SAIL’s Tip of the Week

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Ready—or Not?

It’s easy to imagine that all neat berthing maneuvers result from smart boathandling. It’s a sorry business if the person at the blunt end stuffs the bow into the woodwork at 3 knots. However, even if the skipper slides her in like a pro, it doesn’t end there. What about the deck gang, especially if there’s only one of them? Entering a strange harbor, it’s often impossible to predict which side will be to the dock, what fenders will be needed, or which ropes will be asked for first. My wife has this down to a T. We carry five biggish fenders, which should be plenty. She rigs two on each side and keeps the third ready to deploy once she can see what’s coming. Three in the right place is usually enough. A stern line is secured on each quarter and led to the point amidships from which she’ll hop ashore. Same goes for the bow lines. Springs are coiled ready on deck. In the event we ever do less than this and our luck runs out, we inevitably end up with a last-minute scramble that may or may not end well.

Freshwater Flush

As warm-water sailors, we do not winterize our boat. However, we do store it out of the water for hurricane season, and as part of our decommissioning procedure, we run the engine on the hard to pass freshwater through the raw-water circuit and flush out salt and guard against corrosion. I also run the engine prior to launching to avoid any nasty surprises.

The trick to running an engine with the boat out of the water is figuring out a way to feed it cooling water. Over the decades I’ve done this many ways. The fitting illustrated here is by far the easiest and most foolproof method I’ve come up with. It works best with a basket strainer that has a removable lid and is located higher than the raw-water pump.

You’ll need the following components: a garden-hose end fitting with a shut-off valve, a molded U-shaped automobile engine hose, a hose barb and a single hose clamp. Once assembled, connect the fitting to a garden hose, hang it over the lip of the open strainer and open the valve enough to fill the strainer canister to overflowing. Start your engine and adjust the valve to keep a trickle of water overflowing the top of the canister. This assures an uninterrupted flow to the engine’s raw-water pump. Your automatic bilge pump will deal with the overflow.

You’ll need to increase the flow rate as the engine’s throttle is advanced, and someone should monitor the flow while the engine is running to make sure the canister is full.
– Don Casey

Unwrapping a Spinnaker 

When racing or cruising while flying a spinnaker close to or dead downwind—especially offshore, where a boat tends to roll more—there is a real risk the spinnaker will collapse, wrap itself around the headstay, and then refill with wind above and below the wrap. The wrap may start at just one or two turns, but often will increase to five turns or more. Here’s a trick I learned from a Capt. Walters, who used to skipper all of John Watson’s Palawans during the 1960s. To unwrap a spinnaker, all you need do is sail slightly by the lee. The wrapped chute will then magically unwind itself. When sailing by the lee, of course, it’s a good idea to have a preventer rigged from the end of the main boom as far forward as possible so there is no danger of gybing. If a preventer is not rigged, be sure to put your best helmsperson behind the wheel. I swear this system works. Over the years I’ve seen spinnakers unwrapped this way about half a dozen times. In every case, it was a complete eye-opener for the entire crew. – Don Street

Revive a Drowned Outboard

Dropped your dinghy’s outboard motor overboard? No need to panic. First, get the motor out of the drink quickly and rinse it thoroughly with fresh water; most importantly, do not let it dry. Once the water begins to evaporate, corrosion will set in and can cause permanent damage, especially if the motor was submerged in saltwater.

Remove the spark plugs, fuel lines and carburetor, liberally applying WD-40 as you go to drive out the water (“WD,” after all, stands for “Water Displacement”). Spray inside the cylinders or, better still, rinse the chambers with methylated spirits. Remember, water is the enemy. After removing the carburetor, carefully wipe it clean and douse it with WD-40.

Hand-crank the engine while it’s disassembled—this will physically force out all the water left in the cylinders. With no spark plugs or compression, this is surprisingly easy, so don’t snap the pull cord. When it feels sufficiently purged, crank it some more. Install new spark plugs and reassemble the rest of the motor. Double the oil mixture in some fresh fuel and cross your fingers for the moment of truth: if it fires, let it run for at least 20 minutes.

No luck? Disassemble everything, repeat the water-removal process and leave the parts and motor out to dry in the warm sun for a while (don’t put anything in the oven, as is sometimes suggested). After a few hours, re-assemble and try to start the motor again. Even if the outboard does come back to life, get it to a professional (especially if it’s a newer four-stroke model) for a more thorough servicing. – Andy Schell

Club-Foot Conversion

I share a 1995 Beneteau 42s7 with a friend. We (and most of our other sailing friends) are getting on in years, so we’ve made some changes to help make the boat easier to sail. One of these was adapting a club-footed jib to fly in the boat’s large foretriangle to ease line-handling when sailing upwind around Narragansett Bay and the islands south of Cape Cod.

The position of the anchor well prevented us from adding a simple connector on deck to receive the forward end of the jib-boom. We solved that problem by having a welder create a custom horseshoe-shaped bracket that we mounted on deck right behind the headstay. We cut down a spinnaker pole to make our jib-boom and connected it to the bracket with a standard trailer hitch and ball. We made a simple traveler out of Dyneema line and had a new jib made to fit the rig, which we can now control with one sheet and an outhaul. Both of these lines are led forward to the front of the boom, and then aft to the cockpit.

Our new jib really works! The result is a great sailing boat that is now very easy to single and doublehand. – David Hurd

Storing Wine Aboard

Wine connoisseurs will always agree that life is too short to drink bad wine. But wine can be difficult to keep on a sailboat. Boxed wines have obvious advantages. They are easy to store and the vacuum bag inside the box keeps wine airtight, even after opening. If you like, you can discard the box, but beware of chafe when storing bags on their own. In Central America, we’ve found wine sold in liter boxes similar to juice boxes. These keep well aboard, even if a box gets lost in the bilge! Some, of course, spurn boxed wine and swear by corked bottled wine. With care, this can also be stored safely.

Wine changes composition with light or UV infiltration, so it should always be stored in a dark place. Corked bottles must be stored on a slant or on their side so the corks stay moist and don’t dry out. Consistent temperature and high humidity are good for wine. Cooler is better, however, and in the tropics, cooler is a challenge. Usually it is coolest in the bilge below the waterline.

Odors can permeate a cork, a box or a bag, so you should never store wine in an area with strong fumes. Obviously, you should keep it well away from your engine and generator. You should also be aware that even onions or garlic can have adverse effects.

A boat floating is constantly in motion. If storing fine well-aged wine, you should try to limit its movement by storing it amidships near the boat’s centerline. But really you are best off drinking the wine promptly. If you want to keep wine aboard for long periods, it’s best to store young, less expensive wine. The boat’s motion helps to age the wine and may actually improve the flavor. –Jan Irons

Sail Cover Tactics

Getting a sail cover on and off a mainsail is often harder than it should be. Once it’s off the sail, it can be hard to tell which end goes where, and when you spread it out to check, the wind will wrestle you for control of it.

When taking your cover off, start at the mast and work your way back to the end of the boom. Unbutton the fasteners underneath one by one as you neatly flake the cover back on to itself. This way there’s never any loose fabric for the wind to get hold of. When you’re done, you’ll have neat slab of material that’s easy to roll up and stow away. To cover your sail again, just reverse the process. Start at the back of the boom and unroll the cover as you move forward, buttoning the fasteners underneath as you go. Once you’re in the habit of doing this, you’ll never curse your sail cover again when the wind gets blustery. – Charles J. Doane

The Sandpaper Files

If there’s one thing I hate more than varnishing it’s not having all the tools at hand to do the job right. Besides brushes, old cans of varnish, new cans of varnish and thinners, there is the sandpaper. I own every grit paper from 60 to 2,000 and used to keep it tucked in various nooks and crannies in tool lockers throughout the boat.

I finally got smart and went to an office-supply store, where I bought a plastic accordion file organizer with multiple pockets and a cover with an elastic closure. These are perfectly sized to hold full sheets of standard-size sandpaper. I bought one with a dozen pockets, but they come in a variety of pocket counts. I labeled each pocket with the grit count and in a matter of minutes had my entire inventory of sandpaper stored in one location.

I can easily check if I’ve got the right amount of the right grit for the next job and can also store small leftover scraps or portions of sheets so I don’t waste anything: no more hunting around in multiple locations to see what I’ve got. Since the organizer is plastic, it can even weather a little rain if left on deck in a moment of forgetfulness.
– Zuzana Prochazka

Deck Dam

When Mark Edwards, a rigger from Auckland, New Zealand, molded the deck for his 50-footer Relapse, he deliberately included raised toerails that trap water on deck for most of the length of the boat: as in, all the way back to the fill-point for the water tanks. When he wants to catch water, he first lets the rain wash the deck clean, then he creates a dam just aft of the fill with a baggy filled with sand. On a single day last sailing season he collected 320 gallons of free water, or as Edwards put it, “showers for a month.” – Kimball Livingston

Listen to your Alternator

Broken alternator belts used to be a common problem aboard our boat Winterlude. We learned the leading cause of this is rust on pulleys. Now we scour our alternator pulleys every month with a wire brush, then sand them smooth with fine grit sandpaper. Correct pulley alignment and belt tension is also very important. In our case, when we replaced our alternator with a higher output alternator, the new bracket we installed to mount it probably contributed to the pulleys not lining up exactly. Now if we start the engine and the belt squeals, we stop everything and check the belt alignment and tension. A squealing belt is usually too loose. To check tension, push down on the belt with one finger; you shouldn’t be able to shift it more than half an inch. Our new maintenance regimen and a pulley alignment has solved our problem, and now we always listen when our alternator speaks to us. – Jan Irons

Mizzen Boom Motor Hoist

When we purchased our boat Indigo, a Celestial 48 with high freeboard,we worried our backs would suffer passing our 5hp outboard motor from the deck to our dinghy and back. Luckily, Indigo is a ketch with a mizzen boom that reaches out to the corners of the aft deck. We figured we could use this as a crane to help move the motor much more easily.

We used a short length of high-modulus Amsteel rope to create a lifting strap that we could loop through the fitting on the end of the boom. We then put a snap shackle on this strap and made up a 3:1 tackle with a fiddle block and cam cleat on one end and a becket block with another snap shackle on the other.

We connected the tackle to a harness that is permanently installed on the outboard. I can now lift the outboard off its rail mount and lower it to the dinghy with one hand. Better yet, we now also use our boom hoist to lift a variety of other heavy gear, including scuba tanks, jerry cans and sacks of provisions. The mizzen topping lift allows us to adjust the height of the boom, so if we need gear coming aboard to clear the lifelines, we just lift the boom higher and deposit the goods on the deck.

This solution should work for most ketches and yawls and even some sloops, depending on the length of the main boom and the placement of the outboard mount. Thanks to our mizzen boom we’ve avoided installing a dedicated engine hoist and can now manage a heavier outboard if we like. –Zuzana Prochazka

Snub the Load

If you anchor on a chain rode, you should always use some nylon rope as a snubber to absorb shock loads from the chain that would otherwise be carried directly by the boat and its hardware. Be sure to use three-strand nylon rope for maximum stretch. It’s also a good idea to use two separate lines, effectively creating a snubber bridle.

The correct length for a snubber line varies depending on your boat’s windage and the height of the bow off the water. The windier it is, the more line you’ll need. We always like to keep the attachment point for our snubbers about a foot underwater. Depending on how hard it’s blowing, their length ranges from a minimum of 10 feet to about 20 feet.

You can attach your snubber to your chain any way you like. Some use a chain stopper or hook; others just tie a rolling hitch around the chain. To keep a hook from falling off the chain, keep tension on the snubber as you deploy it. Once it’s all the way out, let out more chain so there’s a loose bight of it sagging below the attachment point. The weight of the chain in the bight will keep the snubber’s hook from coming loose in calm conditions. – Jan Irons

Inshore Piloting

When you’re close inshore, the benefits of a plotter require close examination. A large screen mounted on the binnacle has obvious benefits when you’re entering a well-buoyed harbor. Piloting through rocks, on the other hand, where sailors have been operating for centuries, may be a different matter.

Before GPS, local pilots set up simple ranges that allowed them to thread hair-raising channels in safety. A range is bombproof, all you have to do is keep the back mark in line with the front mark and it’s happy days.

Trying to steer through a tiny gap using a 3-D vector chart is, by comparison, a bad joke. The pilots who set up the ranges weren’t interested in peripheral dangers, they just wanted a safe route through narrow channels. An electronic chart may pinpoint every last brick, but such obsession with unnecessary detail often obscures the one thing you really want to know.

The problem with ranges has always been identifying them for the first time, and this is where the plotter can help. From safely out at sea, steer toward the range line. When the plotter says you’re on it, eyeball the bearing and find the markers. Once identified, forget the electronics and go with the old-fashioned navigation technique of surveying your surroundings. If the pilot who set the range up got it wrong in the War of Independence, he’d have been strung up in the town square. The guy who muddled the electronic chart has no such direct action to concentrate his mind. s

Fine-tuning Tracks Inshore

It’s fun to look back over a summer’s cruising after it’s been saved as a track on your chartplotter. The track can also be useful for insurance purposes; I’ve even seen it produced in court cases. This legal tactic, however, can also backfire, so if you’re of a litigious nature you might prefer to leave it switched off. The track really comes into its own when piloting out of a difficult harbor you managed to enter successfully a little earlier. You know you got in, so there must also be a way out. To be sure of a graceful exit—tide permitting—all you need to do is follow the same track out again. This works well, so long as the plotter is set up appropriately. The screen grab shows two versions of the same track. The coarse setting is clearly useless, while the fine version will lead you safely back out between the drying banks toward open water. It’s all down to setting the instrument to record the necessary data with sufficient frequency, i.e., with the plot set to record at a shorter time or distance interval than out at sea.

