know how

In-mast furling systems have come a long way. Forget the hollow-leeched, baggy triangles we first saw decades ago; a well-specced modern in-mast system can offer more sail area than a traditional slab-reefed mainsail, so the performance gap has narrowed significantly. ...read more

We were 1,100 miles from the nearest land when we received a text message on our Iridium GO: “Rudder gone. Water in bilge. Worried pumps can’t keep up. Please call!” We had been in contact with the owners of Rosinante, a 38ft Island Packet, since they had first announced over ...read more

Portland, Oregon. The fuel nozzle at the dock had a recoil like a small caliber pistol. The fuel tank sits tightly immediately beneath the cockpit of my sailboat. The fill pipe, if you want to call it that is 3in long. I couldn’t just squeeze it off, the fuel hit the tank point ...read more

CETOL SKIN I used Sikkens Cetol on the bare wood on my Catalina 30, Morning Dew IV. The can was compromised over the spring, and I put the balance in a 16oz clean glass mayo jar. Last spring when I went to use it, a skin had formed over the top of the liquid, so I just cut the ...read more

Sailmaking ain’t what it used to be, especially out in the Nevada desert Some years ago I visited the Bavaria factory and was amused at the thought of a powerhouse boatbuilder turning out its products smack bang in the middle of rural Germany, surrounded by fields of cows and ...read more

I was originally drawn to sailing not by the pull of the water but by the pull of land, land beyond my horizon. The idea that one could step aboard a boat, hoist a triangle of canvas like a hitchhiker’s thumb and catch a ride on a passing wind to an exotic island, to a foreign ...read more

All last winter the faded red Achilles inflatable floated in an empty slip, a rose with its bloom most definitely gone, abandoned, I was told, by a cruiser who’d moved up to a RIB. In the autumn gales she filled with rainwater and in the coldest New England months, she cradled a ...read more

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is the cooking fuel of choice for most cruisers, but it can kill you if you don’t respect it. Here’s how to keep your propane system healthy and your boat safe It’s often the things we cannot see that pose the greatest danger on our boats. A recent ...read more

My partner, Jeff, and I needed crew for a two- to three-week sail down the Mexican coast of Baja California on our new-to-us Antares 44i catamaran, El Gato, so we put an ad in one of our local sailing publications. We received some promising letters of introduction, but thanks ...read more

STOVE TROUBLES Q: I have a Broadwater two-burner propane stove with an oven and broiler. It’s from 2003 but still looks new. When I acquired the boat in 2015 all four burners worked. But after I had the boat transported to Wisconsin and then back to Florida, it went from four ...read more

For many years I hated drilling stainless steel. It’s hard, it requires expensive cobalt or carbide bits and it takes a long time to drill. In other words, I had many good reasons for feeling this way. However, as it turns out, all of them were based on incorrect information. ...read more

Over the last 25 years, there has been a dramatic shift in the types of refrigeration systems carried aboard cruising boats. Today, 12-volt systems prevail, but the systems most often installed up to the late ‘90s were driven by the main engine. Engine-driven refrigerators ...read more

From the first time I switched on the lights on board our new project boat, one thing was certain: they would have to go. The 1987 Pearson 39-2 had been updated in some ways, but not in others—and it was obvious that interior lighting had been way down the previous owner’s ...read more

It used to be simple. In the old days, your sailmaker offered you one kind of mainsail, and sailors were generally happy with the result. You got a sail with a moderate roach, four battens to support that roach, a few reefs and some sail-trim devices, like a cunningham or a ...read more

Keeping your diesel fuel clean should be one of your highest priorities, and you can avoid a lot of trouble by adding extra filtration. During the 2015-16 winter aboard Eclipse, our Tayana Vancouver 42, we pulled out our old Perkins 4-108 for a rebuild. With the engine out of ...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

Q: I have an old 35ft, full-keel CCA-era sloop, and I love everything about it save one thing: the serious prop walk whenever I try to back up or even bring the boat to a stop. Over the years I’ve developed various strategies to compensate. But I was wondering if there’s ...read more

Military strategist Helmuth von Moltke said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” This is also true for a boat refit plan I started the refit of my boat, Passion, with a simple plan. Just as my geezerly body has needed a few parts replaced and some other repairs to ...read more

Whether you enjoy cruising or racing, friction is never your friend. Fortunately, the marine industry offers an incredible variety of low-friction hardware to make your time afloat more enjoyable. Blocks—the age-old friend to sailors the world over—are one of the most important ...read more

Parts List: Click to print a PDF McMaster Carr Stainless Steel 3/8" MNPT Nipple Quantity: 22 $1.79/each Brass 3/8" FNPT to 3/8" hose barb Quantity: 22 $11.12/packs of 5 Brass 1/2" MNPT to 3/8" hose barb Quantity: 4 $3.29/packs of 2 Brass 3/8" MNPT to 3/8" hose barb ...read more

When it comes to accurately keeping track of your whereabouts, modern chartplotters and multi-function displays (MFDs) are virtually indispensable. Provided they are properly networked to other onboard instrumentation (including AIS, GPS and radar), typically via a NMEA 0183 or ...read more

Given the ongoing proliferation of electronic equipment and gadgets like watermakers, autopilots and electric winches on modern sailboats, it’s little surprise that batteries have become increasingly important. Typically speaking, marine batteries are 6- or 12-volts and are used ...read more

I was in the café at West Bay Marina in Olympia, Washington, on a damp, chilly fall morning, and my buddies and I were assembled for our morning briefing on what’s going on and what’s not going on. After a few jokes that were funny only to old men, we narrowed the focus to what ...read more