This past Christmas, I received a SPOT Messenger. I didn’t activate it until just recently, when I was helping deliver a sailboat from Annapolis to Marion, Mass. The reason I decided to activate the SPOT service was so that several of the families and friends of two of my fellow delivery crew would be able [...]
Last Wednesday, I took the Acela train down to BWI. I went down to help my friends deliver s/v Felix, a Gemini 105Mc Catamaran from Annapolis, MD, to her new home port of Marion, MA. I stayed with my friends Mary and Chuck, who also own a Gemini catamaran. Mary would be joining the delivery [...]
On a sailing forum, the question of what tools should a boat have aboard came up. While the tool kit would vary, depending on what boat you have and what area you’re sailing in, as well as what kind of sailing you’ll be doing. If you’re just day-sailing or weekending, or sail on a landlocked [...]
There was a sailor asking me about his mainsheet setup on an on-line forum, and was thinking of using line clutches or line jammers for his mainsheet. I tried to explain that this was both unwise and dangerous. A line clutch or line jammer can take too long to release—and in the case of a [...]
On one of the sailing forums I frequent, a poster asked about fender boards. For the cruising sailor, especially one that has to deal with slips that have rough pilings, concrete or stone seawalls or locks, fender boards can prevent a lot of damage to the boat and fenders. The simplest fender board to make [...]
In my opinion, the greatest storm safety device ever created is the Jordan Series Drogue. The JSD was the brainchild of Don Jordan, a retired aeronautical engineer, in response to the fatalities that were the result of the 1979 Fastnet disaster. I believe that the Jordan Series Drogue is a piece of gear that every [...]
Multihulls have some advantages and disadvantages compared to monohulls, and a lot of how severe those advantages/disadvantages are depends on the exact design you’re looking at. Whether one will be suitable for your purposes depends a lot on what you’re trying to do. For instance, a lot of the charter market catamarans have trouble sailing [...]
There’s a brand new sailing forum online now called Anything Sailing. It was founded by three sailors that were tired of seeing threads about faulty products censored. One of the sailors is a good friend of mine and sails a custom 42′ racing sailboat with a 10′ draft. The other two I know from other [...]
Recently, I wrote a post on a sailing forum about the 25 Watt solar panel I added to the s/v Pretty Gee to act as a maintenance charger for the boat, while it is stored on the hard for the winter. On one of the forums, I was asked if a charge controller was needed. [...]
I originally wrote the following post for the International Telstar Owners Association Forum. I’ve decided to re-publish it here as well, since many of the visitors to my blog are interested in the Telstar 28. ********************************************************* The Telstar 28 was introduced in late 2003. Since the boat was introduced, it has had some changes to [...]
One thing that I’d highly recommend for all cruising sailboats is upgrading to LED-based lights. This is for two reasons. The first is that upgrading to LED lights can reduce the electrical load on a cruising sailboat significantly. The second is that LED-based lights are lower maintenance and lower cost over the long run. You [...]
Over on one of the sailing forums I participate in, there was a question about how to setup the bilge pumps on a boat. Here are my thoughts on that issue. Ideally, the a monohull sailboat should have at least four bilge pumps. Two would be electric, and two would be manual. The two manual [...]
The Telstar 28 was introduced in late 2003. Since the boat was introduced, it has had some changes to the design as it has evolved. The original boats had a centerboard with a draft of 4′ 3″. It was offered in two models, a base version that was essentially the hull and mast, but didn’t [...]
Got a message from a friend of mine that he was going to be stuck at Logan Airport for a couple hours and asked if I could meet him and have coffee at the airport. Since I wasn’t that far from the airport and could take the time off, I decided to head over there. [...]
There are often people looking to get a bluewater capable boat for a relatively low budget. James Baldwin, of Atom fame, has posted a list of about sixty boats that are under 33′ which he considers fairly capable and easily modified to be used as bluewater pocket cruisers. I’m pretty impressed with the list, but [...]
