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Read more: Going Up The Mast—More ImprovementsFurther refinements to the mast climbing system we figured out last year. Even after 50 years of climbing masts, we are still learning.
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Read more: Liferafts For Cruisers—40 Years of Real-World ExperienceJohn shares which raft he and Phyllis would buy for various cruising scenarios and why.
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Read more: Beware Auto-Tune on Modern RadarsEngineer and experienced mariner Eric Klem has just updated his review of his Furuno DRS2D-NXT doppler radar with a sobering account of how the auto-tune feature failed during a night approach to a crowded harbour. Eric is an experienced radar user, and so was able to quickly diagnose the problem and fix it by taking […]
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Read more: An Interesting Boat Decision—Buy or Walk?Member Rob left an interesting comment a few days ago that got me thinking: I have a boat on offer and am considering backing out of the deal. The standing rigging is 41 year old rod, the rudder is wet, mold in v-berth, small leak in hull/deck joint, autohelm removed, small anchor locker (not sure […]
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Twin Rudders Have No Place In The High Latitudes or Maybe Cruising
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Read more: Twin Rudders Have No Place In The High Latitudes or Maybe CruisingWe just got an interesting question from Françoise and Jean-Michel who are looking at buying a new boat. Boreal’s daggerboards can be broken as you can see on the n° 42 ep ” Bushpoint ” on You tube. It was last year on a Boreal 55 in the north of Norway. Even if it was […]
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Read more: Install an Engine Space FireportOne of the most common places for a fire to start on a boat is in the engine space, and if that happens the last thing we want to do is open an access panel to fight it, and thereby get a face full of fire, not to speak of accelerating the fire by giving […]
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Read more: Tidy Up The WiringOne of the most satisfying jobs we can do in a refit is to simply tidy up the wiring. I took the above picture a few days ago. Certainly not perfect, and not as nice as I could do if I tore the whole works out and started again, but a heck of a lot […]
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Read more: Own Our Own SawhorsesThis tip won’t work for active voyagers far from home, but for those of us who commission our boats at the same yard every year and have a place to store them it’s well worth owning our own sawhorses. The things are always in short supply at a boatyard, and the ones we can hunt […]
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Read more: Nine Autopilot Usage Tips and HacksSo far in this series we have got deep into the technical weeds of how autopilots work, and how to make them work better. Now let’s look at some simple tips, several of which will help with vane gears too.
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Read more: Threaded Inserts Save The DayEngine access on the J/109 is way easier if we remove the top companionway step, so over the years that’s clearly been done a bunch of times. And of course with each removal and reinstallation the screw holes in the retaining battens underneath have got bigger and more ragged. So people have replaced the screws […]
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Read more: AAC Is 20 Years OldThe story of our two decades of writing and publishing about offshore voyaging.
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Read more: Protect Hydraulic RamsI have long been a fan of hydraulic backstay adjusters, and, on bigger boats, hydraulic vangs, but they do have one vulnerability: a ding in the exposed rod will eventually damage the top seal and start a leak. Sometimes a small ding can be polished out with very fine emory paper, but bigger ones can, […]
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Read more: Good Boat Review—Leadership 44
Practical Sailor just reminded me in an email of an excellent review, written by editor Darrell Nicholson, of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Leadership 44, designed by David Pedrick (one of my favourite designers) and built by Morris Yachts. Darrell also compares the Coast Guard boat to the Navy 44 Mk II, also by Pedrick, […]
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Read more: Mental LiquidityI have quoted Morgan Housel, one of the smartest people in investing as well as one of the best writers, before. His thoughts about investing often make sense for life, and offshore voyaging. Here’s Morgan again: A question I love to ask people is, “What have you changed your mind about in the last decade?” […]
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Read more: Liferafts For Cruisers—Purchase CriteriaIt’s tempting to just shop for the “best” liferaft, but it’s way smarter to think first about why we are buying one.
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Read more: Crew Overboard Lessons LearnedHere’s an interesting article about a triple crew overboard emergency from the point of view of the crew of the rescuing boat. I learned from all the lessons shared, but the two that really jumped out at me were: Anyway, thankfully it ended well. Thanks to my friend Wilson for the heads-up.
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Read more: How To Tune An Autopilot To Steer Better—Part 2How to set gain, counter-rudder, and trim to make an offshore passage faster and more comfortable, and save battery, too.
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Read more: Get Vane Gear Blade Out Of The Water Before Deploying JSD
As I have said before, there are few people on the planet, probably less than a dozen, who know as much about surviving storms at sea in a small boat as Susanne Huber-Curphey. I’m privileged to be on her email newsletter list. The latest contained the following nugget of wisdom: This self-steering was also the […]
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Read more: Finding and Buying a DreamNow 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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Read more: Battle Born Batteries Get The MemoGreat to see that one of the largest vendors of lithium batteries has finally got wise to the fact that when used on boats, lithium batteries with an internal BMS must be able to communicate with external devices and the user to be safe and compliant. That said, Battle Born are making a lot of […]
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Read more: Takacat Dinghy On TestI’m constantly correcting people who assume that because my last three boats were monohulls I must be a multihull hater. Why is it that these days so many people seem to jump to the conclusion that just because we own one type of boat, we must think that it’s the best and all other boats […]
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Read more: Updated Norwegian Cruising Guide, Volume 3Many of you may not be aware, but Phyllis and I have a second job as publishers and editors of the Norwegian Cruising Guide. Actually, that’s a bit of a stretch in that Phyllis, together with our friend and Norwegian partner Hans Jakob, do 95% of the work on that project and I get my […]
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Read more: Backer Plate HackPretty much any deck fitting should have a substantial backer plate. I like G10 for this function, although fibreglass sheet can work for less money when less stiffness is required. I keep some of each in different thicknesses on hand. But how do we hold the backer plate in place while we drill the holes?The […]
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Read more: Great Core Removal Drill BitsI think pretty much everyone knows that when installing new fittings on a cored boat we should first remove the core before filling the void with thickened epoxy and then re-drilling for the fastener(s). There are a bunch of different ways to do this, but the set of Alfa Tools Forstner bits I just bought […]
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Read more: Adventure 40 Deck-2.0Maxime and Vincent have been hard at work over the last couple of months refining and improving the Adventure 40 deck design. Let’s take a look.
