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Cruiser’s Power Tool Kit
114 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesMembers
Read more: Cruiser’s Power Tool KitJohn uses some 30 years of offshore voyaging experience to come up with a recommended kit of hand-held power tools.
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Leaving a Dock Against an Onshore Wind—Part 2
49 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: Leaving a Dock Against an Onshore Wind—Part 2The biggest contributor to getting off a dock against a strong wind or current in good order is how we rig up the lines and fenders.
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Leaving a Dock Against an Onshore Wind—Part 1
47 CommentsReading Time: 9 minutesMembers
Read more: Leaving a Dock Against an Onshore Wind—Part 1The first decision we need to make when leaving a dock is whether to go out in reverse or forward. Here’s how to choose.
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Getting Insurance For Offshore Voyaging—Understanding The Problem
91 CommentsReading Time: 11 minutesMembers
Read more: Getting Insurance For Offshore Voyaging—Understanding The ProblemGetting Insurance for offshore passages is one of the biggest challenges facing many cruisers. The first step to success is understanding the problem.
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14 Tips To Come Alongside Single-Handed—Part 2
28 CommentsReading Time: 7 minutesMembers
Read more: 14 Tips To Come Alongside Single-Handed—Part 2In Part 1, I covered seven tips to get set up for coming alongside single-handed. Now let’s look at the tricky part: actually getting alongside alone.
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14 Tips for Coming Alongside Single-handed—Part 1
61 CommentsReading Time: 7 minutesMembers
Read more: 14 Tips for Coming Alongside Single-handed—Part 1Bringing a sail or motorboat alongside (docking) by ourselves can be difficult, but good preparation will make it much easier.
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Integrating and Documenting NMEA 0183 and 2000 Networks
23 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Integrating and Documenting NMEA 0183 and 2000 NetworksTo be reliable, marine electronics networks must be properly documented. Here’s a quick and easy way to do that.
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Two More Anchor Selection Criteria
32 CommentsReading Time: 6 minutesMembers
Read more: Two More Anchor Selection CriteriaJohn forgot two important anchor selection criteria in the last article, so this one fixes that.
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Support Steve at SV Panope
30 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Support Steve at SV PanopeLet’s support a guy who is making a real difference.
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Goodbye “Morgan’s Cloud”, What a Ride
63 CommentsReading Time: 3 minutesFree
Read more: Goodbye “Morgan’s Cloud”, What a RideThe sale of our beloved “Morgan’s Cloud”, a custom aluminum McCurdy and Rhodes expedition sailboat, closed yesterday.
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Making Anchor Tests More Meaningful
125 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: Making Anchor Tests More MeaningfulJohn starts with testing from “SV Panope”, adds a large dollop of experience, and comes up with his own best anchor table as well as demonstrating how you can do the same.
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Choosing A Cruising Boat—Shade and Ventilation
18 CommentsReading Time: 12 minutesMembers
Read more: Choosing A Cruising Boat—Shade and VentilationA cruising boat without adequate shade and ventilation can make life a living hell once we head for the palm trees. Here’s how to choose a cruising boat that will be comfortable in hot places.
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Refits, What You Need to Know
17 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Refits, What You Need to KnowNew boats are horribly expensive, so most of us will be faced with refitting an older boat to get out there. We have recently reorganized all of our many articles on how to do just that.
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When Electric Drive Works For a Cruising Sailboat
148 CommentsReading Time: 11 minutesMembers
Read more: When Electric Drive Works For a Cruising SailboatLessons we can learn from Jimmy Cornell’s Elcano Challenge when considering electric drive for a cruising sailboat.
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Roller Furling Headsail Risks and Rewards
45 CommentsReading Time: 6 minutesMembers
Read more: Roller Furling Headsail Risks and RewardsAn interesting question from a member gets John thinking about how to handle headsail roller furling failures, and risk versus reward on a general basis.
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Choosing a Cruising Boat—Shelter
30 CommentsReading Time: 11 minutesMembers
Read more: Choosing a Cruising Boat—ShelterJohn takes a deep dive into the tradeoffs between open cockpits, dodgers, enclosures, raised salons and wheelhouses on offshore boats.
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Q&A—Sailboat Performance, When The Numbers Fail
18 CommentsReading Time: 3 minutesMembers
Read more: Q&A—Sailboat Performance, When The Numbers FailA member asks an interesting question about why a boat that appears slower from the numbers is actually faster.
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Offshore Sailboat Winches, Selection and Positioning
57 CommentsReading Time: 10 minutesMembers
Read more: Offshore Sailboat Winches, Selection and PositioningThese days the offshore sailing community seems to be fixated on rig automation, but a well-specified and installed set of winches will contribute far more to a successful passage than all that expensive failure-prone stuff.
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Best Offshore Boat Cockpit Cushions
40 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutesMembers
Read more: Best Offshore Boat Cockpit CushionsGood cockpit cushions are a lot more important on an offshore boat than you might think.
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Buying a Boat—A Different Way To Think About Price
81 CommentsReading Time: 5 minutesMembers
Read more: Buying a Boat—A Different Way To Think About PricePhyllis and I have been thinking and talking a lot about which boat we will buy after Morgan’s Cloud sells. And a big part of that has been setting a specification and budget, but in a different way.
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Safety: We Can’t Do Or Even Learn About It All
37 CommentsReading Time: 6 minutesMembers
Read more: Safety: We Can’t Do Or Even Learn About It AllThese days it seems like hardly a month goes by without the announcement of a new and/or improved safety device, aggressively marketed as the latest thing that we all must buy, to the point that it’s getting impossible to keep up. Here is how John decides which of these new technologies to put energy into understanding and which to ignore.
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Cockpits—Part 2, Visibility and Ergonomics
49 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Cockpits—Part 2, Visibility and ErgonomicsThere are few areas on any boat that are used for more diverse tasks than an offshore sailboat cockpit. Everything from lounging on a quiet day at anchor to handling a fast-moving emergency at sea with a bunch of sail up…in the black dark…in fog…with a ship bearing down on us. Given that, picking a boat with a good cockpit layout is one of the most important parts of boat selection. Let’s look at what really matters.
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Cooking Options For Live-aboard Voyagers—Part 2, Liquid Fuel
62 CommentsReading Time: 7 minutesMembers
Read more: Cooking Options For Live-aboard Voyagers—Part 2, Liquid FuelIn Part 1 I looked at induction electric cooking and concluded that for most cruiser usage profiles, particularly for us live-to-eat types, propane was still a better solution, and greener, too. So what about liquid fuels Alcohol, Kerosene and Diesel? Let’s take a look.
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Companionway Washboard Hacks And Getting Out There
50 CommentsReading Time: 5 minutesFree
Read more: Companionway Washboard Hacks And Getting Out ThereMost sailboats have companionway washboards sliding into channels. And while this is a good simple solution, a little work needs to be done to make them really safe. Here’s a simple hack that will take less than half an hour and cost less than US$20, together with a couple of tips on how to actually get out there, rather than working on your boat the whole time.
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Cooking Options For Live-aboard Voyagers—Part 1, Electric
49 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Cooking Options For Live-aboard Voyagers—Part 1, ElectricThree months ago I did some experimenting with induction cooking and wrote about it. And that spawned four more articles as I investigated the changes to a cruising boat’s electrical system required to support high loads like those from electric cooking. So now we can properly answer the original question, is electric cooking practical on a yacht?