Steering by Numbers 

Keeping a tiller-steered yacht on course in an awkward sea at night can be like trying to achieve a straight, level flight on a gusty day in a World War I biplane. In fact, teaching a novice to steer a compass course has driven strong men to drink. If you’re searching for a simple answer to keep you off the bottle, try this: when the boat wanders, if the number against the lubber line is higher than the one that’s meant to be there, turn to port. If the number is lower, come to starboard. With a wheel, it’s easy. Just imagine you’re steering the lubber line itself. First, locate the number that should be against it, then turn the wheel in that same direction. The lubber line will follow. Trying to steer to a compass heading with a tiller can be especially daunting for many novices. For some, the numbers game can be a real help.

Reversible Weather Cloth

When sailing in rough weather, cresting waves can send buckets of seawater flying into a cockpit. Some people pay big bucks to install full curtains all the way around their bimini tops, but I found a cheaper, more practical way to keep my cushions and crew dry.

My weather cloth, as I call it, is a simple water-repellent fabric barrier that I snap in place along the windward edge of my bimini top and the outboard base of my cockpit coaming. The forward edge snaps to my dodger; aft I lash it to anything convenient. When it’s time to tack, I shift the same cloth to the other side of the cockpit. My weather cloth goes up in a minute, even in a blow. If you like, you can incorporate slits or cutouts to accommodate turning winch handles, sheets and other lines led aft. Adding one or two windows so watchkeepers can check the windward horizon without getting a face full of spray is also a good idea. –Tor Pinney

Storing Rode On Deck

This is a trick I learned crewing for a fellow in Florida who always stored not one, but two, rope anchor rodes on his foredeck while cruising. He even kept them there on offshore passages, lashing the coils of rode to stanchion post bases, and never had a problem. The big advantage of doing this, if you have a boat with a belowdecks rode locker rather than a modern anchor well, is that it saves you the bother of pulling all the rope down the hawsehole.

If you’re cruising somewhere with lots of mud on the bottom, storing your rode on deck also keeps all the mud that clings to it out of the interior of the boat. Unlike a chain rode, which can be easily rinsed off as it comes aboard, a rope rode tends to want to stay attached to its mud, at least as long as it is wet. Much of the mud will fall off after it dries and turns to dirt, and if the rode stays on deck, the dirt will too.

When I was cruising on Crazy Horse, my Alberg 35 yawl, which I always anchored on rope, I often kept my rode on deck when cruising up and down muddy rivers and creeks. Like my old skipper, I just kept it in coils on the foredeck, although some people may prefer to store it in a bucket or a bag. –Charles J. Doane

Steering by Numbers 

Keeping a tiller-steered yacht on course in an awkward sea at night can be like trying to achieve straight, level flight on a gusty day in a World War I biplane. In fact, teaching a novice to steer a compass course has driven strong men to drink. If you’re searching for a simple answer to keep you off the bottle, try this: when the boat wanders, if the number against the lubber line is higher than the one that’s meant to be there, turn to port. If the number is lower, come to starboard. With a wheel, it’s easy. Just imagine you’re steering the lubber line itself. First locate the number that should be against it, then turn the wheel in that same direction. The lubber line will follow. Trying to steer to a compass heading with a tiller can be especially daunting for many novices. For some, the numbers game can be a real help.

Palming It

Every cruising boat should carry a sailmaker’s palm along with a kit of essential sail-repair tools. Most people are right-handed, hence the palms you find in most sailors’ kits are for right-handers. But there may well come a time when you have to stitch up a long tear in a large sail—and if the only other person on board is a leftie, then you’ve just sentenced yourself to a long and tedious stint with the needle. As a leftie myself, I added a right-handed palm to my kit to make sure that no one has any excuse not to join in the sail-repair fun. –Peter Nielsen

Anchoring: Anti Chain-Pyramid Rod

Like most long-range cruisers I carry a lot of anchor chain, but I was having a problem with pyramids in my chain locker. When weighing anchor my chain piled up beneath its deck pipe, sometimes reaching up high enough to block it, so that the chain being fed in would suddenly jam the windlass gypsy. This locked the windlass so solidly it could not turn in either direction, often just as my anchor was breaking free from the bottom. With my boat thus adrift, I had to scramble to unlock the blockage, which usually entailed removing the windlass deck pipe cover with a pair of Allen wrenches.

To prevent this, I first cut a small access hole in the deck just abaft the windlass and installed a deck-fill fitting with a cap. This allowed me to ram a wood dowel in there to knock down the chain pyramid while weighing anchor. After breaking several sticks, I devised the perfect anti-pyramid rod instead. A local machine shop wanted $100 to fabricate a stainless steel rod, so instead I did some scrounging and found a perfect rod in a scrap pile outside a rigging shop—a 5ft 6in x 5/8in thick-walled galvanized pipe. The friendly shop-owner wouldn’t take any money for it.

I tapped and threaded the inside diameter of the pipe to accept a case-hardened bolt I had laying around in a spares can. I also found a heavy galvanized washer that just fit through my access hole at the windlass. I bolted the washer to the rod end to serve as a little claw to help push, rake and swipe the chain pile forward, aft and sideways to spread it more evenly around the locker. This simple device has been a godsend, enabling me to weigh anchor quickly and confidently every time. –Tor Pinney

Foredeck Rain-Catcher

Sometimes it can be difficult to refill water tanks while cruising. Local water may be unsuitable, expensive or simply unavailable. Watermakers can also come up short, as you shouldn’t run harbor water through them. That’s why it is smart to carry a rain-catcher. I’ve always had a large deck awning for my ketch, Silverheels, that doubles as a high-volume rain-catcher. However, it’s too cumbersome to put up and take down again during short layovers.

To solve this problem I devised a small easy-to-deploy Sunbrella awning/rain-catcher that I can string up over the foredeck in a minute. What it lacks in capacity it makes up for in the frequency of use. I often put it up right after anchoring, just for the night, or even when a single rain squall is approaching. Of course, it also shades the forward deck hatch when the sun is shining. Mine measures 5ft 6in x 6ft, with a half-dozen tie-down grommets, battens and lift rings at each end, and a hose barb fitting secured through a reinforced hole. –Tor Pinney

Shower Can 

For years I’ve been using a 3-gallon insecticide spray can as a portable pressure-water dispenser. You’ll find these in any hardware store. Simply replace its long gardening spray nozzle with an ordinary kitchen hand-spray nozzle and it’s ready to go. I use mine primarily as a cockpit shower, but it works just as well in a shower stall belowdecks. You can also use it for other purposes, such as rinsing off your dodger, solar panels, snorkel gear and dishes. I painted my can flat black and usually keep it on deck where the sun can heat up the water inside during the day. On cloudy days or in cool weather, I heat up water on the stove and pour it in. One pot of boiling water added to two gallons of cool water produces a perfect bathing temperature. My shower can provides me with hot showers at anchor or underway, indoors or out, without having to run the engine to heat up water. –Tor Pinney

Anchor Rode Side Roller

The vertical windlass on my boat is designed to handle only one anchor. Like many cruisers, however, I carry two bow anchors and occasionally need to use both. The problem is my windlass, like most vertical windlasses, feeds just one anchor rode through a deck pipe built into its casing. To use the windlass to handle a second anchor rode from a separate deck pipe, I had to lay aside the primary rode and hand-feed the secondary rode on to the windlass gypsy. On my boat this entailed pulling out the length of rode to be used and piling it on deck where it could then be hand-fed onto the gypsy as the windlass lowered the anchor. This was awkward and, frankly, dangerous, because one slip could result in my hand getting caught in the machinery. Weighing anchor was slightly less perilous, but just as awkward, because I had to tail the rode by hand as it came around the gypsy, pile it on the deck, and then afterward hand-feed it back through its deck pipe into the chain locker. To fix the problem, I came up with a simple solution that employs a vertical anchor roller on the port cap rail, positioned so that the secondary rode coming from the starboard deck pipe passes around it and then to the windlass gypsy at the correct angle. The windlass can now draw the secondary rode out of the chain locker as easily as it does the primary rode. I still have to tail rode by hand when weighing the secondary anchor. But thanks to my rail roller I can do it while positioned above the starboard deck pipe and feed the rode straight into the chain locker without the intermediate mess of piling it on deck. Best of all, my hands are always safely distant from the turning windlass.
–Tor Pinney

How’s your prop? 

Come on now, be honest, when did you last take a critical look at your propeller? The ocean is full of floating debris we can swipe with this comparatively delicate item. Usually, we hear the bang, grit our teeth and, if the engine hasn’t leapt off its mountings, declare that all is well. I was alarmed to learn recently that the facts are as follows: even a minor distortion on the tip of a blade can reduce a prop’s efficiency by 10 percent. I knew that a foul prop could have catastrophic effects on power, but a bit of a ding? Inspect it seriously next time you’re up on the hill. When in doubt, whip it off and have it sorted.

Clash of Spreaders

As yachts proliferate and berthing space stays the same, we are often asked to raft up. This can be highly convivial or a complete pain. Whatever the social scene, though, we all take so much care of our lines and fenders we often forget the oldest advice of all—look aloft! If your spreaders are directly alongside a neighbor’s, shunt your boat forward or aft a few feet. The situation may look innocuous, but when Fred the fisherman roars by at 0500 dragging half the harbor behind him for a wake, yachts have been known to shake hands via their rigs with expensive results.

Great Circle 

An unexpected bonus for users of GPS on ocean passages is that many sets will read out a great-circle course on request. Some do not even need asking. Just install a waypoint at your destination, make sure the “Nav setup” is delivering the goods, punch in “Go To,” and the black magic within will give you your best course. It will even tell you how far you have to go. The old battle for ocean sailors with trigonometry or dog-eared gnomonic charts is over at last!

Heaving a line

Even if your boat does not have a dedicated heaving line, the time will inevitably come when you have to throw a rope ashore or to another boat. No sensible reader of SAIL would do as this crew did. But neither should we rely on a coiled rope to run out cleanly, however neat it may look. Always re-coil the line clockwise, then split the coil into two. Two-thirds in your right hand and one third in your left (assuming you’re right-handed), at the same time, securing the end of the left-hand section somehow. Heave the right-hand coil first, then immediately follow it by half-throwing the left-hand package. The inertia of the first will carry the second with it. You’ll be surprised how far you can manage. Practice helps—before the pressure’s on.

Potato to the rescue

Here’s a bit of homespun wisdom from the deep-sea brigade. We all have—or certainly should have—plenty of clean softwood bungs on board to stuff into failed skin fittings. However, I am assured by a pal known more for his ocean miles than for his compliance with the latest safety fads that if none fit your stern tube after the shaft has fallen out, all is not lost. Rather than groping for the VHF and clamoring to be saved, this redoubtable mariner raided the potato locker, selected a suitable candidate and rammed it up the stern tube just like small boys used to do with their headmasters’ exhaust pipes. It saw him back to the nearest boat hoist without any further trouble.

A quick fix 

Here’s a quick fix when your position is changing rapidly relative to your surroundings or your GPS is down in rough weather and you don’t fancy a trip below. An instant position line may well be available using a known object that can be conveniently brought directly ahead or dead astern for a few moments. Read its bearing off the steering compass. Hold that heading and grab yourself an equally accurate crossing line by sighting a second item “coming on” down the mainsheet traveler. It’s precisely abeam, so it’s plus or minus ninety and you have a perfect cut. You can even pre-plot it so that all you have to do when the beam object comes on is note the time and the log reading. If you’re serious about piloting, you’ll also check the depth. So long as it all stacks up, you’re home free.

Dropping the bucket

When you need a bucket of clear seawater, make sure you have a longish lanyard and tie it to the boat. The pull can be considerable, even at speeds of as little as 5 knots, if you achieve the result you are looking for. To secure a full fill every time, gently throw the bucket rim-down into the sea. Too many people just drop it in and hope for the best. Also, be sure and buy a quality bucket from a quality merchant. Lightweight plastic rubbish is fit only for the kitchen. Go for heavy rubber. A good bucket is a friend for life. 

Y-Valve Intel 

Last summer I had to replace my holding tank diverter valve while away on a cruise. The tank hadn’t seen much use, and when I needed it and gave the plastic lever a mighty heft, it snapped clean off. I tried everything to find a substitute lever, but to no avail, so off I went to the local “swindlery” to stump up for an all-new unit, followed by a gruesome day turning wrenches under the head. Alas, all this could have been easily avoided had I read the instructions that came in the box with the original valve. “Turn it once a week whether you need to or not,” they advised. Otherwise, it will jam up as sure as sunrise. So take a leaf from my book of shame. I now throw that Y-valve over every time I go on board, and it’s as sweet as a nut.

Quick Fix Practice

As an examiner for the official cruising scheme in the UK, I’m often disappointed at how long some Yachtmaster candidates take to plan and plot an old-fashioned three-point fix. “Back in the day,” this kind of routine chartwork typically took a couple of minutes, and if you need more than five to do it now, I’d highly recommend having a look at your technique. It’s easy to get rusty, and we’re all guilty of leaning on our digital nav aids; however, the time may come when you’ve no other option. Part of the problem is lack of facility with the hand-bearing compass. This is a skill of its own, and I keep in trim by rattling off a few bearings every so often. Just for fun, I sometimes plot them electronically rather than on the paper chart. It won’t work on a bulkhead plotter, because few of these allow more than one line to be left on the screen at a time. Running raster-chart software on my PC, though, lets me plot as many as I like. Shown above is a fix I plotted last summer

Check the Bow

Modern yachts steer well in reverse. Older types can be the stuff of nightmares. Whether yours handles like a Formula 1 racer or an 18-wheeler with a flat, when proceeding astern it pays to take a second or two from looking where you’re going and check the swing of the bow. Nobody can judge the rate of turn simply by looking over the transom. But a glance at the bow pulpit as it sweeps its way across the background immediately makes the situation crystal clear. The technique has saved me many a dust-up in a tight marina.

One coat or two? 

“To antifoul or not to antifoul, that is the question…” We aren’t discussing the bottom here. That goes without saying. The question is the propeller. Will the paint interfere with its electrolytic balance, or will the stuff simply fall off as soon as the prop starts spinning? Perhaps, you’re thinking, the best bet is to bite the bullet and use one of those expensive dedicated propeller systems. However, I bring good news, my friends. After a few false starts 50 years ago, I now paint my propellers with a single coat of good-quality self-polishing antifouling paint. It doesn’t fall off, and neither does the propeller. You’ll meet hosts of unbelievers throwing up their hands at this policy, but I’ve been pursuing it all my life. My props manage fine, and mine is always the cleanest in the yard when the boats come out.

