Tips, Tricks & Thoughts:
Tips
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Why We Need a Torque Screwdriver
18 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteMembers
Read more: Why We Need a Torque ScrewdriverStainless steel is not as strong as it looks. For example, the recommended torque on a 10-24 (~5mm) 316 SS machine screw is just 23.8 inch-pounds (2.68 newton-metres). Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password
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Lithium Start Batteries
5 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: Lithium Start BatteriesThere are now battery vendors advertising drop-in lithium batteries rated for engine starting. If ever there was a solution looking for a problem, this has gotta be it. Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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Getting The Most From AAC
13 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Getting The Most From AACHaving got the new site design built, installed, and pretty much debugged, I finally got to a project that has been on my todo list for ages: a video tour of AAC. I edited viciously to keep it down to 5 minutes. It’s mainly targeted at new members and those considering joining, but please have […]
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Gales at Anchor Are Not That Scary
25 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Gales at Anchor Are Not That ScaryI don’t watch a lot of videos, in fact hardly any, but I was searching for something else when I stumbled on this video over at S/V Delos. Now, there is no question that hurricanes are scary. You don’t have to tell a guy from Bermuda, who cruised the western North Atlantic for over 50 […]
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Is Boat Electric Drive Green or Greenwashing?
60 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: Is Boat Electric Drive Green or Greenwashing?Here at AAC we are all over anything that will reduce carbon emissions, but we also don’t like the pretengineering so prevalent in the electric drive business. Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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Great Source: How Lithium Batteries Charge
3 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: Great Source: How Lithium Batteries ChargeI have been deep into researching lithium batteries, and particularly how they charge, while writing new buyer’s guide chapters for our Electrical Systems Online Book. One of the best sources I have read is a post by Eric Bretscher, over at Nordkyn Design. Before you go read it, a few thoughts: Login to continue reading […]
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Get Sticky and Go Home
6 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteMembers
Read more: Get Sticky and Go HomeI will clean this up…tomorrow. While we are on the subject of fun you can have with epoxy—see the last Tip—here’s another. Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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We Can Never Have Too Many Gloves
8 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: We Can Never Have Too Many GlovesI have been doing a bunch of work on our J/109 with epoxy resin lately. Nothing structural, just mounting some hardware, and improving the mounting for a couple of turning blocks. Stuff that requires replacing core and bonding backer plates. This kind of work involves handling things covered in epoxy and then handling tools…and then […]
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Source For Custom Jacklines
8 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Source For Custom JacklinesWe have long advocated for jacklines made of heavy Dacron webbing, but in recent years it has been difficult to source them already made up. But now there is a new vendor offering custom jacklines. One suggestion, I would not use their Jackline Assembly, consisting of a shackle and cover. The problem with this approach, […]
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AAC Menu Improvements
5 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: AAC Menu ImprovementsAs happens with any new site design, I’m improving a bunch of little things to make the site easier to use. The latest around the menu: Sticky Menu This design (and the old) have a sticky menu that appears only when we scroll up. The idea is that if we realize we are in the […]
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Q&A—Weather Information In The Southern Hemisphere
9 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembers
Read more: Q&A—Weather Information In The Southern HemisphereQuestion Member Terence asked: When we went to Polynesia, we used Predict Wind. We could get weather in all latitudes. Next year we will again be sailing south of the US Pacific Ocean Prediction Center maps. Need I again use Predict Wind to get what I need? Someone asked the same question about the south […]
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Just What The World Doesn’t Need
51 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesMembersRead more: Just What The World Doesn’t NeedI generally don’t get political around here, and we have a rule against that in our comment guidelines, but sometimes a situation is so egregious that I simply can’t keep my opinion to myself: Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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An Interesting Sailboat Electrical System Upgrade Case Study
7 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: An Interesting Sailboat Electrical System Upgrade Case StudyScuttlebutt have an interesting two-part story about upgrading the electrical system in a J/105. Worth a read, even though this is a racing boat. To me the takeaways are: All useful, but the biggest takeaways are: Much more on electrical system upgrades:
