Charter Yacht Vacation and Discount Travel

When you load up food, water, fuel, tools, sailing gear, and sails for a cruise, how can you make sure that your small cruising boat stays level–and in trim? After all, no sailing skipper wants his or her performance to suffer under sail or power! Learn to sail like a pro with these three easy steps when you load provisions for sailboat cruising.

At last it’s arrived, that long awaited week long cruise to those pristine islands just over the distant horizon. You will spend the weekend filling your tanks with water and fuel, loading food, tools, and sailing gear aboard. But how do you do this without compromising your small cruising boat’s safety and integrity?

A vessel with a list–like a person with a limp–has too much weight on one side. This causes one side to be lower than the other side. A vessel out of trim has excessive weight at the bow or stern. This causes her to “sink” down into the water too much on one of her ends.

Make your cruise provisioning in increments with a “load-and-check” process. Load a bit of weight; then step off the boat and check all sides to make sure list and trim are right. Follow these steps.

 1. Check list and trim before you start

Stand at the bow or stern of the boat. Make sure that the boat stands straight without listing to port or starboard. Also, check the waterline boot-stripe tape on each side to make sure they are the same. Next, check the side of the boat. Is she down by the bow or stern? Move weights inside the boat if necessary to level the boat before you load.

 2. Top off fresh water and fuel tanks

Fill up your water and fuel tanks first. Then step out onto the pier and check the boat’s list and trim. You will see right away where you need to add some more weight. You cannot move your tanks, but you can adjust the ballast inside the cabin to get your boat level.

 3. Load food, tools, and sailing gear

Load canned food, spare tools, and sailing gear. Keep weights low. Spread the load from the center of the boat outward. Load 1/2 of all provisions; then step onto the pier and check list and trim. Adjust weights as needed. Finish loading the remainder of your provisions. Conduct one final dockside check to make sure things look right.

If you want to learn to sail like a pro, take that extra step to load your sailing stores with safety and performance in mind.  Use these simple steps to be rewarded with all the speed you need to make your next port-of-call right on time!

Captain John Jamieson shows sailing skippers fast, easy ways to learn to sail like a pro. For a free weekly sailing newsletter plus more sailing tips, articles, and sailing videos, visit skippertips.com

read comments (0)

Classic games like word puzzles, mazes, connect the dots and tic tac toe still have their group of fans even if console games and cell phone games make them seem obsolete. The above mentioned are also recognized as great travel games since parents find it a real challenge to keep their children’s boredom away particularly when driving long distances. Various web pages represent the easiest source of printable travel games that can be included in the luggage for “boredom” sufferers, yet mention must be made that kids with carsickness should only play word games, as any effort to watch a fixed point when the car is in motion will only aggravate the sickness.

Some web pages actually specialize in printable travel games offering a wide selection range for family groups and preschoolers. You don’t have to be an experienced parent to remember to pack some toys and favorite games to keep the children busy when traveling by car or flying. There are all sorts of additional items required for printable travel games, and they should not be left out: make sure to take gel pens, markers and multicolored crayons. Moreover you can put the printable travel games into sheet protectors made of plastic and use a three ring to bind them together so as to make a nice trip memory book.

Great printable travel games and coloring pages can be found on Crayola.com a site that provides printable items for all the American states, thus, the kids can have fun playing with the various elements specific to one state you are going through or another. Flowers, flags, maps, birds and even quizzes become meaningful and highly useful during the trip. One parent or an elder brother may have to look after the little ones and see to their game, but they will probably have time too.

There are various kinds of printable travel games created for older children, but every parent will appreciated whether one activity or another suits the child’s age or not. You can even have the kid choose and see what kind of games he/she would like to play so that the contentment rate during the trip be as high as possible. The travel destination is also important for the choice of the printable travel games: in case you  will get to the ocean, marine life coloring sheets will surely raise the interest and the curiosity of the child, and the same trick is true for trips in the mountains.

read comments (0)