Tips, Tricks & Thoughts:
Tips
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Kilowatts and Horsepower
9 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Kilowatts and HorsepowerI’m as concerned about climate change as anyone, and maybe more than most, but obfuscation and pretengineering does not help us get to a sustainable future. A good example is the way that electric-drive vendors use horsepower when talking about the diesel engine they want to replace and kilowatts when talking about their offerings. You […]
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Cool Motorboat
9 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Cool MotorboatA few years ago I got interested in efficient motorboats and wrote several articles on the subject. At the time there were almost none around, with the exception of the FPBs from our friends Steve and Linda Dashew that cost millions, and a first try from a budding designer in New Zealand that still cost […]
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An Even Better Alternator Regulator?
4 CommentsReading Time: 3 minutesFree
Read more: An Even Better Alternator Regulator?There has been a lot of excitement recently about the release of a new alternator regulator that takes direct aim at the WakeSpeed WS500‘s position as the only truly smart regulator, primarily because it measures the current (amperage) that goes into the battery and then acts on that information, rather than making a bunch of […]
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Original Iridium GO! Still a Better Deal Than Exec
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Read more: Original Iridium GO! Still a Better Deal Than ExecThere’s a headline to provoke screams and tearing of hair. After all, the new Iridium GO! Exec is 40 times faster than the original GO! and only twice the price, so it’s gotta be the the better deal…right? And you can get unlimited data with the original GO! from lots of places for $154.95/month and […]
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Do We Need A $10,000 Plotter?
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Read more: Do We Need A $10,000 Plotter?I just read a post over at Panbo on Garmin’s new top-of-the-line plotters that start at US$10,000 and go up from there. And, of course, to take advantage of all the features we will need to spend a bunch more on supporting gear. I’m sure those who are so inclined will be obsessing over all […]
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No, Lithium Batteries Don’t Burn Boats
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Read more: No, Lithium Batteries Don’t Burn BoatsEvery so often, someone sends me a link to this article, originally published in Professional Boat Builder and repeated at Sailing Anarchy, that starts with the line: Lithium-ion batteries start fires. First off, the author does not differentiate between lithium cobalt oxide (the battery type in your phone) and lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO), the chemistry […]
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Blocking Highs, Love ’em Or Hate ’em
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Read more: Blocking Highs, Love ’em Or Hate ’emAs I write, the North Atlantic is a weather hot-mess with hurricanes and gales dotted all over the map, and yet all the models are predicting an incredible run of settled early fall weather and light winds for Nova Scotia, extending out ten days or more. What’s going on? We in Nova Scotia are falling […]
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Cool Supplemental Anchor Light
18 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Cool Supplemental Anchor LightSome years ago Phyllis and I found out the hard way, when another yacht hit us, that sometimes boaters don’t look up and see anchor lights at the top of masts. After that accident, we fitted a supplemental all-around white light on top of the radar on our McCurdy and Rhodes 56, as is allowed […]
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Sneaky Power Users
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Read more: Sneaky Power UsersWe were on the boat for a couple of days last weekend and one evening I decided to check email and the weather on my iPad. But when I picked it up, it turned out I had forgotten to charge it—it was as dead as John Cleese’s parrot. Not a problem, we have a USB […]
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Sail Heel Angle
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Read more: Sail Heel AngleThe late, great—I know it’s a cliché but he was—Buddy Melges, when asked how to drive a boat well upwind, would say that the secret is keeping the angle between the headstay and horizon constant. For us lesser helmspersons, an inclinometer makes this way easier. I was just about to fit one to our J/109 […]
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Never Forget The Go-To-Sea Option
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Read more: Never Forget The Go-To-Sea OptionHave a quick read of this account of a race crew getting hit by a nasty thunderstorm when approaching their home port of Gloucester, Mass. Done? Anything jump out at you? The first thing that hit me is that they never even considered waiting offshore for conditions to improve, or even daylight, before trying what […]
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Check Your Emergency Tiller
19 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Check Your Emergency TillerThe stuff I have found on our new-to-us J/109 amazes me. When I first inspected the boat, we found that someone had siliconed the hatch over the rudder-shaft head. I guess it leaked a bit so, instead of replacing the O-ring or the hatch, they glued it down. So after we fixed that with a […]
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Don’t Trust Used Rope
