Cruising Tips

Tools for your Cruise

by Don Casey, Posted August 22, 2011

Cruisers who sail long distances typically carry a vast array of tools and spare parts, but weekend sailors tend to buy parts as needed and depend on tools normally kept at home, in the trunk of a car, or even hanging on the rack at a hardware store. But what happens when you take your boat out of home waters, with house, car, hardware store and chandlery left behind? This is a good question to

Cruising Tips: Spinnaker Net

by Peter Nielsen, Posted August 24, 2011

Like most cruisers, I was happy to ditch my symmetric spinnaker and defect to a more easily handled asymmetric kite, but I can’t deny that the symmetric sail has its advantages. It works better on downwind runs with the apparent wind at 140 degrees or more, and on most older boats it has the considerable virtue of already being on board (no need to spend money) and is probably lightly

Cruising Tips: Spouting Off

by Connie McBride, Posted August 24, 2011

Waterspouts are not just “tornadoes over water.” Meteorologists admit they still have much to learn about these phenomena, but there is a typical “waterspout cloud” that usually generates them. These dark, flat-bottomed cumulus clouds generally get no taller than 20,000 feet. As clouds go, this is noticeably low. Waterspouts get their energy from heat in the water, so they are most frequently

Extrasensory Perceptions

by David W. Shaw, Posted September 28, 2011

The night sky over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel flashed white with lightning, like a silent artillery barrage. The storms were so far up the bay the sound of the thunder never reached Sonata, the 1981 Pearson 36 cutter...

The Joys of Bow Thrusters

by Tom Cunliffe, Posted June 16, 2009

My initial reaction when I first saw a bow thruster on a 40-foot sailboat was to laugh my docksiders off. I’d spent a lifetime threading awkward boats with single props into tricky berths and could imagine no sensible reason for compromising sailing performance by drilling a hole the size of a baby’s head through the bow of a perfectly good boat. As thrusters became more common and I watched

Boathandling: How to wind winches

by Charles Mason, Posted June 19, 2009

If you have invited guests aboard for an afternoon sail or for a cruise and you know they have limited sailing experience but want to be involved on deck, here’s a way to get them working that lets you be sure things are in order. Cut out some circular plastic rings that will fit snugly around your winch bases. Then put a series of arrows on the upper ring face—you can either use decals or draw

Coastal cruising: Reel length

by Peter Nielsen, Posted June 19, 2009

Having a long length of line ready to use at short notice is always a good idea when cruising. You never know when you may have to run out a long mooring warp or set a kedge anchor. The trouble is that such a seldom-used line often ends up under piles of gear in the cockpit locker. This is a bad arrangement, because when you want a long line you often need it right now. You don’t want to waste

Seamanship: Twin power

by Chip Lawson, Posted June 19, 2009

I was looking up at the masthead from the deck trying to see how the main halyard and the mainsail’s headboard were interacting and how the upper swivel for the jib furler was aligned. I took my 7x50 binoculars but I was still unable to get the close-up view I wanted. Then, in a eureka moment, I pulled out my digital camera, with its zoom capability, and put its lens to one of the binocular’s

Cheap geezer logbook

by Chip Lawson, Posted June 22, 2009

My sailing philosophy is, “when on watch, stay on deck”. I have made many changes to my boat to reduce the need to go below. One simple change was to create a waterproof logbook that I could safely leave on deck in any weather without fear of damage. A side benefit is that it is inexpensive as well.Using spreadsheet software I created a logbook format I liked. I purchased

Night Flight

by Patrick Childress, Posted July 7, 2009

Not a sliver of moon nor a single star could pierce the thick clouds. We were sailing, levitating, in total darkness. Keeping Brick House, our Valiant 40, just half a mile off the unlit rocky shore was the only way to stay out of the swift counter-current as we fought our way south along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. It was important to sail all night and make good time