A fold-away extension is a seat and a workspace Issue 88 : Jan/Feb 2013 In 2003, a couple of years before retirement, my wife and I fell in love with and purchased a handsome trailerable 25-foot 1995 ...
Creative solutions for hard-to-use spaces Issue 90: May/June 2013 In a smallish galley it’s hard to justify the space taken up by an oven. I removed the oven in my 31-foot ketch, Talisman, replaced it...
Interior ventilation as an art form Issue 90: May/June 2013 Among the rituals we held during our many family sailing adventures, one was airing out the boat. For a family of six crowded in a small sai...
Seeing and feeling full-size is believing Issue 89 : Mar/Apr 2013 What would you do if you had the chance to start all over and rebuild the interior of your sailboat? I would encourage you to do it. B...
Wood is practical and attractive Issue 89 : Mar/Apr 2013 In 2002, Magali and I totally redesigned and rebuilt the cockpit of Sigfrid, our 34-foot 6-inch ketch. Where before we had nothing more than a ...
Vinyl restores the look and the footing Issue 92 : Sept/Oct 2013 Back in the early days of Good Old Boat (March 2000), I wrote an article detailing my efforts to bring new life to the interior of our ...
A tired saloon table gets a facelift Issue 92 : Sept/Oct 2013 The tabletop and countertops on Jammin, my 1981 Stevens 47, are a lovely almond Formica that was the must-have material before Corian came...
A drop leaf makes and saves space Issue 94 : Jan/Feb 2014 Owners of sailboats of a certain vintage face a dearth of counter space during food preparation and galley cleanup. The boat is, after all, a ...
Modifying an anchor-locker lid Issue 95 : Mar/Apr 2014 Our C&C 35, Secret Plans, came with a navel pipe on the anchor-locker lid for the anchor rode to pass through. It was also excellent for smas...
Taking a leaf out of Good Old Boat Issue 95 : Mar/Apr 2014 I was intrigued by an article by John Lively in the May 2009 issue of Good Old Boat, “The Case for Books.” John replaced the factory bulkhead...
Simple security for sliding doors Issue 96 : May/Jun 2014 There are all kinds of pins. There are hairpins, clothespins, straight pins, and tenpins. But there is only one kind of Reinpin! In the Septem...
Banish bugs at the point of entry Issue 96 : May/Jun 2014 Like most sailors, I hold a healthy respect for Mother Nature and accept most of what she has to offer as an interesting challenge. Storms, ti...
A pie plate lets in great helpings of sky Issue 97 : Jul/Aug 2014 While preparing Ganymede, our Cape George 31 cutter, for a summer cruise in northern waters, we thought it would be nice to get more l...
A handy hybrid of a handhold and hook Issue 99 : Nov/Dec 2014 I love tinkering on my 1960 Pearson Triton. The venerable Triton was built from 1959 through 1967 by Pearson in Bristol, Rhode Island, and...
Investing in overhead pays dividends below Issue 101 : Mar/Apr 2015 Having owned my almost-40-year-old Islander 36 for 17 years, I am always looking at ways to renew its beauty. One of the items that ...
. . . buys megayacht looks for a small outlay Issue 101 : Mar/Apr 2015 “You owe my father $175,” Carolyn told me one day when I came home from work. “What for?” I asked. “For the wood to make the boat...
Imagination, a little paint, and a few pennies go a long way Issue 103 : Jul/Aug 2015 I was sitting on the head in my Paceship 26, Pelorus, when I realized that everything in that small space was a sh...
Useless spaces can earn their keep Issue 104 : Sept/Oct 2015 Our MacGregor 26D, Thebote, has a tiny sink area that is relatively useless. For a long time it held the wastebasket. Recently, at the requ...
Heat the food, not the cabin and crew Issue 104 : Sept/Oct 2015 I should put this on the table right now: I am a vegetarian. When every other boater in the harbor is preparing dinner on an outside gri...
A drop-in refrigerator delivers the cold Issue 104 : Sept/Oct 2015 Whether to have an icebox or a refrigerator on a sailboat has always been a difficult choice, especially on a small boat with limited...
Let there be light, even in the cold and wet Issue 105 : Nov/Dec 2015 Before we left home for a year-long land-and-sea cruise around the continent, during which time we would live aboard our 25-foot C...
A salad bowl was the dressing it needed Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 When we purchased Sundew, our Watkins 27, she needed love in many areas, (see “Sundew Returns to Bloom,” May 2013). What she did have, ...
Easy on the eye, exacting in the making Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 While constructing a forward stateroom for a customer, my husband, Dave, was given mostly free rein to design and build what he thought...
Keeping leafy greens fresh without a fridge Issue 108: May/ June 2016 When my partner, Robin, wants to get my attention, he’ll come home with a big beautiful bouquet of freshly cut collard greens. If ...
Ice-cooled air for a cool night’s sleep Issue 108: May/June 2016 Some nights in mid-summer it’s just too hot to sleep on the boat. Even with the companionway and all the ports and hatches open, ...
Installing air conditioning was a cool move Issue 108: May/June 2016 My Down East 45 schooner, Britannia, had neither air conditioning nor heating when I bought her one December in Fort Lauderdale. In...
Reflection and absorption create quiet on board Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 The iron wind is a fixture aboard most of today’s sailboats. On a typical sailboat the inboard engine lives directly beneath th...
A clever trick to keep old dogs working Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 On my 1983 Hunter 30, the nine opening ports in three different sizes — all manufactured by Gray Enterprises — were getting shabbier ea...
Replacing tired or truant screens in old opening ports Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Your boat may be fortunate enough to have been built with quality cast-aluminum or, even better, cast-bronze opening por...
Surface mounts step in where holes are not welcome Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 The gold standard for secure mountings on boats has always been to use through-bolts, with a backing plate if the loads just...
