How much of a mainsail, as a percent of the length of the luff, is usually considered right for the first reef?
Send your answers to cruisingcompass@bwsailing.com. A winner will be selected randomly from the correct answers and will win a one-year subscription to the digital version of Blue Water Sailing magazine.
Congratulations to Willie Devereaux, La Jolla, CA, who correctly identified the AMVER System in last week’s Mindbender. “AMVER stands for the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue System. It is a voluntary system that connects merchant ships at sea with vessels in distress. More than 22,000 ships participate and an average of 4,000 ships a day report their positions to the AMVER headquarters. Since its inception in 1958, AMVER ships have saved the lives of thousands of mariners and many cruisers.”