If you leave your sailboat exposed to the elements for long periods of time or if you just want to keep your brightwork bright, it helps to cover the main hatch to reduce damage from UV rays, rain and snow, and bird droppings. Making one isn’t hard and you can do it in less than a day with about a yard of canvas, depending on the size of your hatch.
Continue reading “Make This Companionway Hatch Cover In Under a Day”
It’s the holy grail of sailing, the one thing that is denied every sailor, yet they yearn and struggle for it anyway. I’m talking about pointing higher upwind. No matter how good of a sailboat you have or how good you are at trimming its sails, there’s a limit to how close into the wind you can sail and that limit can affect your course whether you’re cruising or racing. On a short course, it can mean the difference between one tack and two tacks to reach your destination or between 8 tacks and 12 tacks on a longer course. Every tack you make, you lose speed and time. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, sometimes it does. Continue reading “Put That Lazy Sheet to Work and Point Higher”
I’m not a neatnik that needs everything to be squeaky clean and new. Well, maybe just a little. But if maintaining a part gets neglected to the point that it affects functionality, then the part needs to be repaired or replaced in my book. A good example of this is your sailboat’s cockpit scupper, galley, anchor locker, and other drain tubing.
You’ve put off replacing that threadbare old sail long enough. Or maybe it ripped during your last outing. Or maybe you just bought a used sailboat and it’s missing a serviceable mainsail or headsail. You want to buy a new sail but you’re not sure where from, there are so many choices. Being a stingy sailor, you can’t afford to just write a blank check. But you also don’t want invest in poor quality that won’t perform or won’t last.
Continue reading “Product Review: Rolly Tasker Sails”
This is a guest post by Diego Flores, who took First Place in the 2016 Stingy Sailor DIY Project Contest with a boarding ladder project for his 1979 Catalina 22 Mirabel.
Continue reading “DIY Non-Skid Paint for Safer Footing”
What condition is your main sheet traveler car in? Do the sheaves look like the picture below, chipped and cracked? After twenty, thirty, or forty years they can get brittle and weak. You don’t want them to break while you’re out on the water. The car wouldn’t come off the bar but there would be metal riding on metal, not a good thing.
Continue reading “Two Ways to Rebuild Your Main Sheet Traveler Car”
Small sailboats don’t offer a lot of seating options in the cockpit. Four adults are about the maximum that will leave room for the skipper to work the helm. For casual cruising, that means everyone is in the cockpit, not hiking out on the coamings or side decks. Most sailboats will accommodate six in the cockpit while moored with the tiller out of the way but that can be crowded. You can give your guests more room or yourself more seating options with seats mounted on the stern pushpit.
Continue reading “Add More Cockpit Seating With DIY Stern Perch Seats”
What a year it’s been here on The $tingy Sailor!
We’ve seen incredible growth in the number of pages viewed every day—up 260% over last year to over 250,000 views to date from 148 countries.
The number of you who subscribed to this blog to receive the Stingy Sailor Spotlight newsletter more than doubled. I sent out 14 editions of the newsletter that let you be the first to know about major upcoming posts. I passed on a lot of gear sales tips to you and your input through the surveys was very valuable to let me know your opinions of some of the major changes to the blog. Continue reading “Top 10 DIY Projects of 2015”
A reader recently asked me about the pivot pin stuck in his swing keel. Over the years, I’ve read other owners’ calls for help for the same thing in online forums. They assume that the pin has to rotate freely in the hole in the keel.
In my opinion, the pin is better off stuck inside the keel hole either accidentally or intentionally. Mine was that way when I bought Summer Dance and I’ve left it that way, even through a complete refinishing project. It appeared as though the previous owner epoxied it in, which I’ve heard of other owners doing.
Continue reading “Why a Stuck Swing Keel Pivot Pin is a Good Thing”
The $tingy Sailor 