Avoiding engine failures in rough seas Issue 52: Jan/Feb 2007 IT USUALLY TAKES A COMBINATION OF failures, poor decisions, and bad luck to narrow down your options. We had been learning that our new cr...
Working, working, and waiting for the lulls Issue 53 : Mar/Apr 2007 My friend George will occasionally point out that when you work for yourself you only have to work about half-time. He explains that...
Sailing is mostly not done for money anymore Issue 52: Jan/Feb 2007 IN THE FALL OF 2006 WE DROVE THE GOOD OLD PICKUP, “YETI,” TO the Annapolis Sailboat Show, where we had a booth for the first time. W...
Get to know your boat’s capabilities Issue 53 : Mar/Apr 2007 We motored out of the little anchorage in the North Channel of Lake Huron into a stiffening afternoon breeze. We were beginning to learn ou...
Advice for avoiding problems with your roller headsail Issue 54 : May/Jun 2007 It was 3 A.M. The wind had reached the forecasted gale force, and somewhere in the marina I could hear the sound of a jib...
Compulsory testing and licensing send the wrong message Issue 54 : May/Jun 2007 The Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Auxiliary have recently thrown their weight behind the idea of mandatory testing and...
If you change the boat, the boat changes you Issue 55 : Jul/Aug 2007 In the old days when quality was truly more important than price, those of us who were charged with designing things that would be ...
It’s helpful — but there’s no absolute certainty Issue 56 : Sept/Oct 2007 We were following the channel behind the breakwater from Prince Arthur’s Landing Marina, heading toward the entrance to Thunde...
That’s the question. But is there an answer? Issue 57 : Nov/Dec 2007 Very early in the life of Good Old Boat magazine I learned to regret publishing any material about knots. Knots are difficult to un...
How collision regulations apply in real life Issue 58 : Jan/Feb 2008 I studied the radar screen as the heavy cruiser USS Newport News crept through the night down the Lamma Channel into Hong Kong harb...
Bad weather turns plans into uncertainties Issue 58 : Jan/Feb 2008 I was coiling the Shorepower Cord on the pier at Prince Arthur’s Landing Marina in preparation for getting under way. Conditions were...
Their “working girl” became a “lady who could dance” Issue 59 : Mar/Apr 2008 We were incredibly lucky when we bought our first “big boat.” I’d sailed for many years, but the biggest thing I’d owned wa...
A better way to mount deck hardware Issue 67: July/Aug 2009 No doubt the builders who installed the original deck hardware on your boat took the easy way, and later owners who added further hardware p...
An informal survey for our readers Issue 66 : May/Jun 2009 As the national and world economies started heading south, Good Old Boat magazine made some rigging changes to help us weather the storm. Mos...
Trimming your sails to the wind gradient Issue 70 : Jan/Feb 2010 You can have a very happy life and never understand sail twist. You can even be a reasonably good sail trimmer without understanding al...
Valuable tips for upgrading deck hardware Issue 71 : Mar/Apr 2010 I have not spent a lot of time crawling around the hidden spaces of high-end luxury yachts, but the vast majority of the fiberglass pr...
Mechanical advantage for the windlass disadvantaged Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 For about 19 years, we have anchored Mystic without benefit of bow rollers or a windlass. When we were weekend sailors, we o...
Thinking beyond the pail Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 Aboard Mystic the “ship’s bucket” is an important piece of gear. When it’s inactive, it holds the vacuum cleaner and is buried deep in the port cockpit...
Diesel envy? Take another look at the gasoline engine that came with your good old boat If you own a sailboat, there is a good chance that you recognize the Atomic 4 engine by name, even if you...
The ClampTite alternative is more effective and less injurious Issue 127: July/Aug 2019 When most sailors think of hose clamps they think of the ubiquitous worm-drive steel clamp. Worm-drive clamps ar...
It is a genuine pleasure to read just about anything Dave Gerr writes. His books range from popular broad-appeal works like The Nature of Boats to very specialized books like the Propeller Handbook an...
This is the one book that should be aboard every cruising sailboat. When the first edition came out, I read it cover-to-cover. When the second edition came out, a flip through the pages showed some up...
Summary of Testing Crip Splices After reading Gord May’s article (“Ohm’s law and You” published in the March/April 2002 edition of Good Old Boat magazine), I was concerned abou...
Don Casey wants to make electricity as simple as possible. So in Sailboat Electrics Simplified, part of the International Marine Sailboat Library series, he omits extensive theory and keeps his explan...
Illustrated Sail and Rig Tuning is a little book which takes on a big job. Since it’s 9 1/2 by 6 3/4 inches and 80 pages, we had to wonder. The book is intentionally small and of high quality pa...
Not on AMAZON (SIX ISSUES USA $38US; CANADA $39.50) REVIEWED BY JERRY POWLAS Water Craft magazine is a little different. It is a publication from “across the pond” that has all the mystiqu...
Why do some yachts have long overhangs and sharp ends while others have plumb bows and very broad sterns? In Yacht Design Explained, Steve Killing and Douglas Hunter explain how different racing handi...