If you have any doubts about how wave action affects your chances of seeing a flashing light, try a practice man-overboard pick-up on a rough night using your floating emergency ‘flasher’ to mark the dummy.

Ever wondered what those telltales are for on a race boat or a cruiser with new sails?

Trying to sail too close to the wind almost never does any good and it’s a common mistake.

GPS is the best friend we’ve got, but we all know that it suffers from the ‘rubbish in –  garbage out’ problem.

Out at sea, we know that a collision risk exists by noting whether the vessel in question is keeping a steady bearing.

When you’re entering a harbour or a narrow bay and you need to give one side a certain amount of clearance, bear in mind that while it may be impossible in practice to be sure of keeping a certain measured distance from a point, the eye can readily divide a picture up into halves or thirds.

When it’s blowing, don’t even try to winch in a big headsail sitting down. Manoeuvre your body …

Steering a cruiser close-hauled in darkness is largely a matter of feel. As the boat runs off the wind, heel angle may increase, and the boat will slow down when she comes fifteen degrees or more below her best course.

‘Lassoing’ a mooring buoy by dropping a bight of line over it then heaving in the slack is a useful means of securing temporarily, especially where there is neither mooring ring nor pick-up buoy with its promise of a strop. The technique should, however, only be used as a last resort and never as the [...]

Any possible ambiguity can be cut out of helm orders by making all references in terms of the boat herself. ‘Keep it on the left’, when approaching a buoy could mean the helmsman should sail to the left of the buoy, but it might also mean that the buoy will run by to the left [...]