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Read more: Original Iridium GO! Still a Better Deal Than ExecThere’s a headline to provoke screams and tearing of hair. After all, the new Iridium GO! Exec is 40 times faster than the original GO! and only twice the price, so it’s gotta be the the better deal…right? And you can get unlimited data with the original GO! from lots of places for $154.95/month and […]
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Read more: Easily Driven Boats Are BetterJohn explains one of the most important criteria for selecting an offshore voyaging boat, and one of the most ignored.
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Read more: Sailing a New-To-Us Boat Home—What Could Go Wrong?Colin and Louise serve up a master class on delivering an older and long-unsailed boat through difficult waters and adverse weather, and even have fun doing it.
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Read more: Do We Need A $10,000 Plotter?I just read a post over at Panbo on Garmin’s new top-of-the-line plotters that start at US$10,000 and go up from there. And, of course, to take advantage of all the features we will need to spend a bunch more on supporting gear. I’m sure those who are so inclined will be obsessing over all […]
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Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 2—Case Studies
50 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 2—Case StudiesSo far in this series of chapters we have been looking at the benefits and drawbacks of the renewable options. Now let’s pull it all together.
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Read more: No, Lithium Batteries Don’t Burn BoatsEvery so often, someone sends me a link to this article, originally published in Professional Boat Builder and repeated at Sailing Anarchy, that starts with the line: Lithium-ion batteries start fires. First off, the author does not differentiate between lithium cobalt oxide (the battery type in your phone) and lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO), the chemistry […]
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Read more: Blocking Highs, Love ’em Or Hate ’emAs I write, the North Atlantic is a weather hot-mess with hurricanes and gales dotted all over the map, and yet all the models are predicting an incredible run of settled early fall weather and light winds for Nova Scotia, extending out ten days or more. What’s going on? We in Nova Scotia are falling […]
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Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 1—Loads and Options
36 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 1—Loads and OptionsCan we replace diesel fuel generation (main engine or separate) with wind, solar and/or hydrogenerators? Yes, but there’s stuff to know to avoid wasted money and disappointment.
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Read more: How Weight Affects Boat Performance and Motion ComfortIt’s tempting to think that the more cool stuff a boat has, the better she is for cruising, but that approach can make the boat slow and uncomfortable. Eric explains how to tell when adding gear has gone too far.
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Read more: Cool Supplemental Anchor LightSome years ago Phyllis and I found out the hard way, when another yacht hit us, that sometimes boaters don’t look up and see anchor lights at the top of masts. After that accident, we fitted a supplemental all-around white light on top of the radar on our McCurdy and Rhodes 56, as is allowed […]
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Read more: Sneaky Power UsersWe were on the boat for a couple of days last weekend and one evening I decided to check email and the weather on my iPad. But when I picked it up, it turned out I had forgotten to charge it—it was as dead as John Cleese’s parrot. Not a problem, we have a USB […]
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Read more: Sail Heel AngleThe late, great—I know it’s a cliché but he was—Buddy Melges, when asked how to drive a boat well upwind, would say that the secret is keeping the angle between the headstay and horizon constant. For us lesser helmspersons, an inclinometer makes this way easier. I was just about to fit one to our J/109 […]
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Read more: Never Forget The Go-To-Sea OptionHave a quick read of this account of a race crew getting hit by a nasty thunderstorm when approaching their home port of Gloucester, Mass. Done? Anything jump out at you? The first thing that hit me is that they never even considered waiting offshore for conditions to improve, or even daylight, before trying what […]
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Read more: Adventure 40 Cockpit 2.0The final cockpit reveal, discussing the improvements made since Version 1, including new and very cool renderings.
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Read more: Check Your Emergency TillerThe stuff I have found on our new-to-us J/109 amazes me. When I first inspected the boat, we found that someone had siliconed the hatch over the rudder-shaft head. I guess it leaked a bit so, instead of replacing the O-ring or the hatch, they glued it down. So after we fixed that with a […]
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Read more: Don’t Trust Used RopeModern ropes are fantastically strong, to the point that, in most cases, at least on cruising boats, there is a massive margin of safety simply because the rope is generally chosen with enough diameter to be easily handled and is therefore many times stronger than the peak load. In fact, I can’t remember when a […]
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Read more: Falmouth For OrdersColin is waiting for the weather, as happens to all cruisers, and muses on the history of an iconic port, boat design (old and new), derelict boats, and the ongoing process of getting in tune with their new-to-them She 36.
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Read more: Good LED Steaming/Deck LightWe fitted a MarineBeam LED Steaming/Deck Light on the mast on our J/109 a year ago, and so far I’m impressed. Small, light, relatively inexpensive, and amazingly bright, with incredibly low current draw. Of course we don’t know how reliable it will be over time, but so far so good. By the way, I have […]
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Read more: His and Hers Autopilot ControlsPhyllis and I have done a couple of crew overboard recovery drills lately (with more planned) and one of the many things we learned was that a wrist remote autopilot control is extremely useful in a COB emergency. But what happens if the person wearing the only control is the one who went over the […]
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Read more: eWincher as a WindlassOur J/109 has a great anchor locker as well as a removable anchor roller, but no windlass, and there is no way in hell we are adding all that weight up forward on this boat. No worries. Our eWincher, driving a two-speed primary cockpit winch, hauls the rode as fast, or maybe a bit faster, […]
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Read more: Watt & Sea Hydrogenerator Buyer’s Guide—Cost PerformanceDoes buying a Watt & Sea make sense? It’s complicated, depending on boat size and type, as well as usage profile.
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Read more: What It’s Really All AboutA beautiful full-moon-lit evening in a lovely anchorage rafted up with good friends for a fine dinner. Not a lot more to say, really.
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Read more: Apple Watch Photo-Trigger HackI needed to get the model and serial number off the fridge unit on our J/109, but the problem is that the plate is on the far side and inaccessible, at least to an arthritic old fart. I was pondering using my borescope, but controlling it holding the wire would have been difficult. Then I […]
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Read more: A Coastal Cruiser Reviews A Watt & Sea HydrogeneratorAn honest evaluation from a thinking guy, who carefully evaluated his usage before pulling the trigger on an expensive piece of gear, not a fan-boy video.
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Read more: Good Fractional Rig-Tuning ArticleWe have five detailed step-by-step chapters on how to tune a masthead rig, starting here, but we don’t cover fractional rigs because they are unusual in the offshore cruising world. But if you do have a fractional rig, like we do on our new-to-us J/109, there’s a good tuning article over at Practical Boat Owner. […]
