We trailer sailors are the vagabonds of the sailing world, the gypsies, free spirits who can tow our sailboats anywhere we want with ease. There’s no excuse for getting bored with the same cruising areas when you can just hook up and go somewhere different. The downside, of course, is having to set up the…
Category: Cockpit/stern
Upgrade to a Bimini Top on a Budget
The first mate and I live at around 48 degrees north latitude, which means that we don’t get a lot of hot weather. We have four distinct seasons and enjoy them all. It will get to around 100 degrees for a couple of weeks in August, but that’s as hot as it gets. The rest of…
How To Repair a Rudder
Rudders damage easily. Although they work similar to a keel, they aren’t nearly as tough. If you dry sail, the edges can accumulate nicks and dings in the fiberglass from loading and unloading. The rudders of some sailboats can hit the outboard motor’s propeller if you’re not careful. Add in accidental groundings, storage damage, and stress cracks…
Sew Your Own Winch Covers From Scraps
Do you keep your lovingly maintained sailboat in a slip or on a mooring ball but want to protect your hard work from the elements as much as possible? Covers on your winches can protect the plated parts from corrosion, plastic parts from UV damage, bearings and pawls from rainwater and salt water spray, and keep…
Turn a Locker Lid into a Cockpit Table
At the risk of overstating the obvious, trailerable sailboats are cramped. Some are more cramped than others. Cramped inside and cramped outside. But we tolerate the cramped conditions because they’re so much fun to sail and to camp aboard. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be made more comfortable.
Make This Boom Tent: the Poor Man’s Bimini
It’s a cloudless mid-summer afternoon. You’ve had a great day of sailing but you’re ready to drop anchor, start dinner, and relax for another stunning sunset. You’ve been in the sun all day so some shade would be great but you don’t have a bimini on your sailboat. You don’t really want to go down…
Add a Solar-Powered Flood Light in Your Cockpit
This is one of those little things that I did on a whim and I didn’t think would last. But it has turned out to be so handy that I’d miss it if it were gone.
Make Your Own Lifeline Cushions
This is a quick, easy, cheap project if you have any scraps of canvas leftover from earlier canvaswork projects. Lifeline cushions are tubular foam with canvas covers that fit over the lifelines that run along the sides of the cockpit. They’re great as headrests when laying back in the cockpit seats while you check your…
$tingy Sailor Lazarette EZ-Lift Kit
No matter how well organized your gear is in your lazarettes, it doesn’t help you to hold the lazarette lids open while you dig that gear out. It’s not so bad with small items like a hank of rope or a fender but larger items that take two hands like a BBQ grill or an…
The $tingy Sailor 