Prototyping bug-proofing possibilities for opening portlights My friend’s Westsail 32 has 10 opening portlights. That’s a lot of ventilation. Without screens, it’s also a lot of entrances for bugs. Th...
New lip seals cure a dripping engine-cooling pump Issue 125: March/April 2019 The raw-water pump is an integral part of the cooling system of any marine diesel engine. If it should fail, the engine wi...
Tips for sailing with a top-down furling spinnaker Issue 125: March/April 2019 In Part 1 of this article, in the January 2019 issue, Hugh introduced flying-sail furlers and described how he installed ...
Give slime and scum the brush-off on the cheap Doesn’t every sailor yearn for another tenth of a knot? Especially when racing? I do. Lucky are those who trailer their boats and can clean them at any t...
New sailors outfit an old boat for a future of adventures. My husband, David, and I have always loved the outdoors and water. We have been avid sea-kayakers and snorkelers. We have owned powerboats, b...
A top-down furler takes the terror out of setting a spinnaker. Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019 Downwind sailing with only a jib or genoa can leave a sailor wanting more. I wanted to fly a spinnaker on Hagar, ...
Insulate and decorate cold stainless steel with French spiral hitching. Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019 When a stainless steel steering wheel gets wet or, worse yet, wet and cold, it becomes difficult to grip...
Banish mildew on your boat with a simple chemical brew As near as I can tell, boating consists of one part blue lagoons and white sails and two parts painting the bottom, fixing engines, and scrubbing...
Siting solar panels led to an all-around renewal Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019 After deciding to add rigid solar panels aboard Alembic, our 1981 Whitby 42 center-cockpit the 12-foot spans into two 6-foot sp...
A dehumidifier keeps a cabin dry and free from mold Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019 My friend Don Smith and I live and keep our boats in Alaska. To control moisture aboard, and its negative side effects, mild...
An electrical update for the 21st century preserves the 1960s aesthetics. Dog-eared and dated, the 12-volt DC switch panel on our 1961 Alden Challenger, Christmas, was original. I had planned to repla...
Over the years, I’ve often used a sun shower to heat water for onboard showers. If conditions are right, they can get to be too hot to use. But more often, a cooling breeze saps the heat generat...
In warm weather, full-length foul-weather pants are rather uncomfortable to wear for too long...
A User-Friendly Cockpit Grating Kind to feet, it keeps dirt from getting underfoot by Drew Frye...
British Columbia winter months are cool and damp with short days, rain, and minimal sunshine. Having a heat source on board is essential to keep the mildew at bay and so we keep Natasha, our 1978 Isla...
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...
