How to Completely Rewire Your Sailboat

It’s an enduring truth that appearances can be deceiving, especially with electrical systems. When I inspected Summer Dance before buying her, the electrical system looked like one of the boat’s strong suits. It had an upgraded panel and a new battery. The wiring was all original except for spliced connections to the panel. There weren’t any…

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Single Line Jiffy Reefing Made Easy

Your ability to reef your mainsail is one of the most important sailing skills that you can learn. Your reefing rigging plays an important part in that. You can do it with just a few short lengths of rope but it will be more time consuming and difficult than it needs to be. That method…

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Beware of Galvanic Corrosion!

Galvanic corrosion can happen when dissimilar metals, stainless steel and aluminum, for example, are in contact with each other, exposed to an electrolyte, and an electrical current is applied. That’s the technical definition. The layman’s definition is it’s the white stuff that grows around your stainless steel fasteners in your aluminum mast and boom when…

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Even the Winds And the Waves Obey Him

The following is one of my favorite devotions from one of my favorite preachers, Charles Spurgeon (1834 – 1892). It’s a commentary on the famous story of when Jesus calmed the storm in Mark 4:36-41. As you celebrate Christmas this year with family and friends, may Jesus be your admiral through whatever storms you are…

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How to Clean Sails at Home

Just like a white shirt is a magnet for spaghetti stains, your sails are magnets for stains, dirt, and mildew. Unlike a white shirt, you shouldn’t bleach or machine wash your sails, it will ruin them. That means don’t clean them in a chlorinated pool, either. For hundreds of dollars, you can send your sails…

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Restore Your Exterior Teak to Better Than New

Is your topside brightwork weathered, worn, and sorely in need of refinishing? If so, this is one project that you’ve probably been putting off but you know it needs to be done. The job isn’t particularly difficult or expensive, it just takes plenty of time to do it right and to get good results. But…

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$tingy’s 12-Point Winterization Checklist

When fall arrives, many owners haul out their sailboats to store them for the winter. Months of nothing but exposure to the elements gives rust, mildew, marine fouling, and chafing time to claim new territory in the battle for ownership of your sailboat. But you can keep the enemies at bay by doing these simple…

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Lead All Lines to the Cockpit for Safer Sailing

The factory running rigging on most small sailboats, including the Catalina 22, is minimal to keep the price low. That is, the halyards and any other control lines are only long enough to fasten them to nearby cleats. Convenience and trimming for performance are a luxury reserved for larger, more expensive sailboats. It works okay, but…

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Control Mainsail Draft with a Boom Downhaul

A boom downhaul is one of the three possible control lines for the three sides of the mainsail. The other two are the boom vang (controls leech tension) and the mainsail outhaul (controls foot tension). Catalina 22 and similar sailboats have a  short length of line attached to the bottom of the gooseneck car on the…

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