Sitting out a squall

Experience has taught me never to ignore a squall like the one shown above. If it’s on a steady bearing and closing, I’m going to get hit. Generally, it’s safe to assume the wind will pick up 10 or 15 knots when it arrives, however, a real zapper will crank things up even more. A sound plan is to grab the oilskins in good time and then roll up the genoa before you have to. If sea room and weather gauge are no issue, be ready to bear away and run the boat off the breeze until it eases. This can knock 10 or 15 knots off the apparent wind and save having to reef the main. Watch out for a veer as well. If the squall’s on a front, the wind may clock to the right as it passes.

Break her out 

Many years ago I rode out a bad gale in a spot where the holding ground was such good clay that I had major problems breaking out the anchor afterward. A pal had the same issue last summer. Our circumstances were different, but we both reached the same conclusion about what to do. I’d had no windlass. He had a powerful electric capstan, but not even that would shift it. Most textbooks say motor ahead over the anchor to break it out. This generally works, but you may end up charging around with an anchor under the boat. Both of us succeeded by heaving the cable up short, then motoring hard astern. This usually breaks out the hook, and it’s a whole lot tidier than motoring over the top of it.

Cleating a Line

 The one certainty when it comes to making fast to a cleat is that there are a number of equally good ways of doing so. In deciding which approach to use, the right questions to ask are:
• If I secure the line like this, will it be impossible for it to come off by mistake?
• Will it also be impossible for the rope to jam up under load?
• Have I put the turns on so that, as I begin to take them off again, the rope can be surged under load if required?
Three “yes” answers, and whatever system you’re using, you’ve got it right. Use a locking hitch if it helps. Don’t bother if there’s no need unless you’re on a training vessel where it makes sense always to use one system so that all hands know what to expect in the dark of night.

Bandits, 10 o’clock

A notably unambiguous way of communicating the relative position of another vessel, a buoy or a landmark at sea is to use the old clock-face connotation favored by World War II aviators who had a lively interest in instantly spotting the chaps intent on shooting them down. The average skipper relates more quickly to, “Ship at around two o’clock,” than, “Ship, five-and-a-half points on the starboard bow.”

Sleep Easy with Lee Cloths

The ideal sea berth is a settee just wide enough to turn over in. If you’re anything like me and find the deep and dreamless hard to come by on a one-night passage, it must also feature a good reading light. Beyond that, vital above all things is a proper lee cloth (unless you’re lucky enough to have genuine lee boards). Cloths must be deep enough to hold you comfortably with enough spare material to secure the base well under the bunk cushion. To work properly, they must also feature a stiffish batten along the top. Finally, the lines that hold them up should tie off within easy reach of the incumbent and be tensioned downward so you can pull yourself in. Sweet dreams! 

Follow the Moon

If you operate in an area of significant tides, it’s worth noting that the biggest rise and fall, in theory at least, comes when the sun, moon and our own Earth are all in a line—i.e., at a full moon or new moon. In practice, the real-time movement of water tends to lag behind the ideal by a day or two, so on a totally moonless night, the tides are actually still making up. It’s the early waxing crescent that pulls the big ones with it, although you don’t get long to look at it in this phase, because it’s almost directly lined up with the sun, which sets right behind it. So long as you already know the times of the big tides, which will be more or less the same every month, who needs a tide table?

The 60-Mile Rule

By some quirk of mathematics, with a one-degree course error, a yacht ends up a mile to one side of a destination 60 miles away. Two degrees sets her two miles off. Five degrees will result in five miles (5.25 to be exact). The system keeps going—more or less—up to 15 degrees, at which point a 16-mile sideways error is reported. Thereafter, you need a calculator to work out the result. It’s easy to steer three or four degrees consistently off course, so be sure to remind the person on the helm to pay attention! An undiscovered compass deviation can do the same at a stroke, so don’t forget to “swing” it from time to time as well.

A Roly-poly Roadstead 

The trouble with an open roadstead like the one above is that anchored or moored, boats tend to roll. My wife hates it, and I’m not keen myself. Noise and motion are the two main issues. Motion is complicated, and without sophisticated “flopper stoppers,” there’s not much help for it. Noise is much easier to contend with; however, even after sorting the locker doors and securing that rogue beer can, the boom will still often flop from side to side. Worse yet, if you hang hard enough on the mainsheet to shut it up, the topping lift will then want to sing in the wind. The best answer is to ease the sheet, secure a spare length of line to the boom, tighten it down to a stanchion base and then set up the mainsheet again. Do you have a spring-loaded vang? Try easing the topping lift until the boom hits the spring. If you don’t and you find yourself having to face the choice of either the swinging boom or your boat’s own version of Bach’s Air on the G-string, there’s one more thing you can try. Take the main halyard to the boom end and flip a few wraps round the topping lift to upset the harmonics. Works every time!

Save those Laces 

Leather laces on deck shoes may look good, but they aren’t always the success their makers imagine. They seem either to be so stiff that they come undone no matter how you tie them, or they snap at what sailors used to call the “nip,” what might more clumsily be referred to as the “point of chafe.” The answer in both cases is to abandon shoe polish and treat them liberally with a good-old leather conditioner. If you can’t find this in today’s synthetic world, go to a motorbike shop and relieve the proprietor of a small can of leather dressing. Keep the laces well-greased (it’s great for the leather shoes too), and if they’re over-long, snip a couple of inches off one end and re-lead them so a fresh length takes the strain. While you’re at it, don’t let them work into a permanent twist. This will only further weaken them. 

The Shape of the Sea 

The photo above is a classic case of wind-against-current. You’d expect things to be rough, and they were. In lesser situations, you can still tell when the tide has turned, or spot a useful eddy, if you educate yourself about the shape of the sea. When the breeze blows against any sort of stream, even one running at a knot or less, the front of each wave (the downwind side) will be steeper, and small streaks of foam will run actively down its back toward the wind (in the direction of the current). This observation works in deep water, too, as anyone can testify who has crossed the Gulf Stream or hit the equatorial counter-current when they should have been enjoying a favoring 2-knot shove.

Twisting Away

 The professional skipper of this yacht has shaped his sails perfectly in search of that most elusive aspect of sail trim, known as a “twist.” The upper parts of both the jib and main are setting farther from the boat’s midline than the lower parts, yet the trim is right. Twist is needed to cope with the higher wind speeds aloft, which result in the apparent wind being less affected by boatspeed. Specifically, less wind bend aloft means the apparent wind up toward the masthead is further aft. By twisting the sail to accommodate this change in apparent wind, more forward drive is accomplished. Proper twist also results in less heeling force up high—just where you don’t want it. To dial in the right amount of twist, check your genoa telltales. If the upper ones lift before the lowers when you steer above the course with the sail trimmed right, you’ve too much twist, i.e. the top of the sail is angling too far to leeward. Move the sheet lead forward to increase the downward force on the leech, pulling it closer to the centerline. If the lowers lift first, shunt the lead aft until the twist is spot-on, and your telltales are all breaking in unison for maximum speed and minimum heel. That done, adjust your mainsheet and traveler so the leech of the main parallels that of the genoa.

All for one and one for all 

A while back there was an interesting exchange of ideas about domestic batteries on the owners’ site for my boat, a Mason 44. The Mason crowd are a switched-on bunch, and the string got complicated, but the conclusion that worked best for me was this: if you only have a single domestic battery, life is easy, if sometimes dim. Where there are two or more, don’t mess about replacing single units if you suspect you have a dead one. Bin the lot. Forget high-tech power pack “solutions.” Replace the whole bank with a set of cheap, honest, lead-acid, sealed-for-life, deep-cycle units from a reputable manufacturer. They’ll last five years at least if looked after (mine are now on year eight). You’ll never again have to chase a dodgy cell that’s pulling all the rest down with it. Go on. Stump up. It’s the only way to happiness.

Steer into the Seas 

Any sailor’s natural mindset is to steer straight along the shortest distance between two points. In heavy beam seas, though, this can be uncomfortable or even dangerous. When the course puts you more or less side-on to a steep sea, the boat is classically at risk, and you don’t have to be knocked flat for there to be trouble; even a modest walloping can throw crew overboard. The answer lies with the helm and, if appropriate, a readiness to shut down the autopilot. When you see—or feel—a nasty one coming, steer up to take it on the shoulder or down to put it on the quarter. That keeps the boat on her feet and ensures the safety of all aboard. Plowing on like an automaton can be a road to disaster.

Warm her up 

Sometimes lessons about boats arrive from unexpected directions. Like many a modern yacht, mine lacks the benefit of a proper engine temperature gauge. I wish it had one because although there’s a buzzer for when things go to the bad, it would be much healthier to monitor the heat all the time. Back home, my car, which also runs on diesel, has a temperature gauge. So does my neighbor’s. I’ve been astonished at how long the oil-powered unit takes to warm up, especially on a winter morning. Unlike my wife’s gas-powered beast, 10 miles is not unusual. My pal’s diesel is the same. Because running a cold engine hard shortens its life (and in the absence of proper data), I now treat my boat engine the same as I do my car and let it have a good 10 minutes under modest load to warm up thoroughly before giving it the gun.

Weak Links on Charter

It’s always chartering season somewhere. If you’re an old hand, you won’t be disappointed if you discover your dream boat suffers from a few defects. First-timers, though, might be in for a shock. Boats that appear superficially OK often fall short in two areas. First, make sure the furling headsail is working properly and that, in the event of a stack-packed main, you have a full set of securely installed battens. Next, if you are staying overnight in the marina before leaving, unplug the shore power before bedtime and then check the batteries and fridge in the morning. If the voltage is less than around 12.3 volts, complain. Charging systems and battery banks will often be well past their sell-by dates. Find out if everything is working properly while you still have access to shore power. It won’t be so readily available later on. 

Filters with a view

Diesel filters tend to live in dark corners, making the glass bowls thoughtfully supplied by manufacturers to give us a heads-up on the state of our fuel about as easy to read as a wet Wall Street Journal. I’ve long taken to shining a tiny LED torch through mine from behind as I peer in hopefully from the other side. All is revealed! Unfortunately, over in the European Union, metal filter bowls are now specified to minimize fire risk. If yours includes one of these dismal fail-safe devices, you might consider swapping it out for the see-through version. And, lest I be accused of recommending irresponsibility, here’s my risk assessment: Would I prefer the remote contingency of an engine-room fire fueled by diesel spilled from a cracked transparent filter bowl, or piling my yacht up on a lee shore because I couldn’t tell my fuel was contaminated?

Mystery Stink! 

A few seasons ago I became convinced my holding tank was leaking. Up forward, where it lives, a distinct whiff of rotten eggs was starting to pervade. I ripped out the furniture for an inspection only to discover all was nice and dry underneath. Following the pipes leading to and from the wretched thing revealed no serious trouble either. Not knowing what else to do, I blitzed the thing with eco-disinfectant, but the smell still hung around. It was only later that I discovered the over-sized battery for the windlass and bow thruster, which live under the same bunk, was bulging. It was replaced with the one you see pictured. The smell departed overnight. A battery in that state is not only a nuisance, it is explosive and highly dangerous. If you smell eggs, don’t make the same false assumptions I did. Check your batteries first.

Vents Suck

 Ventilation is critical to the health of a wooden boat, particularly when she lives on a mooring, and while no GRP yacht ever sank through mildew, we still like to keep our vessels nice and fresh belowdecks. It’s therefore worth bearing in mind that well-designed yacht vents from aft to forward, not the other way around, as you might expect. On my anchored yacht, the ventilator shown above has been deliberately turned toward the bow “against the grain,” so to speak, to ram some dry air into the shower compartment. However, it will be swiveled aft again when I dinghy ashore. Not only will it be less vulnerable to rain ingress, the low pressure on what is the downwind side most of the time will suck stale air out of the forward part of the boat as fresh pours in through the ventilators aft.

Winch Wisdom

Many of today’s boats—mine included—don’t have enough cleats on the cockpit coamings to secure all the sheets when they come off the winches. This is natural enough given the rise of the self-tailer, which is perfectly capable of holding things together, so long as the rope remains in the jammer. If it doesn’t, though, it can come adrift with horrid consequences. The simple solution is to get into the habit of flicking an extra turn around the winch barrel after you’ve finished winding. That way nobody can knock it out by accident, and the direction the rope is already taking encourages the tailing jaws to hold on.

Don’t Let it Flood

Turning over the engine activates the saltwater pump. The water then makes its way via the heat exchanger to the exhaust system. With the engine running, pressure from the exhaust literally blows the water out, silencing and cooling the exhaust at the same time. Unfortunately, if you are trying to start a reluctant engine—after bleeding the fuel system for example—you may find yourself cranking it a longish while to get it going, and during this time there’s no exhaust-gas pressure. As a result, you can occasionally end up with water running back into the cylinder head with horrible results. The solution? Shut the seacock before potentially prolonged cranking. Just remember to open it up again as soon as the engine fires!

Stop the Screaming

I’ve noticed that shortly before the alternator drive belt on my Yanmar stretches so much it screams a few seconds after the engine fires, the rev counter also becomes sticky on startup or stops working altogether. The reason for this is that it’s driven electrically by the alternator, making it a great early indicator that the belt is starting to get slack. Now I know if the counter starts to act up it’s time to tighten the belt before it starts screaming, and I lose all charge.  

Be a Happy Captain 

I expect that, like most skippers, you leave a standing order when you go off watch that you are to be called for almost anything. That said, we should all remember those days when we were on the other side of this equation, and “Do I call the boss or not?’ became the question. Your crew know you’re tired and want to look after you, but they also don’t want to get a rattling for being slow to give you a shake. You can help them by making a point of being positive and jolly whenever you turn out for a shout. Even if the ship in question is five miles off and heading away from you, make the right noises, have a mug of tea and then potter off back to your bunk. If you show signs of being grisly, no matter how you might be feeling, they’ll hesitate next time, which means you can’t trust them, and you won’t sleep at all. It’s a downward spiral avoided by a kind word.  