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How To Blow Up Your Alternator
8 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: How To Blow Up Your AlternatorAnytime I write about batteries and charging someone is bound to bring up one of the clever gadgets that fool a stock alternator into charging at a higher current for longer without resorting to external regulation. Some of these gadgets, particularly the VRC-200 from Nordkyn Electronics, are undoubtedly very clever—here’s another one I wrote about. […]
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Plumb Bows Are Just Another Rule-Caused Fashion
5 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteMembers
Read more: Plumb Bows Are Just Another Rule-Caused FashionThis bow may look old fashioned, but it works. An exchange between Matt and member Charlie in the comments to Matt’s excellent article got me thinking about the latest design fashion to draw boats with plumb bows. Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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Dark Mode at AAC
7 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Dark Mode at AACMember Charlie R suggested in a comment to a Tip about the new AAC site design I’m working on that it incorporate dark mode. Initially I was skeptical because there is no consensus among web site experts that dark modes do anything useful, and I have always believed, as many web designers do, that the […]
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Tap Adapters
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Read more: Tap AdaptersWhile we are on the subject of tap wrenches, here’s another cool way to drive a tap: tap adapters. Login to continue reading (scroll down) Learn About Membership Get to know us for FREE
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Versatile Tap Wrench
6 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Versatile Tap WrenchI’m always on the lookout for tools that will work well on a boat without taking up too much room or adding too much weight. At first glance this looks like any other tap wrench, but look closer and we find: The build quality seems OK and the price is surprisingly reasonable. I got mine […]
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Check The Siphon Break
9 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Check The Siphon BreakThe engine on most sailboats is installed at least partially below the waterline, consequently, with most exhaust systems, the only thing preventing the engine from flooding with water after it stops is the siphon break installed at the highest point in the raw-water cooling system. That’s bad enough, but the other problem with siphon breaks […]
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Cool New Winch
2 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Cool New WinchOne of the most important advances in sailing hardware in my lifetime was the self-tailing winch. If you came to sailing after these came on the scene you will not fully appreciate them, but, trust me, suddenly having both hands free to put our full weight on the handle was game changing, particularly for shorthanded […]
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Another Reason To Buy an Electric Outboard
6 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Another Reason To Buy an Electric OutboardThanks to an article by Eric Klem, and to a lesser extent one of mine, we all now clearly understand how bad weight in the ends of the boat is for sailing performance. What’s this got to do with electric outboards? While thinking about a new outboard for our J/109, it just struck me that […]
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How I Know Drag Is Bad On An Offshore Sailboat
5 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: How I Know Drag Is Bad On An Offshore SailboatWe just published another article on the importance of keeping drag low on our offshore sailboats. Some may wonder why we make so much of this? Here are two (of many) reasons, which got cut from the article to keep the length reasonable: #1 Fixed Props Suck Back when I had my Fastnet 45 I […]
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Four Winter Layup Tools
22 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Four Winter Layup ToolsI don’t think any boat owner would argue with the statement: Moisture is the enemy of boat reliability and gear longevity. And that goes double when the boat is laid up over the winter. The above photo shows four useful tools in the battle against damp. Starting from the left: Davis Air-Dryr 1000 Davis call […]
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Cool Boat—Dragonfly 40
23 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Cool Boat—Dragonfly 40I don’t generally put a lot of weight on magazine Boat Of the Year competitions, but I think Cruising World got it right picking the Dragonfly 40. I haven’t seen a 40, but I have drooled over the web site pages and videos and I was very impressed with the Dragonfly 28 when I was […]
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Why Cheap Boats Are Not Inexpensive
4 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Why Cheap Boats Are Not InexpensiveAn irrational drop in price makes a boat cheaper. A rational drop in price makes it more expensive. Originally Gautam Baid about investments, modified for boats by me Never truer words were said. Refits almost always cost more than the purchase price of the boat, often double or more. And worse still, the money we […]
