"Can you give me some ideas on what might cause excessive white smoke in the exhaust of a 2-year-old Yanmar diesel?" Nigel Calder replies.

Whatever the reason, re-marking the waterline fills many sailors with dread. Get it right, and the resulting perfect boottop between contrasting bottom paint and the hull will be stunning. Get it wrong, and your shaky paint job will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Fifteen years of sailing around the English Channel, North Sea, Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean taught me many things, not the least of which was the importance of good ground tackle and a means to handle it.