Ease ‘Em Off

When I came alongside my moored boat after some recent storms I noticed she’d ridden over her buoy and scraped her topsides when the tide had run against the gale. I had only myself to blame for this. I’d been lazy. For years, I’d intended to follow the example of one of my neighbors to minimize this nastiness. It didn’t cost him anything to grab someone’s unwanted fender from the local skip and slip it over the rough parts of his mooring. It’s a bit late now. I guess I know what my next job is! 

A Grind-free Mooring

When I came alongside my moored boat after some recent storms I noticed she’d ridden over her buoy and scraped her topsides when the tide had run against the gale. I had only myself to blame for this. I’d been lazy. For years, I’d intended to follow the example of one of my neighbors to minimize this nastiness. It didn’t cost him anything to grab someone’s unwanted fender from the local skip and slip it over the rough parts of his mooring. It’s a bit late now. I guess I know what my next job is.

Keep clear of the bight 

When I was a youngster on a small sailing ship, the bosun once bawled me out for “stepping in the bight.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. Actually, I was standing in the “V” produced by a heavily loaded line passing around a turning block. If the block had failed, I’d have either been brained by its flying remnants or, if lucky, knocked off my feet with a nasty set of bruises as the line twanged up taut like a bowstring loosen an arrow. The photo above is of a bight in a furling line—heavily loaded some of the time. Imagine if that were a genoa sheet and that undersized block was to fail…

Don’t do it! 

Thinking of going out tomorrow? If the sky looks like the photo, ditch your plans now. A solid halo on the afternoon sun means a nasty night for certain. If the glass is dropping as well, it’ll probably still be gruesome in the morning. I learned years ago to respect what the sky is telling me, in large part because when I started my sailing forecasting wasn’t anywhere near what it is today. Other warnings include a blood-red sky in the morning or a ring around the moon. Ignore these signs at your peril, no matter what the wind arrows on that colored screen may be telling their more naïve users. 

Range under power 

Fuel consumption and range is really all about hull speed. This is the maximum at which a conventional sailboat can sensibly be driven and is equal to a constant (1.34) multiplied by the square root of waterline length (LWL).

My boat’s LWL is 37ft. For convenience, I’ll call the square root of this LWL “around 6,” which multiplied by 1.34 means a theoretical maximum hull speed of a little over 8 knots.

Under power with my 55hp Yanmar, if I keep my speed down to the square root of my waterline length in flat water with a clean bottom, I burn around 0.7 gallon in an hour. I know this because I have calculated actual fuel burned between “pressed-up tank” fills, while keeping my speed close to that level. Put another way, that’s 8.5 miles per gallon. My tanks hold 150 gallons—call it 135 to allow a sensible safety margin—so I know that my useful range at 6 knots in calm water is at least 1,100 miles.

Of course, above “root waterline speed,” fuel burn climbs rapidly. Similarly, if I cut my speed to 5 knots, the revs drop right off representing massive fuel savings, while still giving me a respectable 120 miles in 24 hours. Down at 4 knots the Yanmar is literally sipping the stuff. On an ocean passage, especially if my rig were to be disabled, this knowledge could be lifesaving. Even cruising in home waters, especially with a smaller tank, knowing your range can be critical. 

My boat has a balsa-cored deck. There are a lot of these around, and owners can suffer sleepless nights worrying about what happens if water gets in. One chap on my owners’ group has been badly smitten. Our members are a hands-on bunch, and I was interested to read an answer to this issue that doesn’t involve mega-buck yard bills. Inspection holes are drilled to determine the extent of the problem. Once defined, so long as it is not too extensive, any rot can be addressed as follows: inject the core with concentrated antifreeze. This mixes with any water in there and kills rot effectively in a way that epoxy alone will not achieve. Dry the whole thing out for as long as you can, then inject epoxy into the damaged sections. With the rot dead and the water largely dried out, the epoxy will do its remarkable work.

The Third Reef 

For a really neat reef it’s hard to beat a simple slab system. There’s only one problem—the clew pennants may lead safely aft, but the tack often relies on being physically hooked onto a ram’s horn at the gooseneck. This means turning out on deck just when it’s the last thing you want. This boat has a better answer. Her tack lines lead from the reef points down through fairleads at the gooseneck, thence back to the cockpit via mast-foot turning blocks. All the skipper need do is ease the halyard and haul in the tack line, securing it in the cockpit. He then sets up the halyard and deals with the clew pennant in his own sweet time. This setup is so simple, I don’t know why more builders don’t fit it as standard.

Lucky dip 

One of the more disappointing features of sailboats is that, after a few honeymoon years, their fuel gauges suffer from a high mortality rate. That’s why you can’t beat an old-fashioned dipstick. Given a sensible allowance for fuel slopping around in the tank at sea, it is the most reliable measure you’ll get. A threaded hole on top of the tank with a piece of rod welded across the plug so it can be hand-tightened onto a rubber washer makes the ideal access point. If you can’t arrange this and the filler pipe has a bend, a flexible steel tab like an engine-oil dipstick will usually get you there. You can calibrate the stick in harbor by running the tank almost dry, then topping it right up, marking it at every five gallons. Nobody did that for your boat’s fuel gauges, and if they’re anything like the one in my car, you think there are hundreds of miles left until the needle suddenly hits the stop. 

Let her drift 

When you’re anchoring in a strong breeze, don’t feel obliged to “back off” from the anchor under power while laying cable just because textbooks say so. Instead, take off the last of your way with the wind on one side of the bow as you let go. The bow will blow off and the yacht will slide sideways downwind. Once the right amount of cable is down, snub it off and wait. You’ll know when the hook bites because she’ll suddenly head up to the wind. To be doubly sure, now put the engine astern, dig in the hook, then say goodbye to Old Man Trouble.

Forget the vintage when the heat’s turned up 

For readers who sail or charter “Down Islands,” here’s a tip from hard-won experience. I once bought two bottles of classy claret down in the Caribbean for my Christmas dinner. Come the day, both turned out to be corked. The stores were shut so we drank rum instead. The social results were similar, but the taste left something to be desired. On a recent trip, my shipmates loaded up a case of California’s finest in Antigua. Just under half were undrinkable. Hoping for better, we raided the likeliest-looking store in the French island of Guadeloupe, only to suffer further disappointment. In despair, we abandoned the vintages and went for honest, screw-topped bottles. The outcome was gratifying, so opt for reliability, even if this puts Château Pétrus off your wine list.

A Grind-free Mooring

When I came alongside my moored boat after some recent storms I noticed she’d ridden over her buoy and scraped her topsides when the tide had run against the gale. I had only myself to blame for this. I’d been lazy. For years, I’d intended to follow the example of one of my neighbors to minimize this nastiness. It didn’t cost him anything to grab someone’s unwanted fender from the local skip and slip it over the rough parts of his mooring. It’s a bit late now. I guess I know what my next job is!

How heavy a hit? 

We can’t miss seeing a squall coming, but it’s not always obvious if it has our name on it. The answer is to treat the thunderhead like a ship on a collision course. If the bearing over a stanchion doesn’t change, we’re in for it. The question is, how big a pasting are we about to receive? A useful rule of thumb is that if the horizon underneath the cloud disappears, we can expect rain for sure and probably a blow lasting anything from five to 20 minutes.

If the boat is reaching or beating and there is plenty of searoom, you can minimize the grief by bearing away when the breeze pipes up so as to reduce the apparent wind and the heeling. 

Struggling with furling genoas is a systemic issue on some yachts. My own boat has a 44ft LOA and a 130 percent masthead genoa. I carry my AARP card with pride, yet furling the sail in 20 knots without a winch isn’t a problem because I don’t use cheap furling-line blocks, and they are arranged in a close to a straight line a possible. If you need a winch on any boat less than 45ft, something is wrong. Usually, the difficulty lies in the furling line lead—too many poor-quality blocks, especially that final one that turns the line through 120 degrees into the cockpit. People rig these to guide the line to a winch they really shouldn’t need. Get rid of it and award yourself the joy of a straight pull! I recently found the furling drum on a charter yacht had been so thoughtlessly installed that the line was hobbling through 50 degrees around a solid rod. The answer was to whip the gear off and turn it so the lead came sweet.

Safety on the cheap 

Every cruising yacht should carry one or two extra-long lines. Shock-absorbing, super-strong nylon is the favorite, but cost may dictate that you use whatever you can lay hands on. The lines may not see daylight for years until some unforeseen contingency turns up. But on that day, nothing else will do, as they can, for example, be bent to the end of an anchor cable that suddenly seems too short, or serve as a life-saver in a monster raftup. I once used mine on a simple dock under a mountain when a katabatic wind fell off a glacier at midnight and started to rip the pontoon off its moorings. I ran my super-long line ashore to a tree, brought the end back to the windlass and cranked it tight. The line saved my boat and the dock as well.

Search online and you’ll find ridiculous deals on ropes. I just found 300ft of 5/8in nylon with four tons breaking strain for under a hundred bucks. 

How to sell your boat

When I was looking to buy a used boat a few years back, I was horrified at the state of many of the yachts I came across. Do people try to sell their homes with a pile of rusty motor parts strewn around the front room or a heap of soaking bedding moldering in the master bedroom? Speaking with brokers about this, the better ones refuse to keep boats in slum condition on their books. Others, however, don’t seem to care. Presentation matters if you want to get anywhere near your asking price. Even if you can’t be fussed to have varnish looking like the hatch pictured above, at least spend a weekend tidying up. Buyers will think you seamanlike, and your boat will both have a flying start and shift every time in preference to that same model in the next berth offered by the Dumpsters’ Union.

How heavy a hit?

Squalls! We can’t miss seeing them coming, but it’s not always obvious if they have our name on them. The answer is to treat the thunderhead like a ship on a collision course. If the bearing over a stanchion doesn’t change, we’re in for it. Then the question is, how big a pasting are we about to receive? A useful rule of thumb is that if the horizon underneath the cloud disappears, we can expect rain for sure and probably a blow lasting anything from five to 20 minutes. If the boat is reaching or beating with plenty of sea room, the grief can be minimized by bearing away when the breeze pipes up so as to reduce the apparent wind and the heeling.

Be thrifty with propane 

If you like to cook on board, the propane tanks supplied as standard with many modern yachts won’t get you far. Whether we bake bread or not, the one thing we all do is boil the kettle. Years ago I realized that if I counted the number of strokes on my galley foot or hand pump that represented a mug-full, then tipped the right amount into the kettle, I’d use enough propane to boil it and no more. If you only have pressure water you’ve no chance, but old-fashioned manual pumps are simple enough to install. I keep a charcoal inline filter on mine and always use it for drinking water, so no matter where I filled my tanks, I’m guaranteed a decent mug of coffee.

Mark up for the crane driver 

How many times has a crane or travelift driver who doesn’t know my boat asked me where I want the slings when he’s about to lift her out? Next time you’re successfully hauled, make a note in the back of the logbook of where the slings landed. This might be in relation to stanchions, rigging or any other immovable reference point. When the time comes around again for the crane, stick an inch or two of masking tape at the right spot. The driver will be grateful, and you won’t end up with a bent prop shaft and heaven knows what else in the way of collateral damage.

Fine-tuning a Sure-fire Solution 

It’s fun to look back over a summer’s cruising by way of the track my chartplotter has recorded. Where the track really comes into its own, though, is piloting out of a difficult harbor into which you have successfully maneuvered. You know you got in OK, so to be sure of a graceful exit—tide permitting where appropriate—you’ve only to follow the same track out again. Be warned, though, that this works only so long as the plotter is set upright. The screengrab shows two versions of the same in-and-out tracks on my Raymarine unit. The coarse setting shown in purple is useless, while the finer, black version leads me straight back out through the drying banks. It’s all down to setting the instrument to record frequent data. In short, to succeed in close quarters, the plot should be set to record at shorter time or distance intervals than out at sea.

Lucky dip 

After a few honeymoon years, a boat’s fuel gauges, often inaccurate at best, tend to suffer from a high mortality rate. When push comes to shove, you can’t beat an old-fashioned dipstick. Given a sensible allowance for fuel slopping around in the tank at sea, a dipstick is the most reliable measure you’ll get. A threaded hole on top of the tank with a piece of rod welded across the plug so it can be hand-tightened onto a rubber washer makes the ideal access point for the stick. If you can’t arrange this and the filler pipe has a bend, a flexible steel tab like an engine-oil dipstick will usually get you there. You can calibrate the stick in harbor by running the tank almost dry, then topping it right up, marking the stick at every 5 gallons. Nobody did that for your boat’s fuel gauges. If they’re anything like the one on my car, you think there are hundreds of miles left until the needle suddenly hits the stop.

Take no Chances

This is my stern with the engine running slowly in gear against the lines. We all know that when we’re charging batteries this lets the engine warm-up thoroughly. However, I have a different reason: I just changed the fuel tanks and return feeds. I once did this and let go my lines straight away only to have the engine stop two minutes later. I’d somehow made a mistake with the valves and was left with a full fuel-bleeding job with empty filters. Most of us with more than one tank change them in harbor. The entrance is exactly where we don’t want to lose power, so I always give the unit a 10-minute run in gear just to make sure that if it does pack it in it’s not for lack of fuel.

