Transit Lines
My favourite signs always combine simplicity, elegance and practicality. They are often so effective that technology can’t improve on them. Cats’ Paws, the ruffled patterns…
Explore the Books
Tag: sailing
Wayfinding with the Polynesian Voyaging Society
Something a little different today – a guest blog. I am very grateful to Hye Jung Kim and all the team at Project Wayfinder for…
What is a Slick Line?
Slick lines form on water when a very thin layer of oil spreads out across the water. The oil dampens ripples creating calmer patches. Over…
A Brief Guide to Overfalls
Whenever the tide turns, water heads from one area to another. This sets up a flow known as tidal currents. Tidal currents moving over a…
What is Fetch?
The definition of the word ‘fetch’ is simple: The distance that wind travels over open water. The first time we come across this word it…
Joshua Slocum and the Birds
My thanks to Pertti Pesonen for reminding me of these passages in Joshua Slocum’s classic, ‘Sailing Alone Around the World’: On the 12th, some hundred…
Where the Rocks Aren’t
I spent a very enjoyable Friday evening at the Hornet Services Sailing Club in Gosport. I was there to listen to a talk being jointly…
The Shape of the Land
The week is already feeling full with the task of collating and writing up observations from the sail north. At the end of the month…
Back from the Arctic
Yesterday I arrived back home after sailing north from Scotland via the Faroe Islands into the Arctic, finishing at Reykjavik. I used the trip to…