Make holding-tank chemistry work in your favor Iss...
March 12, 2026
Moving On Hello Michael and Good Old Boat team! We take our responsibility to live lightly on the planet seriously. Whether living off-grid on land or cruising on our Alberg 30, eco-values drive our d...
Nautical Scribes We heard from prolific nautical novel writer Jinx Schwartz that prolific nautical novel writer Ed Robinson has died. Ed lived on a boat and traveled throughout Florida and the Bahamas...
Want to successfully sell your boat on your own? Here’s how. Issue 136: Jan/Feb 2021 Over the past decade, my husband and I have bought six sailboats and sold five of them (we live aboard the boat we ...
A Better Battery for Backup Regarding Jim Shell’s article in last month’s The Dogwatch, “A Battery for Every Need,” Eveready Ultimate Lithium batteries may be a better choice than alkaline batteries f...
Rarely do I really enjoy a cruising memoir that melds a family story with descriptions of white-knuckled adventure. I also tend to identify with solo sailors or the male half of a cruising couple, bei...
For years I’ve been landing 36- to 48-inch striped bass during the Chesapeake Bay spring trophy season. It’s a spring ritual and yet, I never cease to be amazed at how easy it is to wind in 200 feet o...
Protagonist Emmeline “Em” Ridge is a boat delivery captain of limited experience. Newly widowed, her husband having died in a kayak accident, she lives on a tidal island just east of Portland, Maine, ...
Feel-Good Holiday Juice Our own Behan Gifford sent me an email that included this heads-up: “I am smitten with the whole concept. It is just loaded with feel-good holiday juice!” Indeed! Residents of ...
Author and Olympic sailor Carol Newman Cronin’s fourth novel, Ferry to Cooperation Island, takes readers to a fictional setting in Rhode Island Sound between the real Block Island and Newport, where t...
This is the perfect book for these times. When you can’t get out cruising on your own boat (very far, anyway), voyage logs like this one help to cure stuck-on-land blues. The title doesn’t lie: it’s t...
A Condemnation of the Chipper While reading the latest Dogwatch, I followed a link to Rob Mazza’s review of Dick Carter’s sailing autobiography. Rob mentioned that Carter began his offshor...
Three New Legends In 1906, Thomas Fleming Day founded the Bermuda Race with the revolutionary aim of providing an ocean race for amateur sailors in normal boats. In the process, he started the world’s...
We were preparing for our spring cruise and going over our on-board dry-cell battery inventory. Our conclusion? Our inventory of AA and AAA batteries stays fresh because we go through them, whereas we...
Dynamic climbing rope can be an intriguing option for some uses aboard. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 I’m a sailor, and I’m a climber. For both pursuits, rope is central. Not surprisingly, because the use c...
Tips from a world-cruising fellow sufferer It never fails. Every time we get into a discussion with a new or would-be cruising sailor, there comes a moment when a concerned look crosses his or her fac...
Easily taken for granted, rope is a critical thread throughout human history. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 What do sailors, the Egyptian pyramids, Britain’s cotton mills, and the first space shuttle all ha...
Tricing is a quick fix for a multitude of dangling dinghy issues. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 For a sailor on the hook, few things are more convenient than a dinghy on davits. As soon as the anchor is set...
…and Two More Lift-Keel Performers Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Everyone knows that deep draft improves sailing performance but restricts cruising options. The ability to reduce draft would certainly...
Circumnavigating Vancouver Island provides stiff sailing, natural wonders, and kind locals. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Years ago, after decades of sailing the Salish Sea, my wife, Carey, and I decided we...
No halyard? No bosun’s chair? No problem for this crew. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 It was a warm July day when my crew and I set out from Chesapeake Bay aboard Sequoia, our modest but trusty 1977 T...
Sailing seemed over, till an old friend returned. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 “Sailboat for sale. $400.” The ad caught my attention: just what I was looking for, and the price was right. “It just ne...
Edson Marine clearly has an eye for what the market needs, adding to its products a garden hose connector fitting made by Banjo, one of the best-known manufacturers of this style of fitting. It’s an i...
In my experience, quick-release fire extinguisher mounting clasps are cheaply made and easily broken. Bungee cord can solve part of this problem, but it eliminates any quick-release capabilities. A be...
Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Marvin Creamer, a New Jersey geography professor who became the only known person to circumnavigate the globe without any instruments whatsoever—not even a timepiece—died in Au...
Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 At Highland Yacht Club in Toronto, two of the last three years’ sailing seasons were cut short by months due to high water levels. It was the same for all Lake Ontario sailors....
Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 When I think about my friend, Larry Pardey, I picture an old cowboy crossing the open range and coming across a barbed-wire fence. Though he cuts it in disgust and drives his h...
A simple elevator system enables top efficiency for depth sounder transducer. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 If you haven’t run aground, you haven’t sailed the Chesapeake,” is a common refrain among those wh...
Even a small boat can teach big lessons when it comes to abrupt, discontinuous change. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Ellen and I have owned our 12-foot catboat, Finn, for 16 years. We love how the working c...
Bolted boltrope? Try this handy harpoon to retrieve it. Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Many good old boats (and newer boats with laminate sails) feature mainsails that attach to the mast via a boltrope in th...