Interpreting radar 

The biggest problem most of us face when interpreting radar is lack of familiarity. We go about our daily business most of the year, then come aboard, hit the fog and turn it on. Unfortunately, unlike GPS, AIS and the rest, radar is more of a conversation between the operator and the instrument, so it’s not surprising we have trouble interpreting the picture. When I’m motoring, I, therefore, make a practice of keeping my radar transmitting even in good visibility and running an overlay on the chartplotter to keep me familiar with its drawbacks. The image above, for example, clearly shows that what the radar sees may not stack up with what the chart is telling me. Note how the trace seems mysteriously to end halfway up the coast. So it does, but that’s because the echo returning from high cliffs in the south gets lost when the land falls away to lower-lying estuarial terrain. The echo ends either because the flat shoreline isn’t providing a good enough target, or because the coast falls below the scanner’s visual horizon. Whichever was true on this particular day, it reminded me to consider the quality of a target when looking for it on radar

Relieve the load 

One of the ancient arts of the sailor is setting up a “stopper” to relieve a loaded rope without letting anything go. The classic use for a stopper is to take the weight off the genoa sheet when Cousin Doofus has carelessly locked up the whole shooting match with an override. My crew recently used the stopper shown below. It took the load at the turning block while we sorted out the mess. Then we wound the sheet in a few inches to relieve the force on the stopper, removed it and sailed on. To create a stopper that works, clap on a half-hitch before the rolling hitch as shown. You can see it doing the work, and it guarantees success. If you can’t tie a rolling hitch, go on the internet and learn how. You may need it sooner than you think!

The back door

Satisfied with your headsails? So was I, until one day I took a long, hard look up the luff of my genoa, making sure I inspected the leeward side as well. The sail had plenty of life left—it was still “crackly” when folded—but it looked far too full to me, and my forestay was sagging more than I’d have liked. The rig had been set up by a guy I trust, so there wasn’t a lot be done about the sag. Still, the boat was slow upwind and seemed tender, so I bundled the genoa into the car and took it to my favourite sailmaker. He agreed the cloth was still OK, but wasn’t impressed with the shape. I don’t know the ins and outs of the magic he wrought, but he shortened the luff by a few inches so I could tension it properly and somehow compensated for sag and flattened the entry. Now I sail a different boat. She stands up as she ought, she foots well and points higher, too—all because I took a critical look up the rig.

Take no chances 

This is my stern with the engine running slowly in gear against the lines. We all know that when we’re charging batteries this lets the engine warm-up thoroughly. However, I have a different reason: I just changed the fuel tanks and return feeds. I once did this and let go of my lines straight away only to have the engine stop two minutes later. I’d somehow made a mistake with the valves and was left with a full fuel-bleeding job with empty filters. Most of us with more than one tank change them in harbor. The entrance is exactly where we don’t want to lose power, so I always give the unit a 10-minute run in gear just to make sure that if it does pack it in it’s not for lack of fuel.

The back door 

Satisfied with your headsails? So was I, until one day I took a long, hard look up the luff of my genoa, making sure I inspected the leeward side as well. The sail had plenty of life left—it was still “crackly” when folded—but it looked far too full to me, and my forestay was sagging more than I’d have liked. The rig had been set up by a guy I trust, so there wasn’t a lot be done about the sag. Still, the boat was slow upwind and seemed tender, so I bundled the genoa into the car and took it to my favourite sailmaker. He agreed the cloth was still OK, but wasn’t impressed with the shape. I don’t know the ins and outs of the magic he wrought, but he shortened the luff by a few inches so I could tension it properly and somehow compensated for sag and flattened the entry. Now I sail a different boat. She stands up as she ought, she foots well and points higher, too—all because I took a critical look up the rig.

Fouled anchor

“To buoy or not to buoy?” That is so often the question when we’re anchoring where foul ground seems a possibility. I have a lot of sympathy for this chap who had dropped his pick in a place not charted as problematic. He’d no reason to expect trouble, yet trouble he got, buckets full of it. The cable he’s picked up is far too heavy to manhandle clear of the anchor. However, his windlass has done well to dredge it up this far, and all he has to do now is to pass a line under the cable and secure both ends on deck. This will free his hook to be lowered clear, brought aboard and stowed. After that he can simply slip one end of the line so that the cable falls back to the depths, leaving him to sail off, free as air.

Slapper stopper 

When I came on deck at 0800 to hoist my colors on a visitors’ mooring recently, there was an awkward slop running in. This doesn’t trouble my Mason 44, which has a traditional counter stern. But on the next buoy over the boat’s wide, flat stern was slapping down in a manner perfectly calculated to ruin the slumbers of anyone trying to sleep aft. By contrast, the guy on the other side of me had a similarly shaped yacht but looked fresh as a daisy. The reason? He’d strung a light chain (for weight) through a length of domestic pipe insulation and hung it under his stern with lines on either side. It isn’t perfect, he admitted when I asked, but it’s the best answer I’ve seen.

Sort the charts 

Lying here on the cockpit seat is my iPad, loaded with Navionics charts. It’s a classic example of the benefits of GPS-assisted paper chart navigation and the wonderful electronics that represent the greatest breakthrough in pilotage in all of our lifetimes. However, nothing is free, and like nearly all vector-based charting systems, the presentation isn’t as intuitive as on a paper chart. Plus, no plotter screen is ever big enough to deliver the overview we need in a close-quarters scenario. I’ve therefore found the best answer is to pilot on a good-old paper chart, using the plotter to confirm where exactly I am on it and for occasional blow-up images. The confidence boost is terrific.

A Clear Run 

In Britain, sink plungers are always referred to as a “plumber’s mate,” and when I bought my Mason 43 I discovered a jumbo-sized example in the under-sink locker. This was a good thing, as I feared the worst and I wasn’t wrong. All my previous boats had their sinks below the waterline, reliably cleared by manual pumps. But this one, in line with modern practice, has her sinks fractionally above the waterline, and because the pressure head is minimal, from time to time they block from sheer lack of flow. I then revert to the glorious tool left by a caring predecessor. If you don’t have one on your boat, buy one now—a decent example with a soft lip inside the rubber ring, not a cheap imported substitute. They are fun to use and a whole lot better than tackling those impossible hose clips after dinner when you should be enjoying a good cigar

No cracked skulls, please

Modern boats with aft bathing ladders offer a big advantage when it comes to rescuing crew who have fallen overboard. Not all casualties are basket cases unable to help themselves. Many have just taken a tumble, and while much is written about retrieval, often the sensible approach is just to assist them to the stern and encourage them to climb aboard using the ladder. If this is your choice, however, don’t even think of holding the boat head-to-wind when there’s any sea running. That nice flat stern can come down like a wrecking ball and turn a mistake into a crisis. Lay the boat athwart the seas instead. She’ll roll, of course, which those left onboard won’t appreciate. But the person in the drink will not care because they won’t be brained or speared by the ladder as they scramble back into the cockpit. 

Check the waypoint 

Most errors with GPS and paper chart navigation are caused by the operator punching in the wrong numbers or plotting the lat/long incorrectly. The surest way to double-check a waypoint is from a known position, and the best position you’re likely to have is your home mooring. First, enter the new waypoint’s coordinates into the GPS using the lat/long lifted from the waypoint plotted on the chart. Next, activate the GPS waypoint using “GoTo” and note its range and bearing from your present position, which you know exactly because you’re at home. Use your dividers and parallel rules to see if the range and bearing on the chart stack up with numbers on the screen. If there’s a discrepancy, check those lat/long figures again. You know the rule: “garbage in-garbage out!” —Tom Cunliffe

Towing speed 

Sooner or later most sailboats need a tow, and this is the time to watch out for over-enthusiastic motorboat drivers. A sailing yacht should not be towed at much above a speed equivalent to the square root of her waterline length (around 5 knots for 30ft on deck). At this speed, she is easy to steer and makes little resistance to progress. At “hull speed” (around 1.4 x the “root speed”) she is flat out. Even a single knot faster is going to strain things mightily. It’s not easy to ask a fisherman engaged in saving your ship to slow down, but it’s worth a try. The trick is to mention it politely while you’re passing the towline rather than wait until the cleats start pulling out. —Tom Cunliffe

The double range 

Every skipper knows about ranging two objects in line to keep the boat on track in a cross-current. What’s less obvious is monitoring both sides of a gap such as a harbor entrance. Where there’s a stream running athwart the direct route in, it’s important to steer so that the boat hits that entrance around dead center. If there’s no leading line to follow, the answer is to watch both pier heads and make sure that the background is “opening” from each of them at the same sort of rate. If one starts revealing less behind it while the other shows more, you’re on the slippery sideways slope. —Tom Cunliffe

Log the glass 

A week ago I set out after breakfast on a 50-mile passage. The day’s forecast via the internet was for 14-18 knots. It never happened, and I spent the entire trip adjusting my genoa sheets to try to extract more than 4 knots from the boat. All day the barometer fell slowly and steadily. By the time we got in, the log showed it had dropped 8 points in 24 hours from a preceding steady high that had lasted for days. We laid supper in the cockpit and were just serving the lobster when the breeze kicked in. By the time we’d cracked the claws, we’d given up and retreated below from a solid 25 knots with rain on its breath. Down at the chart table, the glass was rising again. —Tom Cunliffe

We’re blessed today with the best weather forecasting ever, but we still ignore the barometer at our peril. I log mine at sea every hour and in harbor, I zero the reference pointer twice a day. It’s right here with me, not in an office somewhere else, and it rarely lies. —Tom Cunliffe

No chafe, safe stay 

If you’re leaving the boat unattended for a longish period, there’s a lot to be said for cow-hitching the shorelines, as this sailor did. They’ll never let go, and so long as the hitch is snugged up tightly, there will be zero chafe. The bonus is that it won’t matter how hard the knot has been pulled: by working with a spike or a robust screwdriver you’ll always manage to get it loose with diligent effort. Our man here has even added a pad of chafe-proof webbing to help things along. His neighbor has done absolutely nothing and will get what he deserves for lying to a slip rope for longer than overnight. —Tom Cunliffe

Cut windage in a blow 

Next time you’re anchored and you know it’s going to blow seriously hard, have a think about unnecessary windage. The boat herself may be sleek down at water level, but all the other stuff could see you coming unstuck when the chips are down at midnight.

Lowering the dodger, for example, could save you 10ft. Next, drop your roller genoa. Not a popular order, but you’ll be typically 7ft to the good. If you can lower your boom end and lash it to the quarter that’ll also help, by getting its windage as low as possible. And have you ever felt the pull of a loaded flag halyard in a gale? Dropping all your bunting will save your flags and a big drag as well. The only drawback with all this is that should the anchor fail you’ll be left with only the engine, but could you really sail out of danger in storm-force winds? Better to make sure the batteries are well charged and the fuel’s clean. —Tom Cunliffe

Protection from lightning—but not for yourself 

If you take a strike in an electrical storm and are not specifically protected, you may well lose all your main electronics, whether the antennae are connected or not. Therefore, next time this threatens, grab your handheld VHF, your spare GPS and your cell phone (just to be sure), pop them in the oven and shut the door. (But don’t light the propane!) That way, whatever happens to your instruments with masthead antennae, the gear in the cooker will be OK, which means you’ll know where you are and you’ll still be able to call home.
—Tom Cunliffe

A sign from outside the box 

Rev counters on modern engines are driven electronically from a terminal on the alternator. If all is well, as soon as the engine fires up the revs will read true. If, however, you notice a lapse between fire-up and reading on the tachometer, it probably means that the belt driving the alternator is beginning to slip. Slip, as most of us know from the screaming belts of our old student-era cars, is worse immediately after startup, settling down as the belt gets a grip. Since the rev counter on the boat is essentially sensing an early slip long before the belt starts howling, take a look, get out the wrenches and check the belt for tension. It might save a nasty job later on. —Tom Cunliffe

Let her breathe

When the wind’s so light your cigar smoke goes straight up (or it used to, before having fun was banned) any well-designed yacht with a clean bottom will somehow keep on sailing if you give her a chance. She won’t go anywhere, however, if her sails are flat. So ease those halyards and outhauls, give the close-hauled sheets 6in of slack, back off the vang and don’t try to point too high. While you’re busy, perch any spare bodies to leeward to induce an angle of heel. That way the sails will drop into shape and what breeze there is won’t squander its energy trying to blow them right way out. nasty job later on. 

Katabatic Winds

These come in various incarnations depending on whereabouts on the planet you happen to be sailing. However, they all originate in a parcel of cold air high on a hill that then decides to roll down on top of you. My worst such experience was in Corsica. I was at the leeward end of a line of stern-to yachts with their bows held up to the wind by anchors. When the katabatic came ripping down the mountain at sunset the whole fleet dragged, pinning my yacht hard against the wall. Not funny. Alaska also has a private speciality that shredded my pal’s jib in half a minute. Similarly, over in Scotland, I once found a fine anchorage in the Isle of Skye where the wind blew all night long. Out at sea, things stayed calm. Wherever you are, be ready in the vicinity of high mountains. —Tom Cunliffe

Give the Troops a Chance on the Tacking 

Aboard a cruiser, it’s far better to “steer” through the wind rather than simply heave the helm hard over. Bang it down like a dinghy sailor, and the poor souls on the sheets will soon stop liking you. Instead, try turning gently, especially at that critical moment after the bow has passed though the wind. Steer 10 degrees above close-hauled until the crew has winched in the genoa before you fill away onto the new tack. Joy for all, no broken hearts, and the boat will have come about more effectively too. —Tom Cunliffe

Tacking a Modern Cutter 

 Unlike a traditional gaff cutter with a long bowsprit and a high-cut, narrow jib, most of today’s cutters are really masthead sloops with an inner forestay to take the staysail. The result is a lot less gap between the two forestays than with the older boats. Worse yet, the masthead stay usually carries a sizeable genoa that inevitably gets caught up with the inner forestay as the boat tacks. On passage this isn’t much of an issue, since the boat doesn’t come about every five minutes and the genny can always be rolled half-way in to help it through. However, if the tacks are short and furling not an option, misery is the portion of many a skipper. The best answer I have found is to leave the staysail aback until the genoa has been tacked. This way the big sail can’t fall into the gap because there isn’t one. Instead, it slides across the backed staysail without trouble. Once it has been sheeted in, the staysail is let draw with ease. —Tom Cunliffe

