I hadn’t seriously considered an autopilot for Summer Dance until I discovered the affordable Raymarine ST1000+ Tiller Pilot and that they could be had for half the cost of new on eBay. When I thought of how convenient it would be for cruising with my wife who has no desire to take the helm, I concluded that it might free me up to attend to the many other responsibilities of single-handed sailing.
Continue reading “How To Install a Tiller Autopilot”
This project is one of the easiest you’ll ever do to your sailboat. There’s no epoxy, painting, drilling, wiring, or splicing involved. If you can saw through a piece of PVC pipe, you can do this job. Heck, this might be a good project for a junior crew member to work on their stingy sailor skills!
Continue reading “Quick and Simple DIY Turnbuckle Boots”
How do you step the mast on your trailerable sailboat? With a gin pole? With the trailer winch? With the help of friends or family? With your fingers crossed? No single system works for every sailboat or for every skipper. If you’re new to mast stepping, you don’t like your current method, or you just want to simplify or speed up the process, this post is for you. I must warn you though, this is a long post, even for me. To make it as short as possible, I’ve included five YouTube videos that show how this system works. By the end of this post, you’ll know everything about how I step the mast on Summer Dance single-handed in minutes, even on the water.
Continue reading “How to Step a Mast Single-Handed With or Without Using the Boom as a Gin Pole”
Did you take your family out on your sailboat this summer for Independence Day, Memorial Day, or Labor Day? On those holidays, you probably saw more flags flying than usual. Sailboats flying flags evoke a different feeling than ones without. At least they do for me. Besides being patriotic, they add to a festive, nautical mood to the day.
Did you fly your favorite club burgee too? If you didn’t, was it because you don’t have a place to fly your burgee from? Adding a flag halyard is an inexpensive, easy project you can do in under an hour.
Continue reading “Make a Flag Halyard to Fly Your Favorite Colors”
If you’re not afraid to sail single-handed in a stiff breeze and get the toe rail wet, then you want to be able to move around in the cockpit and still have control of your tiller. You want to be able to lean back into the lifelines, sit as far forward as possible (to lighten the stern), or even sit up on the coamings. But you can’t do that without a tiller extension.
I’ve been asked many times if I have a chartplotter on Summer Dance. Up to now, I’ve answered that I didn’t have a need for one and that my handheld GPS worked fine for my needs. But recently, I’ve challenged myself to do more fishing and I haven’t been very successful yet at filling up my electric smoker. I’m also seriously considering cruising the San Juan Islands off the Washington state coast. And there’s my failure to get my handheld GPS to play nice with my tiller autopilot that nags at me. For these reasons, I bit the bullet and installed a Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73sv chartplotter. I’ll give you my objective evaluation in this review.
Continue reading “Product Review: Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73sv Chartplotter”
If you’re looking for gifts for that stingy sailor on your gift list or even if you ARE that stingy sailor and you need some hint-dropping ideas, let me help you out. Following are my top 10 gift ideas this year.
Continue reading “Top 10 Gift Ideas for 2017”
In my never-ending quest to find the best storage and organization solutions for everything aboard Summer Dance, the hardest storage problems are the smallest items. Big items like life jackets and sails aren’t hard to find places to store because there aren’t a lot of options. But finding a home for little items like pens, pencils, keys, digital memory cards, maps, and registration paperwork can be tough. They need to be readily accessible yet securely stowed and water resistant. There aren’t a lot of options. Waitaminnit, didn’t I say that already?
Continue reading “Product Review: Smart Solutions Add-A-Drawer Kit”
Show the world that sailing is your superpower with a Stingy Sailor T-shirt. Or get one for a family member, crew member, or a stingy friend who helped you finish that DIY project. They make unique gifts that any sailor will like.
Continue reading “Say It Like You Mean It with StingyWear”
The $tingy Sailor 