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Two Books That Will Help Us Go Cruising—Part 1
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Read more: Two Books That Will Help Us Go Cruising—Part 1Managing our money and saving to go cruising is way more difficult than it was. Here’s a book recommendation to help with that.
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Managing Boatyard Costs—Part 2
22 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesMembers
Read more: Managing Boatyard Costs—Part 2John provides specific tips, including a meeting script and scope of work outline, to help you get a quote or an estimate from a boat yard and then manage the project to stay at least close to that agreed price.
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Managing Boatyard Costs—Part 1
60 CommentsReading Time: 7 minutesMembers
Read more: Managing Boatyard Costs—Part 1Many boat owners just shrug and say to themselves that all boatyards are a bunch of incompetent crooks and we are going to get screwed no matter what we do. But it does not have to be that way. John shares what he has learned over some forty years of managing boat projects, both large and small, about how to keep costs at least semi-reasonable and how to decide what tasks are best delegated to a boatyard.
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Smartphone (CrewWatcher) or AIS-Based Crew Overboard Beacons?
151 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesMembers
Read more: Smartphone (CrewWatcher) or AIS-Based Crew Overboard Beacons?An in-depth analysis and comparison of Bluetooth smartphone-based crew overboard beacons as against AIS beacons.
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Severe Weather Probability Forecast Product
37 CommentsReading Time: 3 minutesMembers
Read more: Severe Weather Probability Forecast ProductJohn writes about a new weather forecast product that just might be the most significant weather advance for offshore voyagers since the GRIB file.
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Coming Alongside (Docking)—Backing In, Part 2
57 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Coming Alongside (Docking)—Backing In, Part 2John continues to make backing-in approaches easy, with four detailed step-by-step recipes (complete with diagrams), one for each wind direction.
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Coming Alongside (Docking)—Backing In, Part 1
52 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Coming Alongside (Docking)—Backing In, Part 1The general wisdom, repeated over and over again on wharves, in sailors’ bars, and on the forums, is that it’s difficult to back a boat into a tight space, and impossible if said boat has a long keel. But that’s just dead wrong. John shares backing techniques that will work, and even make the process easy, with most any boat.
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Working While Cruising—Our Offices on “Morgan’s Cloud”
29 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesFree
Read more: Working While Cruising—Our Offices on “Morgan’s Cloud”More and more cruisers are working while cruising at jobs that require long hours at a computer. And even among cruisers who leave their jobs completely behind when they head out, many are blogging as well as editing photographs and video; all computer intensive. Here’s a look at the gear we use and where we work day to day.
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Which Is The Best Boat For Offshore Cruising?
58 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutesFree
Read more: Which Is The Best Boat For Offshore Cruising?The debate is incessant in the cruising community: what is the best cruising boat? John comes up with an answer that may surprise you.
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Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 2
57 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 2How to select the right rope diameters, attach sheets and halyards to sails the right way, and keep chafe from ruining your day.
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Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 1
57 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesMembers
Read more: Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 1Detailed recommendations, including brand names, for running rigging for cruising sailboats.
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29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 3
98 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: 29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 3The final chapter in John’s magnum opus on aluminum boat care. Includes some good news about how durable the material really is and some thoughts on why you might want to buy a boat built of it.
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John’s Thoughts & Photos—November 2017
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Read more: John’s Thoughts & Photos—November 2017John’s thinking about food (always), cool tools, stinky towels, and other stuff.
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29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 2
63 CommentsReading Time: 6 minutesMembers
Read more: 29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 2What started as a simple list post is now a care manual for aluminum boat owners. If you are an aluminum boat owner or are considering buying an aluminum boat, don’t miss this series, it could save you tens of thousands of dollars and untold heartache.
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Q&A, Coming Alongside (Docking) With Twin Rudders
32 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: Q&A, Coming Alongside (Docking) With Twin RuddersJohn tackles a frequently-asked question about how to dock with twin rudders.
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29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 1
151 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: 29 Aluminum Boat Care Tips—Part 1A quarter century of caring for an aluminum boat has taught John a lot and he is sharing it all.
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Seven Skills We DON’T Need to Go Cruising
117 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: Seven Skills We DON’T Need to Go CruisingLearning everything we need to go cruising can be overwhelming, but John helps by exposing seven commonly-recommended skills we actually don’t need to master and, better still, sharing simple filters that will help all of us decide what’s not important so we can focus on what is.
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Meeting Up With Steve and Linda Dashew
18 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutesFree
Read more: Meeting Up With Steve and Linda DashewMeeting up with Steve and Linda Dashew is always both fun and fascinating, with a lot to learn about offshore voyaging in boats of any size, even though their designs are way beyond the reach of most of us. John shares two of those lessons.
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Don’t Swim Near Marinas
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Read more: Don’t Swim Near MarinasMost of us know about the risk of electric shock drowning in fresh water, but what about in sea water? Should we be concerned?
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We Love The Way Our Anchor Drags
62 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutesMembers
Read more: We Love The Way Our Anchor DragsJohn explores a little-known selection criteria that every anchor buyer should know about.
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Seamanship is Hard to Do
47 CommentsReading Time: 5 minutesFree
Read more: Seamanship is Hard to DoSeamanship is a word that gets bandied about all the time in the cruising community. But what does seamanship really mean? John and Phyllis get a hard real-world reminder.
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Iridium GO! and UUPlus, Real World Use Review
120 CommentsReading Time: 7 minutesMembers
Read more: Iridium GO! and UUPlus, Real World Use ReviewSo you bought a satellite phone or Iridium GO! to get email and weather information while at sea. But what software should you get? Here is the AAC benchmark product that we know, based on 20 years of use, will do the job well.
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The Best Windows Computer For Navigation
126 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesFree
Read more: The Best Windows Computer For NavigationSo what’s the best computer to run navigation software on? John, who has spent most of his working life around computers, takes a deep dive into the issues and then reveals his choice.
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Can We Really Be Seen By Ships at Night?
57 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutesMembers
Read more: Can We Really Be Seen By Ships at Night?We all have navigation lights, and many of us AIS transponders too, so we assume that other vessels can easily see us at night, but can they really? John shares some tips learned from a real life night encounter with another yacht.
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John’s Thoughts & Photos—July 2017
1 CommentReading Time: 4 minutesFree
Read more: John’s Thoughts & Photos—July 2017John is back out cruising and thinking about great anchorages, small cruising boats, camping and prime lenses.
