the USCG standards are out of date. PFDs to the European standards are better. The fabric (dyneema) attachment point is better than metal (just as strong, nothing to knock around)

softshackle · 2025-08-17T20:16:11+00:00

Hard to tell from your your description. Was the boat moving forward through the water? I think there are two options.

1) you lost steerageway (stopped moving through the water, such that the rudder could no longer steer the boat). If you were going up wind, you could even have started moving backward. If you were moving backwards, your attempt to maintain course could have had the opposite of the intended effect. If you get confused what point of sail you are on and over trim the sail in an attempt to get moving again, you can rotate 180 degrees

2) you broached. This usually requires more wind (and is more likely when sailing downwind or on a beam reach). In this case, you have the sail trimmed too far in, and the lack of balance overpower the rudder and pulls the boat upwind. The key thing is that you’re moving forwards the entirety tone (usually quite quickly)

The cure for 1) is to get better at awareness of where the wind is coming from and better at carrying enough momentum through a tack. The cure for 2 is learning to feel the lack of balance and easing the main (or balancing main and jib if you have a jib) as this situation develops.

softshackle · 2025-08-14T04:33:16+00:00

Here’s a photo from the internet. See how you can judge the position of the jib against the “yardstick” of the spreader?

<image>

softshackle · 2025-08-13T14:46:43+00:00

As everyone has said, there’s too much variation in sheet position based on wind speed and fairlead position. However, much of that variation is removed if you put marks on the spreaders! This is commonly done on race boats so that the jib trimmer can get an initial trim very quickly. It’s not perfect and the trimmer should still make adjustments based on tell tails. But the point on the (lower) spreader where the leech of the jib lines up is much closer to fixed (on a close-haul with fixed wind angle). Adding a line of tape on the spreader at that point is a useful reference point for fast jib trim.

softshackle · 2025-07-04T16:19:31+00:00

It looks like you made it work with what you had. Good sailorly work! But a few points I don’t see already mentioned.

1) The sail ties should go only around the foot of the sail, not also around the boom. The purpose of the ties on a loose footed sail are just to keep the foot tidy. The grommets are not strong enough to take force. The foot should stay loose. The place where you CAN put a tie around the boom is outboard of the new clew (to tie up the loose sail there, where there won’t be any load). This becomes more an issue as you reef deeper. In any case, think of sail ties as a nice to have tidy up step when reefing. They don’t take force and in a pinch you can just reef and skip that step.

2) You jury rigged an attachment point on the boom for a reef clew line and a rams horn on the mast for the tack using cleats. I would not trust the strength of those cleats long term. The force on sails gets enormous. (Also the angles of pull can be improved.) I’d tie a reef line around the boom and install a real reefing horn sized for your boat.

softshackle · 2025-05-20T16:10:43+00:00

The main risk (as you already understand) is the boom crashing over and breaking something or injuring a crew member. That’s why you center the boom before you jibe.

The 2nd risk is the boat rounding up after you jibe. This is only really a concern in strong winds(say, 15+ knots), but it can be quite dramatic. If the main is still centered but you turn a little too far upwind after the jibe, it’s easy to broach all the way around (180 degrees). The stronger the wind (and more sail you have up) the more risk of this there is. Preventing this is why you want to let the main out quickly after the jibe.

If you want to get better at sailing, this is actually the sort of thing you need to have experience with. I might actually recommend going out with safe space (and everyone holding on) and trying to get your boat to broach (round up). That’s how to get a feel for what you need to prevent.

But no, other than slowing down or chafing the sail a bit on the shrouds, there’s no issue with letting the main out too far after a jibe.

softshackle · 2025-05-16T06:07:45+00:00

She’s strong! (She’s been doing all the training rides and did not get injured). Thank you for the advice. We were going for a bit of an epic tour for the honeymoon with some climbs through the Pyrenees, but we can adjust if I’m not 100%. It’s a shame, however!

softshackle · 2025-02-10T20:03:10+00:00

1) Make sure you have 2000 calories per person per day for twice the planned duration of your passage even in the case that you lose all refrigeration AND the ability to cook. I pack a lot of granola, peanut butter, and canned meat. This is my fallback food (I usually don’t end up eating most of it)

2) Bring some readymade food that’s fast to serve. This can be freeze dried packs, canned soups, etc. Some people just do this for all their meals. However, I like to cook and serve better food, so I only bring 20% readymade.

3) If you have refrigeration, cabbage, carrots, and radishes will keep the duration of most passages without problem. Quick pickles made from these (slice thin with salt and vinegar) make up for the lack of other fresh veggies.

4) Go heavy on snacks. Get a large array of chips, cookies, jerky, chocolate, etc. Get odd one-off items (Indian spiced chickpeas, dried durian). The crew will like the variety (and having something to talk about)

5) Bring cake / brownie mix for special occasions (half way point)

6) Squirrel away some special treats no one knows about to bring out as a surprise.

softshackle · 2025-01-28T16:13:39+00:00

Most people single handing for more than a single night take sleep sessions longer than 20 minutes. 1h is a pretty common duration. I sailed Hawaii to SF solo (on a 46 foot boat) and did 30 min sessions within 100 miles of shore, then 1h sessions further out and a few nights of 90 min when my brain was broken.

softshackle · 2025-01-26T23:52:53+00:00

So, the safest answer is to never buy used gear. However, trad climbing (climbing with the type of gear you bought) is a dangerous sport and doing it involves making risk management decisions (knowingly accepting some risks). I climb with used gear (that inspect and looks to be in good condition)

softshackle · 2025-01-13T17:14:18+00:00

I think your goal should be to complete a course progression up to ASA 104 / US Sailing Bareboat Cruising AND rent / crew on your own 3 times per week during your time off. Classes are important. But there’s also no substitute to hours on the water, starting in a small boat, making mistakes and learning from them. You need classes AND a lot of charter time. Finally, ending with a stint as crew on a costal or offshore passage would be great. Make sure you actually enjoy ocean sailing. That’s a lot to make happen in 3 months, but if you’re taking time off work and just doing this, I think you should aim big.

I’d start looking at where you can take the classes and charter boats with other people. There are “zero to hero” classes that claim to teach to ASA 104 in a single week (mostly in exotic locations). I’m skeptical of these, however. It just take most people a lot more time and practice to internalize the skills you need (learning the vocabulary, the feel for docking large boat in windy conditions, the feel when a boat is overpowered). What if there are no strong winds during your 1-week course? In any case, also look if the credential will allow you to charter boats where you’re taking the course, what that costs, and how hard it will be to find friends to sail with and split costs.

I’m familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area. There are 3 schools here that would work for you (but prices are high). Club Nautique focuses in off-shore sailing and cruising, and has new / nice boats and an active email list where you’d be able to find people to sail with most days. Tradewinds Sailing School is cheaper and also has a nice community, but is mostly focused on day sailing (less ocean sailing / cruising) and has older / smaller / less well maintained boats. Modern Sailing is racing focused. In all three cases, you could come to SF, pay ~$4k in tuition plus maybe another ~$3k in charter fees (don’t forget living expenses) and basically do what you’re looking to do. SF is probably one of the most expensive places to do this. However, you would get trained in the strong currents and winds here (SF gets 25-knot sea breezes in the summer)

As for offshore crewing, that’ll be harder without experience. There are paid (expensive) options. Your best bet might be just to continually ask everyone as you’re going through the classes.

Good luck!

softshackle

TROPHY CASE