Having capitulated, here’s how to raise the waterl...
September 25, 2026
Boat Show Blues First, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival was canceled, due to the pandemic (but they are putting on a fantastic virtual show, with a movie premiere. Next, we heard that the Newpor...
Amongst the hundreds of sailors I’ve known, only one kept the same boat nearly his entire life; she was a sweet 17-foot Silhouette, with bilge keels, that my friend Bob maintained flawlessly, a...
When we bought our 1976 Westerly Centaur, Breaking Wind, it came with an ancient-but-working Marinco solar-powered vent. Then, on a sporty day sailing on the Chesapeake Bay, the fan, poorly attached t...
Electrified Last month, I put it to the readers about electric propulsion in sailboats—I wanted your take, and I got it. As a whole, there are strong feelings and a strong desire for information. I hi...
A good writer doesn’t tell readers their story, they show readers their story. I know that Randy Baker succeeded on this front because I felt like I was almost aboard with he and his wife, Cheryl, whe...
Thanks to a little help from her friends, a good old boat finds a new paramour. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 I didn’t really know Nat. Nothing beyond a friendly smile and hello as we passed each ot...
Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 If you’re lucky in this life, you uncover, understand, and embrace what makes you happy. And if you’re gifted in this passion, if you can make it the foundation of your purpos...
A simple system developed for RVs provides a versatile table for saloon and cockpit. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 Fulmar, our 1982 Pacific Seacraft 37, came to us without a dining table—not in the saloon,...
With the ship’s wheel base, a clever design makes for finer dining. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 Our good old Bristol 35 has a cozy dinette in the main saloon, but the weather here in Florida often ...
Sourcing rigging tension creep reveals an old flaw. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 For a few years, the shrouds and stays on Mikula, my 24-foot Seafarer, would slowly lose their tension over the course of e...
Refined to its elements, a day of sailing becomes miraculous. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 Wind and physics create the lift, sucking me along, the same dynamics as flight. One man, two sails, three sheets...
…and Two More Freestanding-Rigged, Solid Sailers. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 Looking for boats to compare to the Nonsuch 36, the obvious commonality has to be the freestanding rig. That cer...
A fast, Big Catboat Whose Watchword is Simplicity. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 Wendy and Frank Glanznig were beating up Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay in a CS30 sloop, tacking hard upwind with rails un...
Georgia’s Cumberland Island is a land of strange beauty and rich history. Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 It may be the world’s largest Thanksgiving potluck. Six miles up St. Marys River, the dividing ...
Issue 134: Sept/Oct 2020 After nearly three weeks on a ventilator in a Cape Town, South Africa, hospital, stricken with COVID-19, world voyager Patrick Childress sailed over the horizon for the last t...
Mark Ellis, the energetic designer of the Niagara 35, Nonsuch 30, and many other handsome production and custom boats, is a New York Yankee who moved to Canada as a member of George Cuthbertson’s cour...
As the title suggests, protagonist Paul Williams lives a simple life. He’s a single dad living aboard a 26-foot plywood boat, moored in an almost abandoned marina known as Davison’s Dyke, ...
Best Harbor in the U.S. is… US Harbors surveyed an audience of 5 million and received votes for 786 different harbors as candidates for the best. The winner? Depoe Bay, Oregon. This is a cool pl...
An Early Cat I enjoyed Ronald Sundelin’s article “A Very Early Fiberglass Cat” (The Dogwatch, June 2020). It reminded me of my first boating adventure, for which I used a couple of old 40-gallon...
If you were to try and pick the day (yes, the very day) that the United States was founded, what would it be? The founding of Jamestown? The arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers? The Declaration of Independ...
We’re among the lucky ones, we made it. After years of dreaming and prepping, we’re living aboard our boat in the Tropics. It’s everything we hoped it would be and we miss none of the creature comfort...
Secrets of a cheese lover revealed at last Whether you decide on cocktail nibbles, late-night snacks, a sandwich filler, or a main course spice, cheese is one of the most versatile ingredients in a cru...
We’ve known for a long time that dark colored plastic water jugs far outlast clear or white ones. Seems the color gives UV protection. We noted colored dacron sails seem to outlast white ones unless t...
A backup battery system for a fixed-mount VHF ensures communications in an emergency. Issue 133: July/Aug 2020 Despite the introduction of satellite communications and cell phones over the past couple...
For this couple, one time around with a special boat just wasn’t quite enough. Issue 133: July/Aug 2020 It had been a rather sad Christmas; my husband and I had not yet hit on a way to resolve s...
Battered old boats deserve our love. Let us count the reason why. Issue 133: July/Aug 2020 We try to keep her in good shape, but our Catalina 30 is over 40 years old, and as the number of cracks in he...
Summer Sailstice is on! We were shocked to realize that this is the 20th anniversary of Summer Sailstice, the annual worldwide celebration of sailing that coincides with—you guessed it—summer solstice...
In 1950, a friend of mine paid $7.00 for one half of a surplus aircraft wingtip fuel tank, made of aluminum. He added a keel to it, lost interest in the project, and sold the fuel tank boat to me for ...