No pinching 

Cruising in traditional long-keeled craft as I did for years, I found that a good boat would often point higher than she would sail. You could strap in the jib until she almost stopped, then watch her point 40 degrees from the true wind and go nowhere except sideways. Modern yachts are less dramatic, but if you sail above a true close-hauled course the boat slows down, the keel stalls and you slide away to leeward in despair, imagining you’re doing really well until you find you aren’t. Unless the water’s mill-pond smooth, it’s usually better for a cruiser to go for boatspeed. Set up the rig, then bear away until you feel her heel and start to drive. If there’s a sea running, ease sheets a fraction and crack off 5 or 10 degrees. Speed climbs, leeway falls; you’ll be making good more ground and having a lot more fun

Fall in line

In the days before GPS, the best trick outside the book for finding a harbor in dense fog went like this: if it’s surrounded by rocks, forget it; if not, in you go, but never try to hit it by dead reckoning. This only really works, though, if you get lucky. So instead, inspect the chart and choose an unambiguous depth contour that passes close to the pier head. (In this case illustrated below it’ll be at 5 meters, with some extra typically added for tidal height.) Steer in from the offing onto the contour well to the north of the harbour. Then when you find the depth, you’ll also know the breakwater lies to port, so you’ve only to turn and run along it until the lighthouse materializes through the murk. This method is useful on the ocean too if you lose your timepiece and hence your longitude. (Latitude can be calculated via a sextant and tables: no time needed.) You’ve only to sail to the desired latitude on a known side of the destination, then run along it until your island pops up ahead. It worked for Columbus, and it still works now. —Tom Cunliffe

A quiet sleep  

A shipmate of mine describes spending his formative years sleeping in a drawer on his parents’ yacht. My daughter’s early experience belowdecks was centered around crashing out in a carrycot secured behind a lee cloth. Her son has been enjoying a better time of it by far, indicating that, despite undeniable evidence to the contrary, life is getting better. He turned up shortly before his second birthday with his own tented accommodation where he slept like the proverbial baby. With kids, it’s all about preparation. Plenty to do, lots of security and, as with malevolent dogs, parents must “never show fear!” Forethought makes for happy nippers and happy nippers mean dad can enjoy a quiet beer when the anchor’s down without being molested by screaming horrors.—Tom Cunliffe

Thanks a bunch 

This scene is very calm and seamanlike. No frantic rope throwing or shouting. As he passes the line to the gent on the dock, the crew on the boat says, quietly and clearly, “Would you lead it around that cleat and then pass me the end back please.”

What’s special about this is that the guy handing the rope ashore isn’t assuming that his helper can read his mind. He can’t. If he gives someone a rope and doesn’t say anything, most misguided helpers will simply pull on it. In a case like this, with everything under sweet control, that’ll be the last thing the skipper wants. The wretch on the dock might even catch a turn, snub the bow in and ruin a nice maneuver. It doesn’t matter what the plan is. The important thing is to communicate said plan to whoever has volunteered to assist. —Tom Cunliffe

A Helping Hand 

This is a real-world solution, and I expect correction by my betters. However, anyone whose seacocks are modern ball valves rather than the grand old tapered cone variety may care to read on.

Servicing tapered cone valves is a delight, but my boat hasn’t any. My ball-valve alternatives are top quality and not showing signs of deterioration, although they are old and they get stiff toward the end of a season when I can’t haul out to squirt in a shot of grease from outside. This year I was rooting through an old toolbox in the shed when I came across some redundant box wrenches. One was a perfect fit on those sharp seacock handles that have lost their lovely rubber coats. I took it down to the boat, offered it up to my worst-offending seacock and gave it a careful heave. The valve moved as smoothly as my electric outboard. The wrench offers a little additional leverage—not so much as to risk damage—and is kind to suffering hands. It lives on board now, proud of its new job after being rendered redundant long ago by fancy socket sets. —Tom Cunliffe

Don’t get caught

Old hands were told about this in their cradles, but if you’re a newcomer to sailing, here’s a wrinkle to keep you out of trouble. Unlike an automobile, a boat is rarely going where she’s pointing in waters when the tide sets up any current. When a buoy or any other immovable object is making a bow wave like this one, you can think of it as another vessel underway. What you need to know is, are you going to hit it or not? It might be as much as 30 degrees off the bow, but a strong stream could be drifting you 40 or more degrees from where you’re heading. The only surefire answer is to note whether the object is moving against its background as you are making your way toward it. If it is, you’re OK. If it’s not, you’re headed straight for it, so alter course quickly, watch out and if in any doubt, go downstream of it just to be safe. Never listen to folks with a scientific education telling you this doesn’t work. It has done since St. Paul’s ship went down off Malta.

Guaranteed result 

What you see on the end of this halyard isn’t a beautiful Flemish Eye worked by a rigger, but it will make a big difference when you have to “mouse” a line through the mast. If the halyard has no eye on the end to attach the mouse line, don’t mess about with rolling hitches and tape. Get out the palm and needle. No special skills needed. Load the needle with whipping twine and make loops by shoving it three or four times through the rope half an inch from a burned end. For total security, finish off by whipping it round, then bury the twine deeply into the rope and cut it off at the exit point. It’ll take five minutes, but losing a halyard inside the mast through a botched connection can leave you with hours of tears

Emergency Bilge Pump

One time, I burned the impeller on my main engine and ended up with an obstruction somewhere in the works. I hadn’t time to strip the heat exchanger, so I decided to bypass the raw water pump. I did so by hooking up a powerful deckwash pump to the engine water intake, connecting the output hose from the deckwash to the output hose leading from the raw water pump to the heat exchanger. I then fired up the deckwash pump and started the engine. Later, when I reconnected the raw water pump with a new impeller, I found the big pump had blasted the muck out of the heat exchanger and the cooling water ran like a mountain stream. Thinking outside the box can also save the day if your bilge pumps are struggling with a big leak. Shut the engine inlet seacock, disconnect the pipe, shove it into the bilge and start the engine. Ideally, you should have a strum box ready to clap onto the end, but if needs must you’ll just have to take a chance. The main engine will shift a surprising amount of water. —Tom Cunliffe

The Dreaded Bubbles 

Whoever attached these fittings to an expensive painted mast needs to have his grog stopped. The stainless steel machine screws have attacked the aluminum and welded themselves in place so that 1) they can’t be shifted without major surgery, and 2) corrosion is now bubbling away at the paint. (With a standard anodized spar we’d be seeing the oxidization directly.) There is simply no excuse for this. If the fastenings had been greased with some suitable agent, any action would be minimized, and the screws could be removed with diligent application. Proprietary products like Lanocote abound in every chandlery for just this kind of situation, although I still use a pot of lanolin I bought from a chandler down in the commercial docks when I was lad. You can find the stuff on the internet. It’s cheap, and you’ll be told it will make your skin beautiful into the bargain. Use it on every non-stainless nut and bolt too. Nothing will ever stick again.
 —Tom Cunliffe

A Clean Run 

Dropping a coil on deck so that its running part is on top will always help it to spool out cleanly. Flaking it in a figure of eight can be even better. This allows the line to fall naturally rather than giving each turn a half-twist to persuade it to lie in the neat turns of a coil. Often, however, it’s enough just to dump it carefully into a pile with the running part on top. Whatever your preference for a clean run, it’s critical to take the bitter end clear of the action as shown here. If you leave it underneath, you can bet it will get “sucked in” as the rope runs, creating a series of overhand knots and awarding you the sort of mess referred to by chief petty officers in the old Royal Navy as “a bunch of bastards.” 
—Tom Cunliffe

Ditch the stress 

Owners of high-freeboard yachts best boarded via the stern sugar-scoop like to back them into a slip, but the process can be fraught on a windy day or when there’s a current running, especially when you’re shorthanded. This yacht is secured with all the usual lines, but a closer look shows that her skipper has a trick to make his arrival easier. The giveaway is the light, white rope on the port quarter. It’s doing nothing now, but when the yacht came in it was the kingpin.

Here’s the secret: approach with lines ready and fenders on both sides so the neighbors needn’t worry if you don’t get it quite right. Prepare an extra warp (the little white one) on the quarter, secured on board. Come in astern at good speed to retain control. When you’re near the end of the road, whack the engine into forward gear to stop the boat. Your crew hops ashore with the white rope, takes up the slack and secures the line. The instant it’s on, start motoring slow ahead against it. The boat is now under total control and you can adjust her position by steering against the line. Keep the engine going ahead while you run out your warps. When all’s as you want it, put her out of gear, slack off the magic line and pour the drinks. —Tom Cunliffe

Take it easy  

Looks untidy, huh? Maybe it does, but I’ve hoisted a lot of mainsails over the years. A few go up easily. Many are a struggle. Sometimes it’s about turning blocks and nasty mast-tracks, but often the problem lies with misplaced tidiness. All stack-packed mains and ordinary slab-reefers have reefing pennants. Some run sweetly in their blocks, others do not, but even with the best of them, when I heave up on the halyard only to find all the slack has been pulled through when the sail was stowed, my heart sinks. If there’s single-line reefing, I lose the will to live. Unless the blocks, especially in the boom ends, are perfect and the rope new and supple, it’s going to be a struggle wrestling the slack back out again. Leave the pennants as they are when the sail comes down, and it’ll make hoisting a breeze. Just tuck them away into the stowed main and drop them when it’s time to go again. The skipper of the boat in the photo might have been a bit tidier, but he’ll have the last laugh. —Tom Cunliffe

Hang ‘em high 

This stern line has the end secured on the dock and the slack neatly taken up on board, making the lines easy to handle when, say, moving the boat. However, it also leaves a coil on deck, so that the question becomes what to do with it. Hanging it up like this looks seamanlike and confers two further advantages: it stops crud collecting around the coil, which always happens; and it helps the rope to dry out quickly. The latter is especially helpful, because it’s best not to stow ropes wet if it can be avoided, since once they’re in the locker and forgotten they soon start to smell. A coil lying on deck stays wet for ages. Hang it high, and it dries out in no time. —Tom Cunliffe

Letting go the sheet

Taking a loaded-up sheet off a winch when the boat tacks can be a just cause for nervousness. On a boat up to 40ft or so, the safest way is to first ease off a few inches, keeping the flat of one hand pressed against the turns as they surge round the barrel. This removes the worst of the load. Now take off a turn or two, always leaving a couple on the barrel for safety, then wait for the sail to begin to lift at the luff. As soon as this happens, pull the turns positively upward off the barrel, keeping your grip directly above the winch’s axis. The turns will whip off cleanly, they will never foul, and your hands will be safe into the bargain. —Tom Cunliffe

Sorting Out a ‘burned’ Impeller 

Engine raw-water pump impellers don’t last forever. Even if they are not destroyed by running the engine dry following a blockage, they still deteriorate with the years. If you’ve never had to change one, try installing the standby part when your boat is safe on her mooring, then buy a new spare. You might be surprised at what you discover. For example:

• Some impeller changes require a fresh gasket each time. Do you have one?

• Does your screwdriver fit those machine screws holding the cover plate on?

• Did you lose a screw in the bilge? It’s so easy to do! If so, can you reach it, or ought you to carry a couple of spares?

All vital experience when you have to do the job heeled over on a dark night and feeling rough. —Tom Cunliffe

The Watch-keeper’s Nightmare 

The commercial watchkeeper’s most awkward decisions come with a vessel converging from abaft the starboard beam showing a red light. If he’s more than 2 points, or around 22 degrees, abaft the beam, he’s overtaking and you’re “stand on.” If not, he’s seeing your green, making you the “give-way vessel.” This means either a significant course alteration or taking off engine revs and risking waking the skipper. Either is bad news.

Here’s a scene between two yachts, both motoring, from a Raymarine plotter using full AIS functions. You’re the black boat. Are you converging with the other guy, leaving you to stand on, or have you come from farther aft and should thus give way? The useful “collision avoidance” box on his AIS vector shows you are entering the danger zone, so one of you must do something, and pretty soon. He’s showing no signs of altering. It’s all been left a bit late so, regardless of who’s in the right, you’d better assume the worst and either slow down or give the engine the beans and pass clear ahead.

The lesson is to be actively aware of this difficult area of the COLREGS and take action in good time. —Tom Cunliffe

Easy rider 

I learned this trick back in 1973 from the boss of the first cruising school I worked for. It still succeeds nearly every time. When you need a break from sailing hard to windward, or if you just want to settle things down to visit the head or brew some coffee, try fore-reaching. There’s no requirement to reef the main to slow down. All you need is a roller headsail and a working jib or a staysail.

• Set up the mainsheet so the sail is in a close-reaching attitude

• Roll in the headsail so the clew is clear forward of the mast

• Sheet the headsail on both sheets, centering the clew around amidships

• Walk away from the helm: there’s no need to lash it

Any well-balanced yacht will now sail slowly upwind, looking after herself while you attend to other matters or just take a well-earned rest. —Tom Cunliffe

Keep the battens in

Have you ever had difficulties with full-length battens slipping out? On charter boats, I’ve occasionally had them popping out of the leech like longbow arrows. With my own mainsail, if the leech end gets a bit slack, the luff end will also slither out of its holder with wretched results. You’ll have already learned the trick of shoving them in from the leech with a short length of batten and securing them with a Velcro pocket. If this fails, you may find the sailmaker has left you a pair of small loops, one either side, which you can use to pass a lashing and do away with the problem for good. If there are no loops and you’ve had an issue, ask him to work them in at this winter’s valeting.

Think Deeply 

When chartering, I am always maddened to be told that the echo sounder is calibrated “to depth under the keel, plus a bit for safety.” Such operators seem to imagine that the instrument’s sole purpose is to stop people running aground. As a navigator I find this patronising. The echo sounder is a primary piloting tool, not a panic avoider. It should tell me the exact depth of the water so I can use this for further calculations. My boat draws 7ft The sounder reads water depth. If it says 7ft, I’m on the bottom. Not difficult, is it? When the charter-boat unit says zero and I’m still afloat because of some arbitrary and undisclosed safety margin, where does that leave me?

