You’ll notice a new NauticEd sailing school widget next time you login to NauticEd. It’s a quick snapshot of your Sailing Certificate Progress through the ranks and levels.
Sailing Certificate Progress
The widget views your completed NauticEd theory experience and your practical experience logged in your NauticEd online logbook. It runs an algorithm against that data and presents a graphical representation of how close you are to reaching each rank and level.
In the example above, the student has completed the Skipper requirements, is 76% of the way towards Bareboat Charter Master and 48% of the way towards Captain. The slider bar is weighed according to course effort and practical experience logged.
When you click on the [more] button you are lead to a page which shows in more detail what your requirements would be to achieve 100% in the next Ranks above.
You’ll notice that NauticEd does place significant weight on practical experience. We absolutely believe that after taking classes you can’t expect to step on a boat and know everything. And we also believe that students must have a grounding in theory. Rules of the Nautical Road, navigation, turbulence theory vs laminar flow theory, knowledge of what to do in an emergency etc etc are all theory based elements in learning to sail. I guess we might compare this to an electrician. I would assume that most people would want their electrician to have studied the theory as well as spent many hours as an understudy working in the field in a practical manner before he comes to rewire a house. In fact this is why State governments require such theory and practical experience combo licenses.
It’s an interesting debate as to weather state governments should require boating licences. But I digress…
Anyway, next time you’re logged into NauticEd take a look at your Sailing Certificate Progress widget.
We had a blast putting this Ocean Navigation Discussion video together.
The big time fun part was coming up with the dialog. By the constraints of the program to create it we had to use an astronaut and Napolean. Take a view of the video and let us know if it was at least mildly funny.
We’re going to embed it into the start of the NauticEd Coastal Navigation Sailing Course to get the student in the right mood for learning. Our thoughts are if some one is in a good mood they can absorb more info. So you’ll find that, through out all NauticEd courses, we try to inject a little humor. It’s something that I think can be done more effectively in online learning as opposed to a paper book.
We used Google Earth to find the distance from the Taj Mahal to Auckland New Zealand. The line it drew was accurately a “great circle” which on a sphere is the shortest distance between two points.
Great Circle Distance from Taj Mahal to Auckland New Zealand
NauticEd’s recent growth spurt has been due to our students telling other students about us. So we have implemented a reward system for that awesome behavior.
Introducing NauticEd’s Social Expansion Loop Program. Watch the video here.
Essentially – you can now set up your own NauticEd Promocode and give it out to as many friends as you want. When your friends use your promocode they get $15 off any one NauticEd Sailing Course and you get big time kudo’s for that. Then you get to accumulate $10 credit for every friend that uses your code. Refer 2 friends – get $20 credit and thus any NauticEd clinic for half price. Refer 4 friends and get a NauticEd clinic for free. etc. etc. There is no limit to the credit you can accumulate.
To set this up – login to your NauticEd account and click on the new “Referrals” tab and follow the instructions. After your friends use the code, you’ll notice your credit starting to accumulate.
We wanted to implement this because it is rewarding what people were doing anyway but with out the reward – so thanks to everyone for being such great stewards for NauticEd. Much appreciated. Please enjoy the new reward program.
So now – if there is anyone you know of who wants to learn to sail, get a sailing certification or just brush up on their sailing skills, make sure you send to them your personalized NauticEd promocode.
But the only one catch is that people can only use an introductory promocode once, meaning that if some one else gives them their code before you do – you won’t get the credit – the other referring person will. So act fast – add the promocode to your facebook or twitter feeds and email anybody who is even thinking about sailing.
No – it’s not a typo – it’s definitely “Harbour” as opposed to “Harbor”. That’s because its in Auckland, New Zealand and down here the blue of the ocean is a colour not color. The extra “u” is something to do with the direction of bath water spinning the opposite way down the drain. (See the NauticEd Weather Course to learn about Coriolis spin effect and why a cyclone spins clockwise down here). But … I digress…
I sailed in a little wednesday night local regatta (about 40 boats) this week in Auckland New Zealand Harbour. And what a pleasure it was to get out on the water racing again. I hooked up with an old University buddy, Dave Berry, on a Young 88 (8.8 meter New Zealand design and built racing sailboat).
