know how

I pretty much took rigs for granted when I first started sailing on other people’s boats. After all, unlike exciting, moving, tweakable things like sails and running rigging, masts and booms were just there—a part of the structure of the boat. I took no part in their maintenance ...read more

Everyone dreads the day that something as major and costly as a boat’s rigging must be replaced. For my 1984 Tayana 42, Eclipse, still sporting its original setup and with a 1,500-mile offshore passage looming, the time for an upgrade had finally arrived. Along with swapping out ...read more

I’m not going to lie. This all started with wine. I wanted (needed?) to find more space on the boat where we could stow the stuff, especially what we call “cruiser’s wine”—bagged wine, which is the tipple of choice on Plaintiff’s Rest. Thankfully, this fruitful endeavor ended ...read more

Push-Button Reefing Boats have never been easier to sail, and yet, designers and builders still strive for that extra iota or two of convenience. A case in point is the growing acceptance of powered headsail furlers. Roller-furling headsails are ubiquitous not only on cruising ...read more

Our 1987 Pearson project boat came with an elderly but functioning Raymarine chartplotter, located belowdecks at the nav station. Since I usually sail solo or doublehanded, it was of little use down there—it needed to be near the helm. When I decided to update the plotter along ...read more

Both of the heads on Britannia, my Downeast 45 schooner, are Raritan Elegance electric models that I installed nearly four years ago. They have performed flawlessly, and one of the reasons for that is that for about 90 percent of the time, they are flushed with clean freshwater. ...read more

Good to Go? The boat’s in the water, the rig has been tuned, and you’re ready to go off on your first summer cruise. There are just a few things you ought to check before you head off, says Peter Nielsen Belowdecks Electrics: It’s really annoying to run out of battery power when ...read more

Owning a yacht in charter sounds exotic and enticing, and it may have crossed your mind to give it a try. Maybe you’ve heard stories of good experiences (or bad ones). Maybe you haven’t heard any stories, but you’ve romanticized the idea into the perfect lifestyle. Before you ...read more

As with so many other things on our 1987 Pearson 39-2 project boat, the lifelines looked to be original equipment. Made of vinyl-coated 3/16in 7x7 stainless steel wire, they were bleeding rust where the sheathing had cracked, and it was obvious they needed to be replaced. The ...read more

Before setting out on the boat’s major refit, I sailed Passion for nearly five years. I wanted to learn all about her personality and identify her quirks and needed improvements. Some were painfully obvious. Others only emerged after years of sailing and under certain ...read more

I found my sailing “dream boat” in the spring of 1979 while racing on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. Everyone had heard about the hot new boat in town, and we were anxiously awaiting the appearance of this new Pearson 40. She made it to the starting line just before the race ...read more

In the second of a two-part series on light-air sails, Rupert Holmes looks at how today’s furling gear has revolutionized sail handling off the wind. Read part 1 here. It’s easy to look at long-distance racing yachts of 60ft and above with multiple downwind sails set on roller ...read more

In this first part of a two-part series on light-air downwind sails, Rupert Holmes looks at the different types of Code 0’s and A-sails now available to cruisers. To learn more about how to handle these kinds of sails. Read part 2 here.  The list of potential downwind sails for ...read more

When we acquired our new project boat, a 1987 Pearson 39-2, it was evident that she was in need of much TLC. Not only had she been sitting forlorn and unloved in a boatyard for a couple of years, but those of her systems that were not original were a couple of decades old. ...read more

With today’s ever-increasing reliance on chartplotters with AIS overlay for collision avoidance, what role should radar play as a safety device? Duncan Kent investigates While your chartplotter will (hopefully) show you where the land and sea should be, only radar can show you ...read more

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

Without a doubt, the best way to “clean” stainless steel parts is to have them electropolished. Electropolishing is an electrochemical process that cleans the stainless and removes any surface iron particles, leaving a shiny and far more rust-resistant surface. The downsides of ...read more

“Ready to take the dink ashore?” Never had those words invoked as much anxiety as when my husband, Jeff, and I first moved to the Pacific Coast. Why? Because we had exactly zero experience with dinghy surf landings, and the possibility of being flipped upside down along with our ...read more

So, you want to find a great deal on your next charter vacation? Sure, you can scour the internet, hope for Black Friday deals or ask friends. But an even better way to find good prices on charter boats is to go to a boat show. Not only do charter companies like The Moorings, ...read more

The rigmarole of stretching a cover over a dinghy in choppy water prior to hoisting it on davits can become a very wet business if you’re not careful. Leaning right over either end, trying to stretch a cover over the bow and stern pods can quite easily result in a head-first dip ...read more

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