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Read more: Sailing In Close QuartersI have to confess that over the 30 years we owned our McCurdy and Rhodes 56 I let my close-quarters sailing skills get rusty. It’s not that the boat is unhandy, far from it, with main and staysail she can be sailed into the smallest and most crowded of spaces. But somehow, in the the […]
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Read more: The Best Cruising BoatThe photo shows our new-to-us J/109 and AAC member Frank’s Ovni 435 hanging out together in the workshop at East River Shipyard here in Nova Scotia. It would be hard to imagine two more different boats, and yet I like both boats a lot. Which is best? Wrong question. They are designed for different purposes. […]
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Read more: Quote Of The Day
The reason that ‘guru’ is such a popular word is because ‘charlatan’ is so hard to spell. William Bernstein I strongly recommend keeping this quote top of mind when watching YouTube.
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Read more: Going Up The Mast—FundamentalsThoughts on backup systems, fall arrest as against fall prevention, and gear recommendations for going up the mast.
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Read more: Don’t Use Old Sailcloth For a Jordan Series DrogueThere’s an article on DIYing a Jordan Series Drogue (JSD), AAC preferred and recommended storm survival equipment, over at This Old Boat. There’s some useful stuff to learn in the article; however, the author makes the terrible mistake of using old discarded sailcloth that she bought from a boat salvager for the cones. We know […]
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Read more: Simple Alcohol Heaters Are No MoreI have been thinking about heat for our J/109 lately. Not a full-on system for the Arctic like we had on or McCurdy and Rhodes 56, but rather something to take the chill off on a cold morning in early or late summer. One idea I had was one of those portable alcohol heaters that […]
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Read more: Portable Solar Panels For CruisersThe good folks over at Ocean Planet Energy are selling these foldable and portable solar panels. A couple of these will provide a cruising boat with around 100 amp hours at 12 volts over the course of a reasonably sunny day at anchor. To me this is a way better idea, at least to supplement […]
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Read more: On Vacation (Holiday)
Phyllis and I are on the road visiting our families this week and next, so there will be few, or maybe no, Tips, Tricks and Thoughts until late November.
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Read more: Adventure 40 Reveal—On DeckIn the last Adventure 40 article, I examined hull, cockpit and rig. Now let’s move out of the cockpit and go forward.
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Read more: Ocean Racing Back In The DayIf you raced offshore back in the seventies and eighties you probably wore Line 7 foul weather gear and a Lirakis harness. The less said about the non-breathing heavy PVC former—it was waterproof but that did not help much since we stewed in our own juices—the better. But the latter was the first widely available […]
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Read more: Don’t Guess AntifreezeI confess I used to just flush out the systems on our boat until the antifreeze came out the end looking “pink enough”. But that approach can either result in a lot of expensive damage if the antifreeze is overly diluted by the water in the system, or end up being wasteful and expensive when […]
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Read more: Going Up the Mast—An Industrial Fall Prevention ApproachMatt brings his professional engineer’s understanding of forces and his construction site fall-arrest training to bear on one of the most potentially dangerous tasks we sailors are called upon to do.
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Read more: The End of Skill?Two companies have just announced that they are going to build an autonomous motorboat. Yes, the crew will be able to sit aboard and do absolutely nothing…except drink their faces off…while the boat runs itself. Never mind whether or not this is even doable (way past my pay grade to judge). The thing that gets […]
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Read more: Easy To Grab Rope TailIf we have a short rope tail, here’s a knot that gives us more to grab than the classic figure-eight stopper knot. The above is the sprit extension line on our J/109. I have no idea what it’s called or where I learned it. Might be Boy Scouts 60 years ago. Anyway, it’s quick and […]
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Read more: Long Live Free-Standing RadarsBased on 30 years of radar use in some of the foggier and icier waters in the world, I have long advocated for free-standing radars, at least for those who venture into these waters, rather than integrating radar into a plotter. So it’s way-cool to see that Furuno have just brought out two brand new […]
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Read more: The Cockpit Is NOT As Safe As It FeelsIt’s well worth reading the excellent report from US Sailing on the tragic crew overboard (COB) death in the 2022 Bermuda race. Lots of good analysis and some great recommendations. That said, the biggest takeaway for me is that the cockpit of a sailboat at sea can provide an illusory sense of safety. The fact […]
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Read more: Wing Keel CrazeI will bet this keel was designed shortly after Australia II won the America’s Cup. It’s a dead ringer for Ben Lexcen’s revolutionary keel. But here’s the thing, while end plates are good and bulbs can make shallower keels more efficient than they would be otherwise, Australia II‘s keel was designed to get around or […]
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Read more: Don’t Overload CatamaransPeople often think that I must be a multihull hater, just because I own a monohull. Not true, I love well-designed catamarans (and tris, too) like this way-cool Chris White 42. But here’s the key point: To be safe, and deliver on their speed potential, cats must not be overloaded. Check out how thin the […]
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Read more: Great Risk Quote
You should obsess over risks that do permanent damage and care little about risks that do temporary harm, but the opposite is more common. Morgan Housel Morgan is one of the best thinkers about financial risk around. Often his thoughts apply to offshore voyaging too. This one applies best to the majority of cruisers who […]
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Read more: Season Extender
Winter is fast approaching here in Nova Scotia, so we hauled our J/109 a week ago. We would be kind of bummed, except now we get more time to play with our turbocharged (sliding seats) Whitehall. Most years we go on rowing until early December and are back at it in March. No worries about […]
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Read more: Adventure 40 Reveal—Hull, Cockpit, and RigTen years after starting a project to create a safe, reliable and fast offshore cruising sailboat ready to go around the world, we have a design.
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Read more: Sounding Hammer TrickI was working with a very experienced and smart composite technician today to check out a crack in the gel coat in the bilge of our J/109. I was pretty sure it was not structural and just the result of sloppy gel coat application but wanted a pro to check. He sounded it with a […]
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Read more: O’Day Day Sailer
I mentioned one of these in another tip as the boat I lusted after when I was 12 years old. Today I was driving past a boatyard and lo and behold… I wonder what you could buy this boat for with trailer and outboard? Not much I bet, and she would be a great teacher […]
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Read more: Water Likes Fair CurvesOne of the things I look for when looking at boats out of the water is a nice fair curve of the bottom of the hull from bow to stern. Contrast our J/109 (above) with the boat below. The knuckle at the bow does not bother me, but check out the lump in the line […]
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Read more: Favourite Upgrade to Our J/109
It’s so easy to get fixated on expensive updates to our boats, like cool electronics or new electrical systems, but sometimes things that cost relatively little deliver big benefits. Phyllis and I were chatting during our last sail of the season about our favourite upgrades to our new-to-us J/109 and both agreed that the Blue […]
