Since April the FirstShift essays have run to well over 150,000 words. In an archive they sit in the order I wrote them, which is rarely the order a crew needs them in. So I have rebuilt them as books. The first two volumes are finished. Volume 1, The Fast Boat , is about speed you can find…

Sometimes there is simply too much data. Especially when you are trying to helm faster, which you always are. A note before we start : Jock Wishart, offshore racer and adventurer, is a good friend of mine and was a better one still to my father. When Jock offers advice, I take it. His latest is…

Part two of two. Part one told the story of how sailmaking became an engineering business. This part is about spending your own money TP52 yacht getting ready for a mark rounding. The sails are the key and you want to start with the best you can afford … fast, strong, robust and affordable… a big…

Part one of two. Part two looks at who owns whom today, what a small loft is actually selling, what is genuinely new, why quotations vary so widely, and how to run a sail tender rather than simply collect three numbers. Why I know it’s still complicated to buy a sail In 1999 and 2000 I was buying…

FIRSTSHIFT TECHNICAL: New materials are quietly rewriting yacht racing. From halyards and sheets to standing rigging, synthetic fibres are replacing steel, and changing boat design.

The knot that is tied to the past, but is it now past its time?

Physics underpin everything and never more important on a racing yacht

PFAS, the “forever chemicals”, made modern foul-weather gear work. Now they are being forced off the deck, and sailors are about to rediscover the lost art of looking after their kit.

The most-read piece in the FirstBeat archive. If you joined in the last three months, this is where to start.

I'm talking about managing power in racing yachts and why its got stupid

A practical, thought provoking and technical guide for serious racers by Stuart Greenfield BSc, RYA yachtmaster, FirstBeat offshore racing coach