By Will Sofrin Sailing offshore, on a coastal passage or racing, winch overrides can happen. How do you deal with them effectively? The energy on board is tense. Our rail is pressed hard down, and I am getting covered by walls of white water breaking over our deckhouse. Unfortunately, I wasn't dressed for these conditions since I thought it would be just another one of our typical Wednesday night beer can races. The race committee was usually pretty good about calling the race off if the conditions got too intense, but not tonight. "Thirty seconds!" our timekeeper shouts, who is…

Sadly, I’ve recently realized that, sailing out of Los Angeles, I don’t think as much about the tide as I should. The changing of the tides has little impact on our Wednesday night races, and being tied up to a floating dock in the very sheltered Marina del Rey basin means my boat always feels to be in a safe place. There have been times when I had to be very aware of what the tide was doing, like when sailing along the southern coast of England or crossing Long Island Sound. Growing up in Connecticut, I was taught that…