How to build your offshore inventory- a webinar by Beth Leonard

by Nancy Knudsen on 3 Jan 2011 Building your offshore inventory - A Seven Seas U webinar with Beth Leonard. The Seven Seas webinars from the Seven Seas Cruising Association are a brilliant way to up your skills in many aspects of seamanship, and all you need is a connection to the internet!

About Beth Leonard:
The one thing Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger didn’t think they needed to learn before their first circumnavigation was how to sail the boat. But over the course of their first few passages, they discovered that their boat was poorly equipped to deal with the realities of offshore conditions. Their sails and sailhandling systems were not set up to keep the boat moving well at deep wind angles in large waves and swell with very light or very strong winds. When they reached New Zealand, they spent thousands of dollars reconfiguring their sail inventory, increasing their miles made good per day on passage by 25% on the second half of their circumnavigation.

Join Beth Leonard for two SevenSeasU webinars (www.SevenSeasU.com) that will use data on wind speeds and conditions from two circumnavigations to help you avoid the costly mistakes they made and to set up the boat for safe, efficient passagemaking from the start.

Part I. Working sails and sail handling (January 11)

Compared to coastal cruising, on average, smaller crews handle bigger boats offshore. In practice, a couple sailing a 40-plus foot boat on a passage will be singlehanding most of the time, managing larger sails in much bigger swell and waves and different wind speeds than when sailing coastally. The size of the boat, the size of the crew and offshore conditions all have implications for how the boat needs to be set up to sail safely and efficiently offshore. This webinar outlines the requirements for bulletproof working sails and sail controls for offshore sailing using data on actual wind conditions and wave heights from two circumnavigations. The pros and cons of alternative mainsail handling systems including in-mast and in-boom furling will be discussed as well as headsail handling, vangs, preventers and other deck hardware. By the end of the webinar, you will have a good idea of what changes you will need to make to adapt your working sails and sailhandling systems for offshore use.

Part II. Additional sail inventory for offshore (January 18)
Once the working sails have been optimized, crews faced with limited storage space and tight budgets have to decide how many and which additional sails to carry. This webinar will use the data on wind speed and angles from two circumnavigations to prioritize additional sail inventory for different boats and budgets. Stable light air sail combinations and bulletproof downwind sail combinations will be discussed in detail, as will the various alternatives for heavy weather sails. By the end of the webinar, you will have a good idea of what sail inventory and sail controls would maximize sailing efficiency and safety offshore on your boat. The webinar will conclude by considering the relative merits of modern sail and line materials and where they make the most sense aboard an offshore cruising boat.

Register for this and other great webinars coming soon: Weather 101 with Chris Parker, Outfitting for Bluewater Cruising with Pam Wall, Solar and Wind Power Technologies with Bob Williams, Heavy Weather Management with Beth Leonard, SSB Operations, Happy Hooking-The Art of Anchoring at www.SevenSeasU.com – the educational branch of Seven Seas Cruising Association (www.ssca.org).

About Seven Seas U:
With today's cutting edge technology SSU instructors can offer webinars (live seminars on the web), allowing participants to actively engage in a class. However, depending on where you are in the world, it may be difficult to make the live webinar. Still no problem - you can register and watch the recording of the class. Then instructors will be available for your emailed questions.

Seven Seas U offer a variety of classes and you will find the program on the website. They will cover such subjects as:

Safety at Sea
Watermakers
Medical Issues
Electronics
SSB/Ham Radios
Homeschooling
Women’s Issues
Sail Trim
Pets Aboard
Diesel Engines
Communication
Writing for the Boating Market
Refrigeration
Alternative Energy
Provisioning
Outboard engines
Cruising Destinations
Anchoring
Navigation
Winlink/Airmail
Weather
Docking
Sail Care
and more!

How do I register for a course?
To become a student at Seven Seas U. You must create a User Name and Password on the www.sevenseasu.com website. You will be sent an email. Click the link in the email to confirm your registration. The email will come from webmaster@SevenSeasU.com so please add this to your Safe Sender list.

Then to register for a class you must first log in with your User Name and Password. Click on Current Courses. Click on a course and hit REGISTER.

Questions? Email administrator@sevenseasu.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

SSCA members: get your discount code for Seven Seas U webinars by logging in to the password protected Members’ Section page of www.ssca.org.

Please go to www.SevenSeasU.com to register for the webinar. Got questions? Email administrator@SevenSeasU.com