We train, however, for the extremely unlikely event that things get too exciting. Ideally, the passage will be uneventful to the point of mild boredom. I am told that some people actually enjoy celestial navigation - probably the same sickos who like math and play sudoku for fun!! Survival At Sea I’ll report back on whether I manage to complete the course and whether I think it is actually worth bothering with for would-be world travelers. Then, once you have those angles you use some form of math magic -geometry perhaps (fairly certain I was suspended from school much of that semester), to determine where on the earth you are. Hopefully, they’ll post some pics of their sail and training! Celestial Navigationįor those who don’t already know, celestial navigation relies on using a sextant to find the angle of various celestial bodies at certain times of the day or night. In the interim, please follow Stacey and Eric on their current adventure. We’ll report back on the sail and training once complete. Stacey and Eric will then be our onboard experts in using our biggest and prettiest sail for the crossing. There, the future liveaboard crew of Wild Rumpus will sail, using the Wingaker, to Greece under the tutilage of Lothar, owner of Wingaker. Eric and Stacey will be heading to Palermo Italy in January. Luckily, we were able to schedule a training sail with the owner of the Wingaket sail loft for some of our crew.

Nobody on board is trained to use the Wingaker. Used correctly, this sail could transform a passage into a magic carpet ride 24 hours a day. Used incorrectly, the sail will blow apart into shreds of lightweight material that might as well be made of money and tears. Imagine a giant parachute that only works up to 20 miles an hour of wind and then blows apart. For the non-sailors, a spinnaker is a downwind sail (wind behind us) with an enormous surface area constructed of relatively light material. The Wingaker is a form of symmetrical spinnaker.

Wild rumpus 2021