Upon upgrading from a cozy, wooden Swifty 13 to a Montgomery 15, I was struck by the stark fiberglass interior of the Monty. I missed the warm, soothing ambiance of a wood cabin. There’s just so...
After replacing the screens that fit the opening portlights on our Bayfield 32, I noticed a narrow gap around the perimeter of the aluminum frame, between the screen and the portlight frame. The tiny ...
The mechanic asked, “Did you check the prop?” “No,” I said into the satellite phone, “why would I do that?” “We’ve had some instances where the prop fell off those saildrive units.” A quick div...
Many of us have Barient winches on our good old boats. If you’ve got them, you may have noticed that they aren’t what they once were. My late 80’s cruiser/racer has 8 of them. Years ago, servicing the...
A dilapidated freebie becomes a respectable tender When I bought my Down East 45 schooner, Britannia, she didn’t come with a dinghy, but she had very sturdy aluminum davits just waiting for a new dink...
When we retired from full-time cruising and built a house on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, my wife Dee and I bought a thoroughly dilapidated 1966 Marshall 18 Sanderling catboat for exploring the B...
Dropboards give way to user-friendly doors Companionway dropboards are cumbersome to remove and replace and inconvenient to store. When you need them, they’re often buried deep in a locker. What’s a s...
Reflection and absorption create quiet on board The iron wind is a fixture aboard most of today’s sailboats. On a typical sailboat the inboard engine lives directly beneath the floor of the cockpit, s...
Cleaning the mainsail track made easy Some time ago, Don Launer came up with a great device for lubricating the mainsail slot (see “Sailtrack Lubricator,” March 2008) but I have always thought there m...
Ferry it from shore to ship without lifting a drop When you’re on the hook, you fill your dinghy with four basic commodities in addition to passengers: trash, diesel, gas, and water. Water is the heav...
This is further technical information about purchasing, installing, and powering AIS devices from the article in the July 2015 issue. Entr’acte’s navigation system consists of two identical chart plot...
When a sailboat suffers a heart attack Pictured above, a mixing elbow connects to the exhaust manifold on the engine. Since it’s impossible to see inside it, the only way to inspect for blockages is t...
A homemade replacement is the answer My good old boat was a former racer and came with a KVH Sailcomp electronic compass and sailing instrument. As it was quite old, the LCD display had become barely ...
After all the setbacks we’d experienced during Levity’s 10-year repair and refit, it was a great relief when the redesigned and newly built rudder was fitted on her stern. At last, another major proje...
Follow up on Installing a Chart Plotter at the Binnacle, from our May 2013 Issue. When I decided to subscribe to a satellite weather service (XM WX Satellite Weather), I found that a simple connection...
Simplifying the water supply led to galley efficiencies Our 1976 Tanzer 26 served us very well for several years as a cruising boat on Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, but on such a small boat the galley ar...
They hold up the shrouds that hold up the mast Spreaders are struts attached to the sides of a mast to hold the shrouds away from the mast and increase the angle at which they meet the mast. The great...
Simple solar-heated system is gravity fed This is a photographic supplement to the article printed in Good Old Boat magazine, November 2007....
Notes and Lessons We won’t know how well KiwiGrip holds up in use for a few years. According to the manufacturer’s guidelines, weekend sailors can expect the product to last approximately 10 years bef...
Polishing Acrylic and Polycarbonate To successfully polish a damaged or weathered plastic surface, you need the correct polish, clean surfaces, a gentle touch, and real patience. Hard minerals, finely...
Making Magnolia more seaworthy Alternative methods Here are two ways to attach a sea hood that define it as a separate entity from the cabintop. Permanent attachment As shown in the illustration above...
A resourceful Colorado sailor does a professional job in the wilds Last summer I had to replace thestern tube on my Pacific Seacraft Orion 27, Allegra. It was a stressful and satisfying ordeal and a t...
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...
