A faithful and forgiving foul-weather friend Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 Ellen is on top of me! Our legs are entwined! We are lying against the starboard wall of our cockpit footwell. It is horizontal, p...
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...
An oceangoing cruiser by C&C and Ontario Yachts Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 Gregg and Jean Tranter may list Calgary, Alberta, as their home, but they have spent every summer aboard grasal, a 1981 Ont...
How we sail is related to how far we are from the water Issue 106 : Jan/Feb 2016 During the summer sailing season I experienced another one of those revelations that occur from time to time. What I fi...
The alluring emanations of a seagoing home Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 At any auto parts store in the country, you can buy an aerosol can of New Car Smell. Have you ever seen a can of New Boat Smell at y...
A soft solution to a hard-edged cockpit Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 I’ve seen better cockpits. When Sparkman & Stephens designed the cockpit of our Fuji 40 in the late 1970s, I think the focus was on...
A banner application for plastic chain Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Somewhere in a remote cubby aboard your boat you probably have a stash of flags, ensigns, jacks, and pennants. They vary in size, shape,...
A summer cruise survived a broken transmission cable Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 While on our annual vacation cruise last summer, powering across Lake Ontario from Sacketts Harbor to Waupoos, we started ...
. . . is Katnip to a family of lake sailors Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 In April 2015, we purchased a 1974 Herreshoff America catboat. She was cute, interesting, and in need of significant TLC. She took ...
Seeing current requires GPS and a knotmeter Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 I grew up sailing on a lake in upstate New York on a 16-foot hand-built wooden sloop. No tides. No currents. Only wind. No instrume...
Getting the kinks out of long-term storage Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Sailing the waters off the West Coast of British Columbia brings great joy along with the occasional challenges. Pacific Northwest s...
. . . when properly mounted and maintained Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 When planning to buy a good old boat, most sailors typically look carefully at the design, the propulsion, the hull, the sails, and ...
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...
At bottom, it’s a matter of technique and good planning Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Our 1978 Creekmore, Eurisko, had her original interior when we purchased her. After 14 years of cruising and raising th...
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...
Fatigue, false steps, and a child adrift Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 After four days of the most uncomfortable seas in our entire world circumnavigation, we arrived at the island of Great Inagua, Bahamas...
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...
As it flies, it defies flailing sheets and flapping sails Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 A masthead fly is the truest indicator of the apparent wind direction, but it’s often obscured by either the Bimini o...
A shady, rain-proof whole-boat shelter Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 A few years ago, I spent a rainy season in Trinidad with my boat hauled out while I did a major refit. As most of the work on my old 25-...
Track down trouble using logic and the right tools Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Electrical wiring on a typical good old boat has a tough life. The combination of salt, water, copper wire, and electricity ...
A big makeover for a cramped water closet Issue 108: May/June 2016 When we bought our 1977 Down East 45 schooner, the forward head was a poky little place with a tiny “unstainless-steel” wash-basin an...
Low-wattage lighting at low cost Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 One of the best things that has come along for boaters (and homeowners) lately has been LEDs for lighting. They’re cooler in operation, seemin...
. . . and two very different daysailers Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Carl Alberg established his reputation as a designer with the Pearson Triton in 1958, the same year he designed the Sea Sprite 23. He u...
Restored to order, she’s a daysailing delight Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 “Bill, you really ought to come over to Yacht Works this morning. There’s a sleek, small boat being rigged right now and her owne...
Surface weather maps, part 1 Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Surface weather maps offer a wealth of information to the weather-savvy mariner. The key to unlocking the information displayed on these maps is u...
A ubiquitous trailerable cruising sailboat Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 Catalina Yachts of Woodland Hills, California, produced the Catalina 25 from 1978 to 1990 from a design by the company’s founder and...
Two-boat-itis arouses ambivalence Issue 107 : Mar/Apr 2016 It is possible to have too much of a good thing. We discovered this in the summer of 2015, the year we had two boats in the water. At once. I...
An enchanting ruse brings a wife on board Issue 109 : Jul/Aug 2016 I’ve never chosen the right boat for me. I’ve always let the right boat choose me. In the November 2015 issue of Good Old Boat, I des...
A self-basting engine no longer fouls the bilge Issue 109 : Jul/Aug 2016 Most new sailboats with an inboard engine have a molded pan in the engine space to contain oil and fuel spills so they don’t ge...
Shielding a sensitive device from onboard vibrations Issue 109 : Jul/Aug 2016 Vibration from an engine, or from the twanging of tight rigging in a high wind, could very well affect the performance of ...