The Young 88 Courtesy of young88.org.nz
The Young 88 Class has quite an active fleet and typically about 12 boats race in the one design fleet race on any given Wednesday. This week half of New Zealand was still on vacation so the fleet size was down a little. Our motley crew assembled at about 5:50pm for a 6:20 start. I use the term “motley” because it’s an excuse to say that since we had not raced as a team together before, we didn’t do so well at the finish line.
Our spinaker launches and take downs were flawless but we got our butts kicked on the long upwind leg. With out knowing the Young 88 sailing profile and best practices, I’m guessing that our speed slowed due to being over powered and thus over healing (I think).
Over healing slows the boat down in several ways. The main ones are:
Due to the angle, you have less keel vertically presented to the water and so your side slip increases.
Drag is increased because the hull is not optimally designed for these kinds of angles
It’s difficult for high speed wind to stay attached to the lee side of a large sail and thus more turbulence spins off the back of the sail reducing the effectiveness of the sail.
Please comment on other reasons if you’d like to add.
So in high winds, you’re sometimes better off going with a smaller sail. In the middle of a regatta however, the time it takes to change out a sail is very costly so you’ve got to do your best guess at the sail vs the conditions prior to the start.This comes from experience in operating your boat. IE you’ve got to loose a lot of races before you start to gain some placements.
Another factor which we had to be cognizant of was that the tide was ebbing out of the harbour. This meant we needed to keep out of the main channel when going back up the harbour to keep out of the highest current flow. This is part of local knowledge and you can bet that the old hands in a local area will be doing better than newbys.
Here’s a pic of some the fleet coming out from under the Auckland Harbour Bridge on the way to the finish line.
All this brings us to the conclussion that this year we’ll release a regatta racing sailing course so stay tuned. Become a fan of NauticEd on facebook http://www.facebook.com/nauticed and we’ll let you know as soon as we launch that course.
A quick final point for this entry is that if you really want to learn to sail – get your self on a race boat in a regatta. It’s the way I learned years ago. You instantly pick up best practices and those practices are drilled in many times over. There’s no space for learning bad sailing practices in a race. The results are immediately presented to you. Almost every sailing location has a yacht club. All you have to do is to put you name and ph number on the board and you’ll get a call or stand on the dock looking lost on any race day and every short handed boat will be bidding over you.
Now, want some REAL FUN?
Want to learn from the best?
Want to get out of the cold?
Come on NauticEd’s 80 foot Maxi Yacht in the Rolex Regatta in March 2011 in St. Thomas or if you’re female join NauticEd’s 51 ft Swan all female crew in the same Rolex Regatta.
It’s an old song but it certainly rang the bells for me recently. Over this last new year’s break 2010-2011, my family, extended family and friends that we call family all traveled to Matauri Bay in New Zealand for probably one of the best aquatic experiences one could imagine. Unfortunately it was sans sailing cruising but sometimes it’s good to see the other side of the ocean (meaning other than sailing).
Matauri Bay - New Zealand
Here is the list of aquatic/camping toys we took
6.7 m Surtees aluminum fishing/diving boat
5 m wakeboarding/party jet boat
6 sets of scuba gear
10 fishing rods and reels
2 lobster snare hooks
3 windsurfers
4 sea kayaks
2 skim boards
3 surfboards
5 boogie boards
1 performance jet ski
An uncountable amount of tents
A huge marquee tent
5 sun umbrellas
Probably 2 liters of sunscreen
2 barbecues
and…
23 dozen eggs.
Our Campsite at Matauri Bay
The result, as with all vacations, was achieving absolutely nothing except good times. See the video here.
Matauri Bay is about a 4 hour drive north of Auckland. The bay is about 1 km wide with a beautiful sandy beach. A 250 m high upside down bowl shaped headland sits at one end and the top of that provides a commanding view out of the Cavalli Islands 1 km off shore. You can also see 30 kms south to the famous Bay of Islands.
