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Read more: Good Communication—A Vital Key To Cruising HappinessGood communication is a skill that, like every other skill on a cruising boat, needs to be developed and practiced. Molly shares tips for good communication on board, garnered during the last three years while living aboard and sailing 36,000 miles with her family on Sila, a Boréal 47, including an expedition to South Georgia.
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Read more: The Three Keys To Cruising HappinessFamily happiness and crew morale are vital for a successful voyage. During the last three years, while living aboard and sailing 36,000 miles on Sila, a Boréal 47, Molly Barnes and her family have come up with The Three Keys To Cruising Happiness.
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Read more: Q&A—Are Battery Desulphators a Good Idea?The claims made for battery pulse desulphators seem to make them ideal for voyaging boats. A cheap, easy to install gadget that will dramatically extend your expensive batteries’ lives. What’s not to like? But do they really work? John takes a look.
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Read more: A Podcast With John and Andy SchellJohn has finally learned about podcasts and specifically offshore voyaging podcasts. He has now been interviewed not just once, but twice.
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Read more: Voyaging With Children: Ten Tips From A KidJack, 12 years old, shares ten tips for kids and parents to help make life on a boat easier and filled with great experiences. This is stuff he learned over three years while living aboard and sailing 36,000 miles with his family on Sila, a Boréal 47, including an expedition to South Georgia.
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Read more: Goop and Goo, and Why I Hate 5200If 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.
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Read more: Cape Sable—The Cape Horn Of Nova ScotiaCape Sable is beset by ferocious tides and uneven shoals. Throw in regular doses of dense fog and you’ll need no convincing to avoid this place in bad weather. With the right weather and timing, however, you can have a pleasant rounding, opening up the whole Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia for you to explore.
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Read more: Yarmouth, Nova Scotia—Acadian DreamsThere’s more to Yarmouth than meets the eye—don’t just sail on by.
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Read more: Crossing The Bay Of Fundy—Off To The Land Of Big TidesCrossing from Maine to Nova Scotia can be daunting, due to the big tides in the Bay of Fundy. But the rewards of entering a new cruising ground make it worthwhile. Here are a few tips on how to make the passage.
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Read more: Battery Replacement—Resisting The Seduction of PerfectionThe story of how John nearly wasted a bunch of time and money, but finally got a grip of himself. Lots of electrical system recommendations and a caution to make sure that the complexity we choose is right for us.
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Read more: Hoisting the Mainsail Made Easy—Simplicity in ActionWhen we have a problem on our boats, it’s always tempting to try to fix it by adding gear, but often a better approach is simplification. We look at mainsail hoisting as an example and provide several tips to make the job easier.
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Read more: Happy Anniversary To UsPhyllis expands a bit on our (very slow) transition to part-time voyaging and discusses the upcoming very important month of December.
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Read more: Security Tips For Cruising In Risky PlacesSome of the world’s most interesting cruising destinations are subject to theft and violence. Colin provides tips to stay safe. Fixation on risk plays no part in adventure…but planning does.
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Read more: The Weirdest—And Best—Small Boat of 2016Sick of fighting with an outboard? Want to keep fit while cruising? Like to get on the water in a small fun boat? Matt has the answer.
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Read more: Ten Tips To Fix Weather HelmThere are few problems that detract more from the pleasure of sailing than a bad case of weather helm, a surprisingly common affliction. The good news is that this problem can be fixed.
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Read more: How Batteries Charge (Multiple Charging Sources Too)The details of how batteries charge and how voltage regulators work together…or not. Practical information that will help make sure you have electricity when you need it.
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Maiden Voyage of The Boreal 55—What Worked and What Didn’t
47 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: Maiden Voyage of The Boreal 55—What Worked and What Didn’tColin’s report on testing some of the latest and coolest gear on a brand new Boreal 55: autopilot, plotter, radar, stove, hydrogenerator, it’s all here. A real gear-heads article.
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One Simple Law That Makes Electrical Systems Easy to Understand
53 CommentsReading Time: 6 minutesMembers
Read more: One Simple Law That Makes Electrical Systems Easy to UnderstandElectricity, batteries and how to charge them are the source of more confusion in the cruising world than just about anything I can think of. But suppose you could really understand electricity? Now you can, and it’s not hard. Read on.
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Read more: Offshore Motorboats and an Ideal Geezer BoatJohn has long been a critic of the current state of motorboat design but now he’s seeing some exciting new designs that bode well for the future.
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Read more: Things I’ve Learned From Three Refits That Will Help YouAndy Schell summarizes what he has learned from the three refits , and provides some solid hard-earned tips for anyone considering refitting an old boat.
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Read more: Giving a Tough Old Ocean Greyhound a New PurposeMaking over an older quality racing boat into a capable and fast offshore cruising boat.
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Read more: The Marine Electronics Industry Has Really Lost The Plot NowJohn’s in rant mode. This time it’s marine electronic and electrical technician training that has attracted his ire. But he’s not just throwing rocks, he makes suggestions for improvement too.
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Read more: Refitting a Wauquiez Hood 38What it takes to refit a good sailboat to make her ocean cruising ready.
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Read more: A Trans-Atlantic Boat For Less Than US$100,000Refitting a 45 year old 35’ Allied Seabreeze Yawl to make her ocean cruising ready.
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How To Select The Best Power and Propeller Settings For Your Engine
84 CommentsReading Time: 8 minutesMembers
Read more: How To Select The Best Power and Propeller Settings For Your EngineIn the last chapter in this Online Book, John wrote about how chronic underloading of your engine can wreck it, as well as waste fuel and produce unnecessary carbon. In this chapter we get to the good stuff: how to solve the problem for both new and existing engines.
