Boat projects seem to wait for the heat Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 Fate has proclaimed that I should perform hard labor on the boat in the heat of July in the South. It was July when I had to drop the ru...
A propane locker that won’t blow the budget Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 A standard propane locker from a marine catalog seemed ridiculously expensive ($650 or more) when I was refurbishing my Cape Dory 27...
Thinking outside the lockers and drawers Issue 78: July/Aug 2011 Any of us who have lived or considered living aboard a boat understand the problem of finding enough space to stow all of our possessio...
Double doors do more than double duty Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 Living aboard a boat changes one’s priorities. What works for the occasional trip can become downright annoying on a daily basis. Take the...
A home-built tower with manumatic leveler Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 Several years ago, my wife, Kari, and I decided to venture beyond the relative safety of our normal cruising grounds in the Apostle Is...
Acrylic goes behind bars for its own protection Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 One interesting aspect of socializing with other cruising sailors is discovering how they go about fitting out, maintaining, and...
Don’t avoid the subject; do avoid the event Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 It begins innocently enough. Two young couples meet socially and begin to talk. One couple says they’re sailors and enjoy racing on ...
Replacing a reclusive transmission component Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 I am meticulous about maintaining my sailboat. I perform routine maintenance on a schedule and I address little problems that arise...
. . . with a duo of double-ended classics Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 Because the Corbin 39 has some rather unusual features for a production yacht, it was easy to select two boats for comparison. Very fe...
Building a boat while building lives Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 David Salter is meticulous. You know that the moment you step on the boat, named Opportunity, he and his wife, Eileen, keep moored behind t...
Storing life’s essential element Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 Water is necessary for living aboard a boat. Since a gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds, full water tanks can be very heavy and should be instal...
Soften the helm and sharpen performance Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 I am often asked by owners of good old boats what they can do in the way of upgrades or changes to make their boats perform better. Depe...
A drop-in alcohol stove is an easy, functional fit Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 Like most older boats, ours came with a worn-out and obsolete stove. Sarmiento, our Bristol 35.5, had a pressurized-alcohol f...
Reviving a derelict dory sparked a young boy’s passion Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 We rescued Hee Haw from death at the hands of a boatyard employee armed with a can of gasoline and a match. She was a 16-...
A stylish and well-built cruiser/racer Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 I stood at the top of the marine ramp in Edmonds, Washington, looking down at Greg Pearson’s S2 9.2A, Blast. My first impression was of a...
Under cover of snow, new skills emerge Issue 78 : May/Jun 2011 It’s been a tough winter for folks from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In Minnesota, we had snow on the ground before Thanksgiving (the har...
A sailboat sailing? . . . What’s the problem? Issue 80 : Sept/Oct 2011 Our sanity has been questioned on more than one occasion. If you pack three sons and two parents on a 34-foot boat and sail away,...
A not-so-nutty way to send a messenger Issue 80 : Sept/Oct 2011 You say you lost an internal halyard? You’re scratching your head over how to reeve a messenger with which to pull through a replacement...
Fabric scraps protect delicate displays Issue 80 : Sept/Oct 2011 The sailing instruments in our cockpit are not the original units that came on our good old boat. The depth sounder and knot meter have...
A system that simplifies storage and use Issue 80 : Sept/Oct 2011 Everyone knows the importance of keeping paper charts aboard as backups for our electronics. But these things can be huge, so how do y...
Contrary to Internet rumors, it is not weak Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 Recently, in online sailing forums, I have seen self-proclaimed pundits advise sailors new to yachting that single-spreader rigs are...
A homemade filter keeps the cabin sweet Issue 80 : Sept/Oct 2011 Boating equipment retailers offer dozens of chemicals to make your head smell fresh. We tried them all in our attempts to eliminate the...
Obsessive design disorder became a career Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 Who can say when the first hint of the madness appeared? Was it on my first sail on a Lightning at age 12? I hadn’t been aboard for mo...
A well-built, IOR-inspired racer/cruiser Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 As with many boat companies, the Clark Boat Co., maker of San Juan sailboats, evolved from humble beginnings. It all began with Robert ...
Ways to cope with motion unease Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 Call it mal de mer, Neptune’s revenge, or the breakwater flu . . . chances are, if you venture very far offshore, you will become acquainted wit...
When boats leave the safety of the drawing board Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 In my more than 50 years designing yachts, I’ve had my share of problems with owners and with boatbuilders, including raw amate...
An example of innovative French style Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 French naval architect Michel Dufour began designing yachts in the 1960s. Perhaps his best-known design is the elegant Arpège (1966), a 30...
More power to you! Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 The forces we have to contend with when sailing a boat are greater than we can handle with our unaided physical strength. To cope with them, we make use of a...
Against fellow cruisers with clipper bows Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 This is an unusual group as clipper-bowed small boats have been fairly rare in mass production. Aesthetically, I can see the problem, ...
Sunshine lights up two ladies’ lives Issue 79: July/Aug 2011 When Joan “Jo” Lyon started to consider what she would do for pleasure when she finished working on her Ph.D., she looked at two possibilit...