A “margin for safety” leaves me feeling disturbingly unsafe, so if your sounder is set to something other than depth of water, get out the leadline for a dead accurate depth, then calibrate the sounder accordingly. If you haven’t a leadline, lash a few shackles on the end of a piece of string and break out the ship’s tape measure. —Tom Cunliffe

When I bought my boat it had 18 through-hull fittings. To reduce the number of holes in the hull (I ultimately cut them by half), I first re-plumbed the drain hoses from my sinks, scuppers, bilge pumps and shower sump so that they could share many fewer outlets. I then removed the remaining unused fittings, feathered back the holes inside and out with an angle grinder, and filled them by layering on a succession of round fiberglass patches of increasing diameter.

I also reduced the number of intake seacocks to just two—one for the engine’s raw-water intake and one that I plumbed to a manifold that services every other appliance that uses seawater. On my boat this includes the galley sink foot pump, the toilet intake, the watermaker, the deck wash-down pump and a short bilge sump wash-down hose. I made my manifold from off-the-shelf PVC tubes and valves and installed a sea strainer between the seacock and the manifold. It has functioned perfectly for six years now.

Note that if you install a simple manifold, as opposed to a sea chest, to service multiple systems, the through-hull must be large enough to meet the likely maximum demand. A sea chest, which has a tank (capacity is typically a gallon or more), can more easily accommodate surge loads when more than one system is drawing water at the same time. —Tom Cunliffe

Balls in the air 

Every time I sling the pick in a windy anchorage, I’m amused to see those slot-together anchor balls twirling like spinning tops between a bit of a downhaul and a spare halyard. The breeze blows in amongst the faces where they’re slotted together and off they go. Aboard my boat, however, I’ve resolved this menace with a piece of string. First, I attach a downhaul to the bottom and the halyard to the top. Then I hitch four or five feet of string to a side between them via one of the spare holes, reach up as high as I can and clove-hitch my string around the rolled-up headsail. That done, I heave gently on the downhaul to pull the ball away from the sail before finishing off by tensioning the halyard for a seamanlike job. Oh, and for those who don’t bother to hoist an anchor ball when they drop the hook, give some thought to what the judge will say if someone runs into you. 

Easy on the Cord 

Under pressure from my wife, who has always had difficulty starting outboards, I sold my last gas unit a few years ago and now use electric. In my silent new world I’m always sad to see people heaving away at old-fashioned outboard starter cords in vain frustration. The wretched things remind me of motorcycle kick-starts. They always fail in front of a crowd. If an outboard won’t fire after half-dozen pulls, it might be suffering some terminal malaise. However, it’s far more likely that it has simply flooded its carburetor. Nine times out of 10 you can cure this simply by starving it of gas. Shut the fuel tap, deactivate any choke mechanism, close the throttle right down then give it a few brisk pulls. Once it fires, as it probably will rather unconvincingly, pick up the revs gingerly with the throttle, turn the fuel back on and away you go.

Rafting danger

One unseen danger when sailing yachts lie alongside one another for a convivial night is that if they happen roll to a wash or begin to move in an unexpected sea, the spreaders can clash together and suffer catastrophic damage. Always look aloft when rafting up and make sure the masts are well out of line.

Think Deeply 

When chartering, I am always maddened to be told that the echo sounder is calibrated “to depth under the keel, plus a bit for safety.” Such operators seem to imagine that the instrument’s sole purpose is to stop people running aground. As a navigator, I find this patronising. The echo sounder is a primary piloting tool, not a panic avoider. It should tell me the exact depth of the water so I can use this for further calculations. My boat draws 7ft The sounder reads water depth. If it says 7ft, I’m on the bottom. Not difficult, is it? When the charter-boat unit says zero and I’m still afloat because of some arbitrary and undisclosed safety margin, where does that leave me?

A “margin for safety” leaves me feeling disturbingly unsafe, so if your sounder is set to something other than depth of water, get out the leadline for a dead accurate depth, then calibrate the sounder accordingly. If you haven’t a leadline, lash a few shackles on the end of a piece of string and break out the ship’s tape measure. 

Unweatherly Cloths 

Cockpit weather cloths are a grand idea, but like most good things onboard, they come with a downside. I learned about this the hard way many years ago in a North Atlantic storm. I’d been hove-to in a big sea for 24 hours and had just popped up into the cockpit to see how bad things really were when I heard the dreaded express train noise and knew I was in for a soaking. The breaking wave roared down from windward. It didn’t knock the boat over, but the weather cloth got the full benefit. Amazingly, it didn’t burst. Instead of ripping out of its lashings, it stayed attached and the stanchions went with it when it blew off to leeward. They were bolted through the deck, so they took a plank with them for good measure. Ever since, I’ve made sure weather cloths can be taken down easily when the weather turns vicious. 

Impeller Practice 

Engine raw-water pump impellers don’t last forever. Even if they are not destroyed by running the engine dry following a blockage, they still deteriorate with the years. If you’ve never had to change one, try installing the standby part when the boat is safe on her mooring, then buy a new spare. You might be surprised by what you discover. Some impeller changes require a fresh gasket each time. Do you have one? Does your screwdriver fit those machine screws holding the cover plate on? Did you lose a screw in the bilge? It’s so easy to do! If so, can you reach it? Perhaps you should carry a couple of spares? All vital experience when you have to do the job heeled over on a dark night.

Swinging Circle 

I’ve spent so much of my life at anchor it’s hard to imagine folks struggling with the basics, but recent events have reminded me that swinging circles can cause genuine concern. With no tide and a stiff breeze, such as one finds in the Caribbean, it’s safe to nudge up astern of the next boat, let go a length or two under her stern and then blow away to leeward, giving her plenty of room and knowing you can recover your hook without problems. However, in a tidal river, things are very different. The safest option here is to assume that when the wind is blowing against the current both boats will be sufficiently confused to snuggle up together at the full reach of their low-tide scope. The ideal is to leave enough space to accommodate this scenario. It may not always be feasible, but it’s the only sure way

Defusing the Run 

It’s been said with justification that gentlemen don’t boast about how windy it was, but the shape of my ensign in the photo will give well-informed readers a fair idea. They will also note that I’m on a near-dead run. The sea is building and, however carefully I steer, I’m vulnerable to a gybe. Some action must be taken to defuse the mainsail. Either a preventer is rigged or the sail has to come down. A preventer is dandy, but someone will have to go forward to organize it and, once rigged, the boat is committed to the wind on a particular side of the stern. By comparison, “headsail only” has a lot going for it. The wind must be kept slightly off dead aft so the sail sets sweetly, but gybing ceases to be an issue. And because the yacht is now effectively in front-wheel drive, she is a lot easier to steer too. So bite the bullet downwind and dump the mainsail in good time. Looking at my ensign, things are only going to get worse, and they did.

Good Connections

I wish I’d had a dollar for every time I’ve cobbled together an electrical fitting with a “that’s good enough” shrug. An old shipwright once taught me that “good enough is not good enough” for boatbuilding, but I’ve tended to forget that when it comes to wiring. A typical case is where the ring terminal on a battery ends up too big for the bolt or stud. Many of us will make do by jamming it down with a washer and hope for the best. I learned recently what thoroughly bad news this can be. For a start, if the ring doesn’t fit properly on its bolt, the connection will be compromised. Far worse, though, is that a bad connection can generate heat—sometimes enough to start a fire. No more cobble-ups at the battery, thanks very much.  

Emergency tiller 

Here’s a useful solution to the question of running a windvane self-steering gear with wheel steering. Leading the steering lines directly to a tiller has always seemed a better answer than to a drum on the wheel. If you have wheel steering and wish, for these purposes, that you had a tiller instead, why not dig out the emergency tiller and use it as a dedicated self-steering unit? If the tiller’s as good as this one on my Mason 44, not only will the gear work better, it will also remove any wear to the wheel system, with all its wires and pulleys, for the length of a long ocean passage. Making a smaller tiller specifically for this use could be even better.

Teak deck paradise 

I had a call recently from the man who replaced the deck on my Mason 44 five years ago. He was worried about the way people are wrecking their teak decks trying to get the green off. Nasty chemicals munch at the rubber, bandits scrub the pith out of the grain fore and aft with stiff brushes, and skippers have even been seen brandishing power hoses. However, the shrewd Swedes at Hallberg-Rassy recommend only one answer in their owner’s manual. It’s called Boracol, available on the internet from Canada and super-easy to use. It ain’t cheap, but my goodness, it really works. I applied it last winter. Without scrubbing I topped up in autumn, and my decks are still a perfect silver-gray.

Fouling Fix

If you suck a rope into your propeller running ahead or astern so that it stops your engine, there is sometimes a chance of freeing it without a dive as follows. Assuming you cannot hand-start the engine, first activate the fuel cutoff by pulling the stop cable. If you have an electric cutoff activated by the start switch, you may have to attend to its wiring manually. Once you are confident the engine will not fire, engage the opposite gear to the one you’re on, grab a bight of the rope, take the strain and crank the starter motor. So long as you keep pulling and the rope wound on cleanly without hitching itself, you might get lucky, and the rope will unreel as easily as it went on. If you can hand-crank your engine, decompress and do it that way.

A Double Winner 

Off on a longer trip than usual next summer? If so, you may well end up carrying extra fuel in jerry cans on deck. However, lashing them to your stanchions is a thoroughly bad idea, because a sea breaking into them will not only rob you of your fuel, it will also hand you a fat bill for bent stanchions. Keeping the cans in the cockpit, on the other hand, protects both them and your lifelines, and reduces the volume of the cockpit, enabling it to drain more rapidly if you’re swamped. The downside is having to scramble around them, but when you’re as cool as the sailor in the photo at right, who cares?

Back to the Cleaners 

If you don’t have a wire coat hanger on board, maybe it’s time you got one. Nothing else is so flexible yet so rigid when you need a hook or a prodder. It can clear limber holes, grab something lost in a deep bilge and make a swivel for a burgee stick. There’s no end to its uses. Last week, my daughter lost sea-water circulation in her single-cylinder Yanmar. She and I followed the system through, starting at the seacock: lots of water there. Next, the strainer: no problem. Now the Jabsco pump: water gushing out when disconnected. Bad news, because now came the engine block. No flow out of the entry spigot, so the daughter produced her ritual coat hanger and worked it 6in up the spout. When she withdrew it, an engine-full of water followed. Problem solved, for free. 

Anchor Grabber 

Isn’t it a treat to visit a boat that’s been sorted out over many years? Here’s a sailor who got fed up with his anchor clattering around and was rightly unwilling to crank it up hard on the windlass. He rigged this permanent tackle with dinghy-sized blocks to solve the issue for good. Haul the anchor up, clip the outer block to a shackle secured to the hook’s crown, heave up on the inner block and nip the line in the jammer. Time taken—two seconds. Result—total satisfaction. Cost— not much at all…

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Washboard solution 

Here’s a tidy answer to the ever-present question of securing washboards for heavy weather. The arrangement is from an old Hallberg-Rassy, which has an aft cockpit with a full-height companionway and no bridgedeck. The bottom board is permanently secured at sea with a fitted rod. The upper ones are held in place with clips on Dyneema or Spectra line, each to the one beneath it. The sides of the companionway carry rings to keep the lines on when not in use. The lines are measured for a snug fit. They hold the boards should the worst happen, but carry enough slack to detach the clip conveniently.

Read the Moon

It doesn’t take long to learn how the moon’s phases affect the tide in your area. If you are casually planning a weekend passage while you drive home from work and you have an area of current to deal with, you might well want to know which way the stream will be running after breakfast on Saturday. First, remember what the moon was last night. A day or two after full moon equals spring tides, ditto the half-moon means neaps. All you need do is learn approximately when the stream turns for these main tides and you’ll be able to interpolate the others approximately in your head. If the neap ebb starts at local HW -4 hours and the spring ebb at HW +2, a three-quarter waxing moon will pump that ebb away at HW -1, and so on. Fishermen used such observations from the time of Noah until the last 50 years or so. Learn your basic local rules. They’ll never let you down, not even when the almanac blows over the side.

Soften ‘em up

It’s funny how the traditional method of tackling a job often ignores technology that can make it so much easier. Here’s an example: all my life, I’ve struggled with cramming new piping onto sea cocks, head discharges and engine inlets. If it’s a tight fit, as it should be, the time-honored system for softening the pipe was to immerse it in a pan of boiling water. You left it there for a few minutes until it went floppy, then you whipped it out and galloped over to the action to wrestle it on before it cooled. My wife was watching me do this when she asked, “Why don’t you heat it with my hair dryer instead?” Her onboard unit was handy, so I gave it a go. Magic. A perfect result with no drama, achieved by listening to someone who’d never done the job and was free to think outside the box. 

Come into line 

A glance at the left-hand section of the Raymarine split-screen display below indicates that the radar image is a few degrees adrift from reality. Many modern radars allow the scanner to be realigned electronically. On this particular instrument, the function lurks secretively at the bottom of a sub-menu. Given that the autopilot compass has been “swung” and nobody has stowed an anchor against it, the manuals usually advise steering at a visible target dead ahead, then adjusting the scanner angle until the echo is on the ship’s heading line. If you can’t arrange this, you can always watch the overlay as you crank the “scanner” around. When the shoreline and any AIS icons all line up with the radar image, you’re unlikely to be far wrong. To be certain, the dead-ahead, eyeballed target remains the bullet-proof answer.

Have a heart 

Pulling up the outboard every time it’s not in use to keep the prop clear of fouling is a knee-jerk reaction for many of us. In an ideal world, we’d all do it every time. However, nothing is as effective at ruining a smart yacht’s topsides as an outboard propeller, and when it comes to other dinghies, a sharp prop can munch its way through an inflatable in an afternoon. Heave the prop out of the water at a dinghy dock with a varnished wooden tender alongside and the owner will likely disembowel you if he gets back from the pub in time to catch you. So take a look around, and think before you lift.

Alongside in a Blow 

It’s blowing dogs off chains, but I’m safe enough out at sea. The trouble starts when I arrive in harbor and find I have to come alongside a dock with 40 knots blowing off it. Trying to get a pair of lines ashore safely with only two people on board can be almost impossible in that much wind, even with a bow thruster. But help is at hand, especially if you have a sugar-scoop stern. All boats like to lie stern-to a strong wind, so back in carefully square to the dock so your shipmate can hop off easily with a short stern line. Make this fast and you’ve only to run a long line ashore from the bow, secure it, then lead your end to the windlass if that is powered, or aft to a primary sheet winch if not. It’s now easy, safe and stress-free just to winch her in alongside.