Today, I was working at my friend’s company and a strange thing happened. When she walked in, she asked me to take a look at some photos that were on her cell phone. On her way into the office, she had passed a sailboat for sale. She wanted to know what I thought of it. [...]
I thought I’d add another name to the vendor black list. Apparently, Quantum Sails of Newport doesn’t think much of its customers, at least in one case I’ve seen. I was looking at the stack pack on a friend’s boat, and there was a section about three inches long that the stitching had missed going [...]
Recently, I was asked why I have such an oversized anchor hanging off the bow roller on the Pretty Gee. That’s a good question. The primary anchor I have on the Pretty Gee is a New Zealand-designed Rocna 15. It weighs 33 lbs., and is the same anchor that an acquaintance of mine uses on [...]
Today, I went over to Wickford Harbor, in Rhode Island. I went to see if I could help Wyatt out with some issues he’s having on his Dehler 33. He seems to be having some problems with the VHF radio, which is original to the boat from 1997. I brought my SWR meter, a multi-meter [...]
One of my goals, as part of leading the halyards aft project, was setting up a new lazy jack system on the Pretty Gee. The original system only had two legs and really didn’t do a very good job of controlling and containing the main sail. This past week, I finished setting up the new [...]
Recently a friend asked me what work I’ve done on my boat. Here’s a list of the various upgrade projects that I’ve either done or am in the process of doing on the boat over the last two years. The ones with the asterisks are works currently in progress. Main Hull and Bottom Installed Jacklines [...]
Sunday, I helped Ken and Dottie bend the sails on Sea Spirit, their Cal 25. We took her out for a quick sail. Ken fired up the 8 HP Tohatsu outboard and we motored over to the swing bridge. We had missed the 14:15 bridge opening, so we waited for the next opening. Once past [...]
My friend Alex was stuck up in New Hampshire for work. He lives in Portugal, but occasionally visits New England because of his job. Since I had some boat hardware for his boat, I went by his hotel yesterday to drop it off. Alex looked miserable, sailing withdrawal… Since my boat isn’t quite ready to [...]
Today was a good day. As I was hoping, we got the boat launched today. Here’s a spring boat projects quick update. As part of the spring refitting, I finished up the mounting of the TackTick displays that I installed last year. Last year I upgraded my boat’s instruments to TackTick instruments after having some [...]
Here’s a quick update on the various boat projects going on at the moment. The new line-controlled genoa cars have been installed. The new block and tackle for the outboard motor lift, that has an integrated cam cleat, has been installed. I’m upgrading the blocks for the backstay adjustment, and will be using a Garhauer [...]
Woohoo!!! I just got a package in from Garhauer Marine. If you don’t know what Garhauer Marine is, you’re missing out on one of the best vendors for blocks and such on a boat. They’re a family-owned company in California that sells both direct to the public, and to manufacturers. Catalina and several other boat [...]
You can get most of the Pilot Charts and Sailing Directions on-line. The Pilot Charts are PDF files, the Sailing Directions are Zip files of self-extracting archives, which are, unfortunately, Windows-only executables. I hope you find them useful. If anyone needs the Sailing Directions in Mac or Linux readable format, let me know, and I’ll [...]
Heather Neill announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe in s/v Flight of Years, a Pacific Seacraft Flicka last year. This was a rather unusual announcement, given that Heather was not a sailor, and had relatively little experience sailing at the time of her announcement. You can read about her and her preparations at her [...]
On a sailing forum, the question of capsize or pitchpoling a multihull came up recently. That’s a good question, how common is capsizing a cruising multihull? The poster was talking about two trimarans that had pitchpoled. I’d like to look at that now. The risk of capsize on a cruising multihull is miniscule, provided the [...]
This Tuesday, I will be hauling the Pretty Gee for the season. I always dread this annual task, since it means that the sailing season is at an end. The long cold dark of winter will be settling in soon. I have some more projects for this winter. New Instruments The first one is finishing [...]