Marine Hot Water Heaters Blog Dept: How To Sail at Night

Successful Night Sailing Tips

Raritan Engineering Company your marine hot water heaters suppliers would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding how to sail at night.

Your marine hot water heaters experts talk about how now that we’re into the summer months, lots of you might want to stretch your skill set and do a bit of night sailing. It’s a bit of a different animal so we’ve cobbled together seven things to keep in mind as you head off into the wild black yonder.

Dress accordingly

It may be obvious for some, but don’t forget the big ball of yellow heat will be replaced by a cold little white ball that will not help the warmth cause at all. Your 12V water heater specialists talk about how your ability to enjoy the pleasure that a gorgeous night on the water can provide is directly proportionate to you being dressed for the environment. 

Carry a decent searchlight

Night boating involves becoming accustomed to the available light and acclimating to it. It’s actually one of the cool things to experience during a sail in the dark, so constantly shining a spotlight like you were hand-holding your car’s headlights is not where it’s at.  

Check out our marine water heaters selection here at Raritan Engineering, where we always take care of your marine sanitation supply needs.

Stand a watch

Of course someone should always be keeping an astute lookout whenever the boat is underway, but this is hyper-important during the restricted visibility that night sailing involves.

Don’t push

Many old salts attach a different attitude and mentality for night sails. During the day the fun might be to vigilantly trim and adjust, catch lifts, shift weight and monitor that knot-meter for that rewarding uptick – 3/10s of a knot – Yes! 

Make sure Waypoints are Clear & Safe

Most sailors rely on electronic aids to see them around the waterways and at night they become even more important. They can also, in certain situations, make things less safe. A few years ago, the famous Newport to Ensenada race reported their first deadly accident when a group of sailors ran into a small island off the coast of San Diego. 

Know the Light Patterns

Fortunately charts and boats are all set up for sailing at night so it’s absolutely essential that the skipper and at least some of the crew know what the language of lights is saying out there. Your marine hot water heater distributers talk about how boats are equipped with lights situated in such a way that other boats can tell what’s going on and charts are filled with light-related information that will clue mariners in on where they are.

Wear a PFD

We understand that not everyone wears their pfd for whatever reason – it’s not comfortable, it’s filthy from lying on the floor for the past month, it sucks away at your already limited sex appeal – we get it. We don’t agree with the decision, but okay. 

So don't forget these helpful tips when sailing at night. 1) Dress accordingly;  2) wear a PFD;  3) know the light patterns;  and 4) stand a watch.

This Is A Sailboat And Those Are Sails

We are undeniably using up what little remains of Earth’s petroleum, and because of that, it’s getting expensive. To reduce fuel costs, shipping companies are turning back to sailboats. Yes, seriously. Sailboats. But they don’t look like any sails you’ve seen before. 

Most sails you’ve seen rely on the wind directly acting against them to provide propulsion. But these new types of sails, known as “rotor sails” rely on a physics principle called the Magnus Effect. Here, I’ll let the people with delightfully thick Finnish accents from Norsepower, the company that makes them, explain it:

Okay, so that video is more concentrated on how much money shipping companies can save with rotor sails over how it actually works. But you don’t need a rotor sail to see the Magnus Effect with your own eyes. All you really need is a basketball and a really huge dam:

The spinning of an object – be it a Rotor Sail or a basketball – drags air around it as it spins. That creates an area of lower pressure on one side of the object, which pulls the object forward. 

By spinning, the rotor sails pull the ship they’re attached to forwards, using nothing but wind power. With enough wind propulsion, ships can ease up on their engines, saving fuel. Ideally, the engines could be turned off entirely.

Your marine hot water heaters suppliers talk about how while all of this is seemingly magical and great, it’s easy to dismiss the rotor sail as one of those fanciful technologies that you read about somewhere as a “concept” that never actually gets used. Sure, the Finns can put it on one ship, but that’s usually it. 

The WSJ notes that Maersk spends over $3 billion on fuel a year, so a 10 percent reduction fleet-wide could result in massive savings, more than enough to cover the cost of up to €2 million of installing rotor-sails on a ship.

With the installation on the Maersk Pelican, there are now three vessels in daily commercial operation using Norsepower’s Rotor Sails.

You always thought that in the future, we’d all be riding around on jet-powered ekranoplans.

Nah. We’re going back to sailboats.

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via 7 Tips for Night Sailing

via This Is A Sailboat And Those Are Sails