The Cavalli Islands provide an abundance of sea life and spectacular anchorage bays. The water temperature at this time of the year is 20 deg C (68 deg F). In fact the entire Coastline is pretty impressive with high rocky cliffs leading down to beautiful bay after beautiful bay.
Cavalli Islands
If you ever think about sailing in New Zealand, spend the almost required 4-5 days exploring the incredible Bay of Islands, but do not miss the Cavalli Islands and then venture slightly further north to Whangaparoa Harbour, a remote harbour with bush right down to the shoreline. If you’re not thinking about sailing in New Zealand – you should start. One of our Sailing Charter business friends here in the Bay of Islands is Sailing New Zealand, http://www.sailingnewzealand.co.nz give them a call or contact me (http://www.nauticed.org/contactus) and I’ll hook you up.
Cavalli Islands, New Zealand - Sailing Paradisese
Scuba: We scuba dived so much that on one particular day I actually turned it down and opted for a day on the beach. We dived mostly for New Zealand Lobster which is referred to as Crayfish. The New Zealand Crayfish has no pincers unlike the lobster most people in the USA think of, but they do have a very spiny crustacean shell which makes it necessary to use a dive glove to capture them. One variety called the Pack Horse Cray can get pretty big.
Matauri Bay is also the sunken location of the famous Green Peace protest boat, the Rainbow Warrior. It’s wreck was moved here after being initially attacked and sunk by the French Secret Service in 1985 in the Auckland habour. And so we were able to dive this wreck situated in 23 m of water. The sea has taken pretty good hold of it now and it thus inhabits a really great display of reef life. There are a few places for advanced divers to swim through the wreck and whilst it’s very ominous to swim through a sunken ship it is a fun thing to do to see the fish attending school inside the hull.
A memorial to the Rainbow Warrior and it’s crew Member who died in the attack is erected atop the Matauri Bay headland.
Rainbow Warrior Memorial
Thanks go to Craig Johnston who saved my dive. We showed up at the dive site in our 6.7 m dive boat, suited up (5mil wet suit required preferably with a hood), almost ready to tip over backwards into the water when I discovered that I’d left my mask behind. Although air is pretty important down there – a mask is probably the next most important. Craig was the Dive Master on the Paihia Dive boat that tied up to us. Paihia Dive is a professional dive company that takes tourist divers out to the Rainbow Warrior and Matauri Bay area for a 2 tank dive. Embarrassingly, I called over to their group and pleaded for a temporary borrow of a spare mask and offered up a bag of Salt and Vinegar chips as compensation. Graciously Craig accepted the highly unfair trade. Thanks Craig – the dive was great. Hope you enjoyed our chips.
Scuba Diving in the Cavalli Islands
Fishing and Sea Life: It’s hard to put a hook on the bottom in New Zealand with out catching something. In the north, it’s mostly snapper and thus the 12 days were mostly spent eating superbly fresh snapper although we did hook (and eat) quite a few other varieties.
Snapper - about 11lbs
All in all we sampled 11 different sea garden foods, including, lobster, local abalonie (called Paua), scallops, and fish fish fish.
Crayfish catch of the day
At Matauri Bay you launch your boat off the beach – there is no ramp. Dean is the local tractor driver and for $20 he’ll expertly launch and retrieve your boat. I say expertly because sometimes the waves can be a little challenging and an expert tractor driver can save you from a lot of damage should a wave come in at the wrong time.
Launching the boat
Windsurfing: It’s been a while since I’ve windsurfed but now from this trip, I figure it’s time to get back into it. I used to be pretty good about 10 years ago. My 15 year old niece, Steff, wins local competitions and so we went out on a couple of windy days together. I got a few good rides on one particular day when the wind was blowing 30 knots. I chickened out when I ventured out further and started getting into a 2 meter swell. Although I could handle it fine the small voice of caution was speaking PRETTY LOUDLY.
Windsurfing in Matauri Bay
The principle of windsurfing is pretty cool. Once you start to understand sailing and forces it doesn’t take to much to figure it out or get back into it. Raking the mast forward moves the center of pressure of the sail forward and thus positions the force on the board more forward causing the board to turn downwind. Conversely, raking the mast backwards, turns the board towards the wind. The raking movement is done with your hand closest to the mast. Your aft hand works the sail like a mainsheet, pulling the sail to center line on upwind runs or letting out on downwind runs. It acts like an accelerator and helps with your balance.