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Read more: Don’t Trust Used RopeModern ropes are fantastically strong, to the point that, in most cases, at least on cruising boats, there is a massive margin of safety simply because the rope is generally chosen with enough diameter to be easily handled and is therefore many times stronger than the peak load. In fact, I can’t remember when a […]
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Good LED Steaming/Deck Light
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Read more: Good LED Steaming/Deck LightWe fitted a MarineBeam LED Steaming/Deck Light on the mast on our J/109 a year ago, and so far I’m impressed. Small, light, relatively inexpensive, and amazingly bright, with incredibly low current draw. Of course we don’t know how reliable it will be over time, but so far so good. By the way, I have […]
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His and Hers Autopilot Controls
2 CommentsReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: His and Hers Autopilot ControlsPhyllis and I have done a couple of crew overboard recovery drills lately (with more planned) and one of the many things we learned was that a wrist remote autopilot control is extremely useful in a COB emergency. But what happens if the person wearing the only control is the one who went over the […]
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eWincher as a Windlass
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Read more: eWincher as a WindlassOur J/109 has a great anchor locker as well as a removable anchor roller, but no windlass, and there is no way in hell we are adding all that weight up forward on this boat. No worries. Our eWincher, driving a two-speed primary cockpit winch, hauls the rode as fast, or maybe a bit faster, […]
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What It’s Really All About
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Read more: What It’s Really All AboutA beautiful full-moon-lit evening in a lovely anchorage rafted up with good friends for a fine dinner. Not a lot more to say, really.
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Apple Watch Photo-Trigger Hack
2 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Apple Watch Photo-Trigger HackI needed to get the model and serial number off the fridge unit on our J/109, but the problem is that the plate is on the far side and inaccessible, at least to an arthritic old fart. I was pondering using my borescope, but controlling it holding the wire would have been difficult. Then I […]
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Good Fractional Rig-Tuning Article
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Read more: Good Fractional Rig-Tuning ArticleWe have five detailed step-by-step chapters on how to tune a masthead rig, starting here, but we don’t cover fractional rigs because they are unusual in the offshore cruising world. But if you do have a fractional rig, like we do on our new-to-us J/109, there’s a good tuning article over at Practical Boat Owner. […]
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Don’t Forget Weather Maps
9 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFreeRead more: Don’t Forget Weather MapsI have to confess that, now we are no longer cruising offshore, I have tended to get my weather information from Windy and call it good. But I just realized that that lazy approach was resulting in me losing the strategic and tactical feel for the weather I developed over some five decades of observing […]
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The Most Dangerous Thing Offshore Cruisers Do
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Read more: The Most Dangerous Thing Offshore Cruisers DoLast week I linked to a well-done report and some associated testing over at Practical Boat Owner that made a convincing argument that sidedeck jacklines are worse, at least when used with a standard 6′ long tether, than not clipping on at all, because of the risk of being killed by dragging. And then a […]
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Carry Spare Banjo Fitting Washers
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Read more: Carry Spare Banjo Fitting WashersBanjo fittings are ubiquitous on engines (there are a lot of them around, too), usually in the fuel system, but the fresh water cooling circuit often has a few as well. And each of them has a small copper washer each side of the fitting that acts as a seal. Here’s the thing: the washers […]
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Check Tachometer Accuracy
6 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: Check Tachometer AccuracyThere are all kinds of good reasons to check our engine RPM, including making sure: But the problem is that tachometers can drift into inaccuracy. And an even bigger problem is that if we change our alternator to a larger and more robust one, as many of us cruisers do, and most of us should, […]
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V Booms a Great Idea
19 CommentsReading Time: 2 minutesFree
Read more: V Booms a Great IdeaPocket Boom, V Boom, Park Avenue Boom, it doesn’t much matter what we call them, these booms are a great idea that should be adopted by a lot more sailors than do. A great way to simplify sail handling, and make it easy to put on the sail cover, but without the complexity, weight, performance […]
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Edson Radar Tower
1 CommentReading Time: < 1 minuteFree
Read more: Edson Radar TowerWe are really happy with the way our new radar installation came out, particularly the Edson tower. We have long felt that the best place for a radar is on a tower, not on the mast or backstay. It even inclines for when we are heeled in fog…yes, we get wind and fog here in […]
