Can you list the things you never want to see on a boat? A fire, perhaps? Windows shattering from lightning, water spewing from…anywhere? I can now add one more to my list: movement in the rudder post. On Day 3 of a five-day passage from Pensacola, Florida, to Cuba on our 1985 ...read more
Look after your sails, and they’ll look after you Dacron sailcloth has two natural enemies—sunlight and chafe, both of which are found in abundance on the typical sailboat. There is not much you can do to stave off damage from ultraviolet light except to keep the mainsail ...read more
It seems that every time I walk into a boatyard I inevitably find myself smitten by some under-loved (read derelict) classic beauty sitting forlornly off in a corner. Hmmm, I think, I could buy her for a song and with a little elbow grease and some TLC, she will be ready to go. ...read more
Certain boatyards always seem to attract would-be voyagers with large ideas, small budgets and vessels of suspect provenance. I once kept a boat in one such yard in midcoast Maine, at the back of which was a handful of bizarre project boats. Most of these never came to anything ...read more
On many boats, decks are cored with end-grain balsa or plywood with a fiberglass laminate on each side. It’s not unusual for moisture to find its way into this wooden core. Stanchion bases and chainplates often leak as a boat ages, and often holes are drilled in the deck for new ...read more
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 ...read more
Is your fuel gauge inaccurate? Is it no longer working at all? This is a common problem on older boats, but is easy to fix. The first step is to determine whether the problem is with the gauge or the sending unit. The test for this is straightforward. First, check that the gauge ...read more
We were spending hurricane season in Trinidad on our Creekmore 34 Eurisko and thought we might as well haul her out to apply another coat of bottom paint. What we found when she emerged from the water on the lift at Peak’s Marina, however, turned a three-day quick haul into a ...read more
I never used to read how-to articles in sailing magazines. They were too daunting. I might want to build a thingie or fix a whatnot, but a few paragraphs in, I would learn that success was possible only if certain conditions were met: I needed a machine shop and a basement full ...read more
If you own an older boat and are worried about osmosis problems, there are a number of cures and they do not need to be expensive. If no sign of bubbling fiberglass has shown up yet, there is a pretty good chance that action on your part will prevent it from ever happening. ...read more
Do you antifoul your propeller? Looking around the yard where we keep our project boat, Ostara, the consensus seemed to be “no”. Most propellers showed the telltale signs of barnacle infestation, as indeed did our three-bladed Gori folding prop. Barnacles aren‘t just unsightly, ...read more
When a boat’s systems or interior are modified, you may need or want to glass over existing holes in the hull. One season when we hauled out in Trinidad, we decided to eliminate three through-hulls in our Creekmore 34, Eurisko. The holes were all different sizes, but we treated ...read more
The original purchase survey for my Allied Seabreeze sloop Keewaydin included a note about the fixed three-bladed bronze propeller: “some cupping noticed on all blades.” One of the surveyor’s post-purchase recommendations was to have the prop reconditioned. That was a number of ...read more
