Tag: sailboat

Product reviews, Tips34 Comments

Remove and Prevent Mildew for Pennies

$tingy Sailor

This guest post is from Drew Frye and first appeared on his blog, Sail Delmarva. Drew also tests products for Practical Sailor magazine and writes for other magazines like Good Old Boat. He graciously agreed to let me reproduce his article here.

The great myth of boat ownership—other than believing that everything takes 3 times as long and costs 4 times as much as you expect—is that mildew is ubiquitous. No matter how leak-tight, no matter how well maintained, it is always there. Well, I disagree wholeheartedly, and I challenge anyone to find any in my cabin. How have I dodged this scourge?

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Boom, Rigging16 Comments

Control Your Mainsail Shape Better With a Boom Vang

$tingy Sailor

A boom vang is a useful control for your mainsail, especially if the mainsail is older and acting its age. That is, if it’s getting baggy and is difficult to flatten, particularly when you’re pointed off the wind. For better performance and safety, you need to be able to pull excess twist out of the mainsail and flatten the leech. The best way to do that is with a boom vang. It has the added benefit of preventing the end of the boom from raising so high during gybes that it can snag the backstay, a potentially dangerous situation if the wind is strong enough.

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Accessories, Electrical12 Comments

How To Install a Tiller Autopilot

$tingy Sailor

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.

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Rigging11 Comments

Upgrade Your Rig With a DIY Adjustable Backstay

$tingy Sailor

At some point when you get serious about sail trim, whether for racing or just high performance cruising, you’re going to want an adjustable backstay. Most C-22s and similar daysailers were rigged at the factory with fixed length backstays that are only slightly adjustable with a turnbuckle. They’re not intended for adjusting to different wind conditions. You set it and forget it.

Consequently, you only have one setting for mast bend and headstay tension. That’s fine for casual cruising. Set it for the conditions that you usually sail in and it will usually be close. But an adjustable backstay gives you a range of trim positions to optimize the mainsail and headsail shape for any conditions, which are what you can encounter when racing or when you’re no longer just a fair weather skipper. 

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Cabin, Electrical5 Comments

Install a Marine Music System

$tingy Sailor

If you’re a music lover, an onboard music system is mandatory. There’s a mysterious connection between the open waters and music. Whether it’s classical, jazz, rock, country, folk, or reggae, there’s a song for every mood when you’re sailing.

A marine music system lets you take your favorite music with you on the waters. We have them in our homes, in our cars, even in our phones, so we need them on our sailboats. A quality system isn’t difficult to install and it doesn’t have to be expensive.

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Rigging4 Comments

How to Reinforce Your Stem Fitting

$tingy Sailor

While removing and rebedding all the deck hardware on Summer Dance with butyl tape, I decided that I would reinforce the stem fitting while I was at it. A popular online Catalina parts retailer’s website says:

Boats built before ’82 had an inherent weakness: The forestay load was forward of the stem fitting’s forward mounting bolts, supported only by the deck, in an area with many holes in a small space, all forward of the marine plywood reinforcement. It is common to see these Catalina 22’s with stem fittings that are being pulled up from the deck.

Deck failure begins by looking like the picture below. Notice the line of cracks just in front of the forward stem fitting bolts.

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Cockpit/stern21 Comments

How To Repair a Rudder

$tingy Sailor

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 and it doesn’t take much time in water to make the wooden core swell and damage the rudder even more. Without repairs, a weakened rudder can even break into pieces under stress. It pays to protect your rudder.

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