Tag: sailboat

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Top 10 DIY Projects of 2020

$tingy Sailor

2020 was another exciting year here at The $tingy Sailor with new all-time records:

  • >2,200,000 page views from 139 countries
  • >50,000 monthly page views in August
  • >2,800 page views in one day in June
  • >200 articles, most of which are projects
  • >3,300 subscribers

I’m very grateful and humbled that you have continued to visit, read, subscribe, comment, and support this website after 7 years. It motivates me to keep finding new projects and topics, write better articles, and make other improvements that I hope you’ll enjoy.

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Keel45 Comments

Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 5: Installing

$tingy Sailor

This post is the continuation of Refinish your swing keel for best performance – Part 4: Sealing and painting and the last post in the series. I describe: how to prepare the hull, tips for keeping the keel centered in the trunk, the proper method to tighten the hanger bolts, and end with a materials list and a brief project cost analysis.

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Keel8 Comments

Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 4: Sealing and Painting

$tingy Sailor

This post is the continuation of Refinish your swing keel for best performance – Part 3: Fairing. I will describe: building a fiberglass reinforced guard on the leading edge, applying the final waterproofing coats of epoxy, bonding centering spacers on the upper end, priming with a barrier coat of epoxy paint, and applying ablative bottom paint last.

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Keel17 Comments

Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 3: Fairing

$tingy Sailor

This post is the continuation of Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 2: Cleaning. I will describe common keel defects, the fairing system I used, sealing a freshly sandblasted keel, applying body filler to build up an accurate hydrodynamic foil shape, and paying extra attention to the shape of the leading edge of the keel.

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Keel4 Comments

Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 2: Cleaning

$tingy Sailor

This post is the continuation of Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 1: Removing. This week, I describe using hand tools and power tools to remove most of the old coatings and rust, one way to lift and move the keel so you can work on it elsewhere, and the different methods of removing the remaining rust either chemically or by sandblasting to prepare it for fairing. Fairing is the process of making the keel fair, meaning the right shape, smooth, and pretty.

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Rigging9 Comments

Upgrade Your Main Sheet to Double Ends

$tingy Sailor

“Double your pleasure, double your fun” used to be the Doublemint gum slogan because of its double strength mint flavoring. You can double the utility of your main sheet by upgrading it to double ends. What you already have, a working end at the fiddle block that attaches to the traveler stays as it is and you can continue to use it from the rear of the cockpit. But instead of the opposite end of the sheet terminating at a becket at the boom block, it continues forward along the boom to a swivel block with a cam cleat over the front of the cockpit. This allows you or another crew member to also trim the main sheet from a forward seating position.

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