Falmouth For Orders
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Colin 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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To Sea At Last
Reading Time: 9 minutes
After many hours of toil in the boatyard to make her passage-ready, Colin and Louise start the long passage home to Scotland, testing the boat and gear as they go.
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Safety Inspection and Gear For a New-To-Us Boat
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Colin shares his safety checks and upgrades made before the long delivery passage home to Scotland.
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Starting With The Basics On A New-To-Us Cruising Boat
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Colin continues the story of making a basically sound, but nearly half-a-century-old, boat ready for sailing. Vital reading for anyone buying a used boat.
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Finding and Buying a Dream
Reading Time: 10 minutes
Now Colin and Louise have found and bought their new boat, the real work begins…but they got the basics right. Here’s how.
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Colin and Louise Have a New Boat
Reading Time: 7 minutes
After two years of diligent searching, one of the most knowledgeable boat buyers anywhere has selected his next offshore cruising boat, and an attainable one, too.
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11 Self-Steering Vane Gear Installation and Usage Tips
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Self steering windvanes have a reputation of being hard to use. Reading these tips can fix that and make us love our windvane.
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Test Sail and Review of The Boréal 47.2
Reading Time: 11 minutes
Colin sails the newest model from Boréal, builders of ocean-going cruising sailing yachts.
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Colin & Louise are Buying a New Sailboat
Reading Time: 8 minutes
We can all learn a huge amount when two of the most experienced sailboat owners anywhere go boat shopping.
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Two New Designs From Boréal
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Fifteen years after launching the first 44, Boréal have revealed their Mk2 version of this award winning design together with a 47 foot extended cockpit version. Colin tells us all about the changes and improvements.
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Planning and Budgeting an Engine Rebuild or Replacement
Reading Time: 13 minutes
There are few things more depressing in cruising than having to live with an unreliable engine. Colin takes a look at the options for rebuild or repower and what all this is going to cost.
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April Fools?
Reading Time: 10 minutes
Colin is using his enforced time ashore to think about the greater cruising community and what the future may hold for us all.
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A Sail Away Offshore Cruising Boat For Less Than US$100,000—Best Hull Material
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Colin completes his four-part series on going offshore cruising in a boat for less than US$100,000, with a look at materials other than fibreglass, and then winds up on a positive note.
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A Sail Away Offshore Cruising Boat For Less Than US$100,000—Rudders and Keels
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Many secondhand boats out there are being sold as ready to go offshore. But what about the vital underwater appendages the loss of which often results in abandonment or worse? Colin shines the bright light of reality on this vital subject that no one else likes to talk about.
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A Sail Away Offshore Cruising Boat For Less Than US$100,000—Decks, Hulls and SS Fittings
Reading Time: 12 minutes
So now that we have decided to focus on boats that have been well taken care of and not butchered by inept amateurs, we still need to be realistic about potential flaws in materials and construction and what it would really take in time and money to fix each. We can have no better guide than Colin as we figure that out.
To that end, Colin turns his attention to seven basic construction areas where problems can turn a refit into a horror show we definitely don’t want to star in.
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