Maintenance

During the some 35 years that John has owned offshore cruising boats, he has made some deeply stupid maintenance and gear decisions. Here’s his latest blunder and what we can all learn from it.

If you want to watch John have a complete melt down, just mention 5200 bedding compound…but stand well back, it ain’t pretty. Not just a rant, John suggests better alternatives.

You should lubricate your seacocks every year before launching, and here’s an easy way to do that.

Unstepping the mast for winter storage is a royal pain in the neck…but it’s the right thing to do.

While we were on holiday (vacation) we stopped by to check on Morgan’s Cloud all tucked up in a shed at Billings Diesel and Marine and discovered that her steering was seized solid because the new type of dripless packing that we tried out for the first time had dried out and frozen to the […]

Just made for the job One refreshing thing about Spain is that it is still a country where people carry out many of their own repairs. Evidence of this can be seen in the number of ironmongers (ferreterias) that still exist in even relatively minor towns, Aladdin’s caves filled with every conceivable item for some […]

It’s a fact of life that even in our throw away world of ‘service by replacement’ equipment there are times when good old fashioned improvisation can save the day, especially when you’re thousands of miles from the nearest service centre. As a result, part of any spares kit should comprise of a mix of wire, […]

We joined our friends Dave and Shelly, who live and voyage on their beautiful, and beautifully maintained, Able Apogee 50, Cadence, for dinner the other night.

Back afloat at last, and it’s so good to feel Pèlerin swing to the wind and tide at anchor once more, after what seemed an endless winter. The last few weeks in the boatyard have been exhausting, as we’ve slogged through the work getting her ready for the long haul after a series of false […]

Practical Sailor is only magazine we still subscribe to. We have been getting their great information on all things boating gear for over 25 years. In that time the magazine has saved us untold amounts of money, not to speak of frustration and wasted time, by helping us to source the best gear available and […]

Part of the engine installation project on Morgan’s Cloud was the fitting of new engine mounts—which meant welding, which meant sparks flew, which meant the paint in the engine room got speckled. (Morgan’s Cloud’s builder did a wonderful job of most things, but painting the bilge in the engine room was not one of his […]

“Boat Yard Hell” is our term of endearment for Morgan’s Cloud’s annual date with a boat lift. There just isn’t much fun to it: living at the top of a 15’ ladder, peeing in a bucket, the morning dash to the toilet building, and of course day after day of boat chores as we try […]

If there’s one place that you really don’t want a valve to bust while in use, it’s in the black water system.

Here is a top ten list (well, nine is pretty close) of what we did during the refit that we really like:

So, what did we do to our beloved Morgan’s Cloud that could possible take four winters of hard labour?

Question: Currently tackling the plumbing system and would like to know if you have any other photos of how you use PVC piping. I’m very interested in using this as often as possible. How do you make the connection between the rigid pipe and the fitting that may be on your holding tank or other […]

We’re amazed that more boats are not plumbed with ordinary PVC pipe, but then again we never thought of using it either until we bought Morgan’s Cloud 16 years ago and found that her builder had used PVC pipe for almost all of her plumbing.

It used to be that when we wanted to attach something to our aluminum hull we had it welded. This requires special equipment and a skilled operator, not to speak of all the attendant mess and paint damage. Not anymore, we now use Plexus.

Our neighbour here in Down East Maine, where we have been refitting Morgan’s Cloud for the last three winters, is Jeff: lobsterman, talented photographer, Persian carpet dealer and, for the last two years, wooden sailboat owner.

I’m going to make a confession here: I think brightwork is beautiful. However, since I’m the one that ends up maintaining it—that’s because John insists I’m so much better at it than he is, which is a rotten trick and one I fall for regularly—I also believe it doesn’t belong on our boat.

During this last refit, we had custom wood bezels with embedded helicoils built to fit permanently around the cabin ports (we’ll discuss these further in our Refit Series). During cold weather, we screw Plexiglas covers to the bezels and voila…no condensation! However, after installing them we realized that the little chains with small bars at […]

It all started with six weeks of intense work last June stripping the deck for painting.  Every cleat, every track, every fitting and every hatch came off and slowly a 10’x20’ storage unit filled with boat bits.