The winches on your sailboat are the workhorses of your rig. They do the heavy lifting and make your job as skipper easier so you can enjoy the ride. They’re also the most expensive hardware aboard so it only makes sense to take good care of them. In this post, I describe how they work and how to maintain them in peak condition. If you’re a beginner to winch maintenance, this post will bring you up to speed with the savviest captains.
This is a quick, easy, and cheap project if you have any scraps of canvas left over 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 Windex or just watch the clouds roll by. They also make sitting on top of the coamings more comfortable if you want to hike out a bit when heeled on a reach.
Think swing keel cables rarely break? Think again. Following is a small sample of the confessions of sailboat owners in a certain online forum over the past few years.
Summer Dance didn’t have much in the way of canvaswork when we bought her: an original mainsail cover and an old outboard engine cover that also looked pretty ghetto. Besides being 1980’s brown in color, the canvas of the mainsail cover was faded and shredded in places, much of the stitching had disintegrated, and the zipper had come almost completely loose. It was unsalvageable but it did work as a pattern to sew a new cover out of Sunbrella, the gold standard of marine canvas.
If you don’t have a headsail furler, a downhaul line is one of the easiest and least expensive control lines that you can add to your sailboat. It adds major convenience and safety for around $30. The line can be used with any size jib or genoa.
Continue reading “Install a Double Duty Headsail Downhaul”
When we purchased Summer Dance, the standing rigging was one system that I knew I would need to replace right away. The upper shrouds had been replaced recently with well made cables, probably from that popular online Catalina parts retailer. … Continue reading How to Replace Your Standing Rigging for Less
Storage for gear, clothing, provisions, and sails is a universal problem with trailerable sailboats. I began solving my onboard storage dilemma with an under galley storage solution. This project is a repeat of that one but claims the unused space under the V berth in my Catalina 22, specifically on the starboard side next to the portable toilet.
It’s also different from that project in that I used different wood for this project. The first door that I made was out of stained Philippine mahogany. I made this one from Honduran mahogany with an oil and polyurethane finish instead of stain. The result is almost indistinguishable from teak, as you can see below.
Continue reading “Make a Door to Storage Space Under the V Berth”
A very common problem with older C-22s is a companionway hatch that screeches when opened or closed. Over the years, the flanges on the sides of the hatch and the teak rails that they slide in wear thin from use.
This eventually lowers the hatch until it scrapes against the cabin roof. The sound it makes is like fingernails on a blackboard, only louder. It’s not something that you want to put up with for long.
Continue reading “Fix That Screeching Main Hatch!”
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 rig every time we move.
The $tingy Sailor 