Steff showed me some technology advances in windsurfing equipment. She told me that tightening up the downhaul made the top of the sail twist out. Wow I had to think abou that for a sec. Turns out it’s pretty easy to understand and is the same principle that I wrote a blog on a few months back. On a flexible mast, tightening the downhaul puts a significant bend in the mast. This bends the tip of the mast down closer to the aft of the boom and thus reduces leech (aft part of the sail) tension on the sail. New windsurfing sails have a large roach in the sail, ie the line from the head (top of the sail) to the clew (back bottom of the sail) is not straight but curves out significantly. Thus reduced leech tension allows the curve of the sail to twist out under wind force. In my previous blog the same twist out on a large sailboat is achieved by releasing the main sheet but bringing the traveler to windward. In both cases you are effectively reducing the size of the sail and more importantly forces aloft on the rig. It’s cool to know that once you understand the principles you can just figure it all out from there.
Skim boarding: I doubt there is very many people at my age hydroplaning on a skim board in the 1 cm wash of the beach waves but anyway I gave it a pretty good go without busting a hip. My 11 year old nephew, Rafi, mastered it quite well and was doing 180’s by the time we left.
Surfing: I’m not a surfer. Give me a sail. But my 60 year old brother-in-law rode the 1.5m waves on several days and showed up every one on the beach.
Jet Skiing: OMG – this jet ski was a high performance version built for time trials and wow it could accelerate faster than you could hold on almost. The requirement to make the tight turns at speed make it very unstable to sit on. In deep water it’s very difficult to climb onboard . One day, it was hosing down with rain and so we figured that the only thing to do on a wet rainy day was to get wet in a big big way. The jet ski was the answer – that was fun.
Sea Kayaking: The rocky coastline around the headland and further up the coast provides a most awesome sea kayaking location. The surge from the swell washes water through cracks between close to shore rocks and reefs. Running the kayak through these is pretty exciting at times. But you also can see into the water and watch the kelp below flow side to side with the occasiona fish venturing along. Seagulls protecting their young dive from the rocks above.
Seakayaking in Matauri Bay
We paddled quite a way up the coast to a house set slightly back from the beach – but there was no road into the house – just a very basic farm track. Which brings up another point – I just can’t think of any other place in the world where you have working farms that go right down to the shore in such a high percentage of coastline than New Zealand. This little (beautiful) house was just sitting there in the most gorgeous bay with a backdrop of a green grass valley and 100 feet from a deserted beach and an ocean loaded with sea life. Wow!
The Beach: Great place for the kids to play. My Daughter and (great) Nephew had the best time of their lives.
Alexandra and Cooper
Whales: I left the high light for the end. We were blessed with 2 visits from a pod of Orca Whales.
Orca Whales Right Next to the Beach
On one occasion they were swimming all around us on the boat when we were returning from a scuba dive on my birthday. On another, they came right into the beach next to us. My sister and I promptly jumped in the sea kayaks to go for a visit. They were breaching all around our kayaks so close that we were getting wet from their blow holes. Although seemingly slightly scary because they have big teeth, our Captain Nemo friend Alex (who we are sure has gills on the sides of his neck, assured us that Orcas in the wild have never eaten anyone. Despite this – I my heart raced a bit when one breached about 5 feet away from my kayak.
Orca Whales
So that’s what one can do in 12 days in paradise with a big family and lots of toys. Now it’s back to work with NauticEd – we’ve got some exciting advances coming this year. Right now we’re working on a referral program to be launched in the next few days and a Skipper test out exam for advanced sailors. Beyond that we’ll launch more courses this year including a sailing race regatta clinic. Some large companies are approaching us for alliances and … whew it’s exicting being at the forefront of technology, education and wrapping it up with something we love – SAILING. I hope you all can take advantage of everything what we offer!
TTYL
Grant
PS - if you’ve ever been to Matauri Bay – add your comment below.
Be the First to Comment 
