Upgrades

Deck gear

by Sail Staff, Posted December 23, 2008

Upgrading the deck gear on your boat can seriously enhance your sailing pleasure. Once you’ve sailed a boat set up with low-friction blocks, good rope clutches and jammers, and genoa-sheet cars that are quick and easy to adjust, it’s hard to go back to the creaky, friction-riddled 30- or 40-year-old deck gear that so many older boats are still saddled with.We had always planned to replace

Galley Upgrades

by Sail Staff, Posted August 28, 2008

Thinking hard about the little things increases efficiencyBy Rob LuceyMost production galleys are fine for a weekend cruise, but if you’re thinking about a longer time frame for the galley’s use—extended cruising or living aboard—any shortcomings will quickly become apparent. Fortunately, you don’t have to settle for what you are given. For example, my wife and I

Build a Boarding Step

by Sail Staff, Posted August 27, 2008

As you get older, you usually discover it’s a little harder to climb on and off a boat. At least, that’s what’s happened to me. Attempting to improve my lot, I tried out several commercially available boarding steps. Some had good features, but I wasn’t really happy with any of them. Then one day Vince and Dianne Purcell stopped by aboard Finn MacCool, their classic Bill Tripp–designed

Keeping Cool

by Paul Esterle, Posted August 25, 2008

A covered foredeck helps keep the noon sun at bayBy Paul EsterleSpending a Tennessee summer on my 35-footer taught me that surviving the sun and heat calls for proper sunshades and awnings. I quickly learned that if I didn’t put up adequate shades, the noon sun would heat the cabin to such high temperatures that even air conditioning could not cool the space down until

Better Water-Tank Vent

by Sail Staff, Posted August 20, 2008

Edited By Mark CorkeBetter Water-Tank VentJim Hancock sends us this idea from New Zealand, where he and his wife, Eleanor, cruise aboard their Freya 39, Solstice. Solstice’s freshwater tank vented into the bilge, so when the boat heeled, water from the tank would siphon into the bilge. Jim’s solution was to buy an inexpensive off-the-shelf dishwasher air gap—a device that

Shedding Light on LEDs

by Sail Staff, Posted March 28, 2007

More stories on LED lights from BoatWorks magazine. Let There Be LightThink you need a bigger battery to run the lights on your boat? Changing to LEDs could lower your power consumption and mean that you never have to buy another light bulb.LED Lowdown

Upgrade to energy independence

by Sail Staff, Posted March 31, 2003

When we bought Sea Spell, our 38-foot sloop, we realized she needed a major power upgrade. The existing electrical system was adequate for a boat kept in a slip, plugged into shore power and used for occasional weekend trips, but we intended to live aboard and cruise to distant tropical islands.Far from land, there is no grid to plug into. Instead, we now generate power with a