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On Kindness

$tingy Sailor

This is my annual Christmas post in which I share a bit about my Christian faith. I don’t apologize for it for two main reasons. One, because I truly believe it is the way to live the most abundant life. I tried others and they fall far short. And two, because to not share my faith would be the most hypocritical act of all. If reading this post would offend you, then stop here and find something else to read. But I challenge you to read it anyway. You might not be as offended as you think. I’ll return to posting the usual content in the next post.

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The Essentials You Should Have in Your Onboard Toolbox

$tingy Sailor

Some of us were Boy Scouts back in the day and we learned to be prepared. For the rest of us, we might not have gotten the lesson. Are you prepared for a gear failure aboard your sailboat? If you cruise offshore or in remote locations like I do, you could be many miles from help if something goes wrong. What will you do if your rigging fails, if your ground tackle fails, or if your outboard motor fails? If you’re not prepared, an inconvenience could escalate into an emergency.

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Sewing, Uncategorized4 Comments

Sew This Jib Sock to Protect Your Furled Headsails

$tingy Sailor

If you install a cruising furler like I describe in Headsail Furlers For the Trailer Sailor and you don’t also add sacrificial cover strips to the leech and foot of your headsails, those edges of your sails will be constantly exposed to UV sunlight and the weather and will deteriorate much faster than the rest of the sails. Having a sail loft add sacrificial strips can be expensive, particularly if you have it done it to multiple sails, say, your jib and a genoa. An alternative solution is to make this DIY jib sock. You can use it to protect whatever sail you have on your furler and at a fraction of the cost of sacrificial strips.

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Product Review: Magma BeachFire/Rio Grill

$tingy Sailor

What’s better than a freshly grilled steak or cheeseburger after you’ve set anchor at the end of a full day of sailing? Anything you could cook on that wimpy alcohol stove in the galley? Share your nominees in the comments below. For the rest of us, the issue isn’t what but where, because that alcohol stove isn’t going to get the job done right. If you’re looking for a high quality, efficient, and compact gas grille to use on your sailboat and elsewhere, read on.

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Try This Rudder Hack for Less Weather Helm

$tingy Sailor

Perfect sail trim results in maximum forward speed, minimum heel, and a neutral helm. In other words, the sails are balanced between the headsail and the mainsail and the tiller requires little to no input to hold the sailboat’s heading. But we all know that perfection is elusive and it’s a moving target. Wind and water change and sometimes we can’t or don’t want to adjust the sail trim accordingly. That can mean that the sails are out of balance and you have to apply more force to the tiller to hold your course, also called weather helm (windward) or lee helm (leeward).

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