Keep chemicals out of your life 

There are a number of elements we don’t want creeping around in our bilges, but two stand out as horrors. One is propane, with its tendency to shorten crew lives violently when allowed off the leash. (That’s why we keep the LPG in a dedicated, air-tight, self-draining locker.) Apart from gasoline, the other is solvents. I can live with a minor spill of traditional varnish in my paint locker. In fact, I quite like the smell, and it doesn’t last long anyway. Modern high-tech products, however, are a different story. Some of today’s thinners will take the skin off your hands before settling in to eat the membranes of your lungs. So why not stow all the nasty stuff in the LPG locker? The compartment is generally so effective that if a can of thinners rusts out, the first we know about it is when we open the lid and find it empty.  

Time and varnish 

The best hour to lay on a coat of varnish in any but the hottest, driest weather is usually toward lunchtime. That way you can mop off the morning dew after breakfast, rub down at your leisure and enjoy your 1300 cocktail with a clear conscience, leaving the varnish all afternoon to go off. Be warned, though, that if you get greedy and try one last coat at 1700, the evening damp can set you back behind square one. These days, I make a point of dumping last year’s varnish and starting the season with a fresh can. That old half-cans thicken up and skin-over in winter so that the stuff never flows quite the same. The cost of varnish compared with the price of our time is next to nothing, even if we use the best, so don’t be mean. Shell out and have a nice day!

Freshen up the electrics 

I’ll bet your electrical panel doesn’t open to reveal a thing of beauty like this. None of mine ever have. All the same, as we add more and more electrical gismos to our boats, most of us are guilty of just finding a spare terminal, shoving the power line on and hoping for the best. Time taken once a year to tidy up the snake’s nest behind the panel will pay off when a vital light starts flickering in mid-channel, or the radar goes down with what looks like the USS Missouri on a steady bearing in the fog. Tom Cunliffe

Train your eyes 

AIS makes collision avoidance with ships a lot easier than it used to be, but not all of us have receivers on board. Besides, in U.S. waters only commercial vessels over 65ft are obliged to broadcast AIS data, so it can’t be assumed that every commercial vessel is transmitting. Bridge officers on small or medium-sized ships generally only take an interest when a steady-bearing yacht comes within two miles, at which point it’s high time for us to initiate avoiding action. Here are a couple of handy ways to train our eyes to judge the range of a ship. 1) Radar gives an instant range to go up on deck and check by eyeball. 2) It’s also a good practice to start looking critically at vessels alongside distant wharves where you know how far off they are. Doing one or both of these as a matter of habit can help a lot when you meet a ship in deep water.

Thanks a bunch 

This calm, seamanlike scene is exemplary. No frantic rope-throwing or shouting. As the boat’s crew passes his line to the gent on the dock, he says quietly and clearly, “Would you lead it around that cleat, then let me have it back please.” Perfect. The guy handing the rope across isn’t assuming his shoreside helper can read his mind because he can’t. This crewman knows that if he gives someone a line and doesn’t say anything, the other guy will probably pull it. In a case like this, with everything under sweet control, that’ll be the last thing the skipper wants. Some helpers go so far to show how smart they are that they snub the bow in and ruin a nice maneuver. It doesn’t matter what the plan is. The important thing is to communicate it to whoever has volunteered to assist. 

Non-Flemish Eye 

This isn’t a photo of a classic sailmaker’s Flemish Eye, but it’s what you need when you have to “mouse” a halyard through the mast and find it has no professional eye on the end. Don’t mess about with rolling hitches and tape. Get out the palm and needle. No special skills needed. Load the needle with whipping twine and shove it three or four times through the rope half an inch from a burned end to make loops. For total security, finish off by whipping it around, then bury the end deeply into the rope and cut it off at the exit point. It’s five minutes’ work, that’s all. Losing the halyard inside the mast through a botched connection can leave you with hours of tears.

A Helping Hand 

This is a real-world solution that accepts less than perfection, but anyone whose seacocks are far from new may care to read on. The seacock ball valves on my Mason 44 are top quality and not showing signs of serious deterioration. Unfortunately, some are awkward to reach; I don’t work them every day as I should, so they end up stiff towards the end of the season. This year I was rooting through an old toolbox in my workshop when I came across some redundant box wrenches. One looked like a perfect fit for those nasty, sharp seacock handles. I took it down to the boat, offered it up to my worst example and gave it a careful heave. The valve moved as smoothly as my electric outboard. The tubular wrench offers a little additional leverage—not so much as to risk damage—but above all it is kind to suffering hands in awkward places.

Wide berth for the diver 

It’s easy to fail to notice a dive boat and to find yourself far too close. Divers are highly vulnerable anywhere near the surface, and they often seem to hang around quite close to the direct route between two headlands. The “A” flag (blue and white swallow-tail) means “diver down.” It may be inconspicuous, or we may not have been sufficiently switched on to watch out for it. In any case, if we end up giving the swimmers a scare, we richly deserve the earful of choice invective from an outraged dive-boat cox’n. Watch out!

Lull in the storm

Most West Coast sailors know what to expect when a cold front comes thundering through, heralding the end of that miserable, gale-sodden warm sector of a depression. The wind will veer—often to the northwest—the sky clears, and huge thunderhead clouds follow through, slowly thinning out as the action bowls away to leeward. Occasionally, the wind drops completely as the isobars bend behind a cold front, only to kick in again with a vengeance after an hour or three. If things seem suspiciously quiet when the glass first flicks up and the sun comes out, don’t count your chickens. More wind could be brewing up around the corner. —Tom Cunliffe

Hey, Ernie! 

It’s taken me a lifetime of skippering to work out this simple device for better communication. Don’t just give an order to a bunch of folks at the other end of the boat. If you do, you might get lucky, but it’s just as likely they’ll all jump to it, and it’ll be a case of, “after you, buddy,” while the yacht piles into the woodwork. The best plan is to choose the most suitable person for the job and announce the name before you give the order. “Ernie, fend off. Bert, throw that guy a spring line!” removes any chance of confusion. You don’t have to shout either; just quietly make yourself clear.

Out of its Depth 

Thank goodness today’s depth sounders can be set to read something other than “depth below the transducer.” I’m always tickled at how charter operators seem to calibrate theirs to “depth below keel, plus a little bit for safety.” These are sensible grownups, and I’m sure their reasons are based on bitter experience, but it makes me feel distinctly patronized. If you think about it, a depth sounder is not a last-ditch guardian against going aground, although it can be used as that; it’s a navigational instrument. Every time I fix my position, the automatic follow-up is to check the depth to see if the charted plot and the sounded reality stack up. Where tide is relevant, I have or should have, a reasonable idea of height in my head. With the sounder set to “depth of water,” the check is instant. In fog, if all else fails and I’m left with only compass and sounder, it’s “depth” I want to compare with the chart, not how much may or may not be under my keel. With the readout set to “below keel,” there’s always an additional factor to add. That wretched “bit extra for safety” merely increases uncertainty, so it isn’t safe at all. And as for knowing when I’m going to run aground, if my boat draws 6ft, she’ll stop when that’s what the sounder says. 

Shut ‘em up

Have you ever wondered how folks working supermarket checkouts, whose every move generates an electronic bleep, survive with their sanity? Things are almost as bad on many yachts these days, as the navigator punches stuff into the GPS or the plotter. Each keystroke is acknowledged with that wretched squeak that will rudely awaken the watch below on a quiet night. Why not give the hands a chance of a decent snooze and turn the bleeps off? There’s usually a feature hidden deep in some menu or other. This Raymarine plotter hides its mute function on the “Display Setup” page, which is accessed via the main menu. Unfortunately, you can’t disable the alarms for arriving at a waypoint and “Lost Marpa target,” so the only way to silence these beeps.

Fog Before 7, Clear by 11

The spectacular mist pouring over these cliffs has nothing to do with the sea fog that blows into the Golden Gate or the smoky sou’wester that plagues New England. It’s a land fog washing down off the fields, blown offshore by the last of the land breeze following a clear, quiet, autumn night. As it meets the warmer sea it will dissipate. Even along the shoreline it should burn off as the sun stirs the air, to be long gone by noon. This effect can happen anywhere, but it is prevalent late in the season where rivers widen out into harbors. The fog bank crawls down the valley and spreads out across the inshore waters shortly before sunrise. Being ready for these effects and knowing what to expect is half the battle, but one thing’s sure–unless it’s sea fog, it’ll be gone before lunch.

Lighten Your Burden

Most ropes on a moderate-sized yacht can be coiled in the hand, but long shore lines can be marginal or just plain impossible, especially if you aren’t rigged with a set of fingers like a pound of bananas. Coiling on deck has been the seaman’s solution for centuries. Just make a turn with one end of the rope and follow it round and round–clockwise, of course–until you reach the other extremity. To finish the job, don’t try to gather it all up. Use an end to make a clove hitch around one part of the coil. I learned this from Captain Avellar of the schooner Hindu on Cape Cod in 1967. It has never let me down, and even my little grandson’s hands can use it to tame a serious hawser.

Swig Those Halyards 

Halyards led aft sound like a great idea; they can be adjusted from the cockpit at sea so nobody needs to go forward. The trouble is, manufacturers don’t always fit the finest turning blocks, salt gets in, and before you know it friction has triumphed so that a modest mainsail on a 32-footer has to be winched up for much of its height. A useful answer is to send an active adventurer forward and have him or her heave up the halyard where it exits the mast while the cockpit crew whips in the slack around the winch provided. The technique is to grab the bight (middle) of the length of halyard available, lean back on it, and then bear down with your weight. This generates several feet of slack for the winches to grab by hand with one turn around the barrel. It’s easier, it’s faster, and with practice, they’ll only have to wind up the last foot or two. Watch a race boat. They all do it. It makes sense for cruisers too.
—Tom Cunliffe

Knot Log Drain

If you’re like many boat owners, you’ll only learn that the hoses connecting your cockpit drains to the transom through-hulls have failed when you see your floorboards afloat. The hoses most often fail over the winter when the freezing cold helps crack them open, and it always seems to happen during particularly windy winters when your cover rips or shifts out of position so as to allow rain and snow into the cockpit. You may also have a keel-stepped mast that likes to funnel water into your bilge during winter rainstorms, regardless of how secure your cover is.

My O’Day 31 has twice been flooded like this over the winter, and both times removing the freezing cold water from the bilge was a nightmare. After the second time, it dawned on me that an easy solution would be to just leave the impeller assembly for my knot log out of its hole for the winter. This way any water that accumulates in the bilge can drain right out. I ran the idea by my yard crew, and they said they recommend the practice. I also decided to put a plastic pot-scrubber ball into the hole to keep critters out. So far the system seems foolproof—although I still make sure to check my cover periodically. –Bill Bleyer

Plugged Up

We were maybe a quarter-mile from the mooring, motoring slowly home on a still summer evening when the piercing bleat of the engine cooling-water alarm made us all jump. I looked over the side: sure enough, the flow of water out of the exhaust had ceased. Once back on the mooring, it didn’t take long to pin down the culprit—a plug of weed in the seawater intake for our freshwater-cooled Yanmar 2GM diesel engine.

For some reason known only to Yanmar, the cooling water inlet tailpipe on the saildrive leg takes a 3/4in ID hose, while the inlet to the raw-water pump takes a 5/8in ID hose. The weed had caught in the adapter I used to connect the two different hoses. It was another lesson for me. For some years now I’ve been meaning to install a seawater strainer, but never got around to it. If I’d had one, the problem would have been instantly visible and quickly resolved. A strainer is now near the top of my punch list.

But here’s one thing I had done right: I’d installed a Globe Run-Dry impeller, which reportedly can run dry for up to 15 minutes without self-destructing and bunging up your engine’s heat exchanger. Since we were only five minutes from the mooring when the alarm went off, it gave us plenty of latitude. – Peter Nielsen

Reading Room

Storing items on a sailboat involves a lot more than simply finding a place to put something. You must also figure out how to keep it there in all conditions.

For example, behind the settee on our 34-foot Lee Creekmore sloop there is a seven-foot-long shelf that quickly filled up with books after my husband Dave and I moved aboard the boat with all our stuff to go cruising full time. 

Before we put in the books we lined the bottom of the shelf with Dri-Deck, in case our chainplates decided to leak during a rough passage. Because the original fiddle was only two inches high, we also borrowed an idea from the French sailor and winemaker Ferenc Máté to keep the books in place whenever we head out of a harbor.

First, we installed a bronze sail track on the horizontal ceilings that run behind the books about halfway up the bookshelf. Then we put two sail slides on the track and attached a length of 9/64 in resin-impregnated line—more commonly used for pull–starting small engines—to each one. As we were doing so we made sure the two lines were long enough to run from the slide in the middle of the bookshelf out and around the center book and then along the front of the books to a padeye on the bulkhead on either end of the shelf and a small cleat. The slides make the shelf infinitely adjustable, and the cords and cleats hold the books tightly in place. Even so, we check everything regularly because if the books are not well secured there’s a chance they might tumble onto someone asleep on the settee below. Even though we occasionally do get tossed about a little when beating to windward, our books always stay put.– Connie McBride

BROACH YE NOT

I once had a moment of terror aboard a light daysailer on a squally afternoon. Just as we passed close to leeward of a channel marker, a particularly vicious gust caught us and we rounded up before we could free the mainsheet. We missed the marker—and a cold bath—by inches. Since then I’ve lived by the words of the sailing instructor to whom I related the tale: “If it’s blowing and you have to choose which side to pass an obstacle, always keep it on the same side as the boom. That way, you’ll broach away from it instead of into it.” – Peter Nielsen

Cure Oven Hot Spots

Galley ovens often have hot spots. The short distance from the flame to the pan, a small heat shield, and the smaller volume of air inside the oven all contribute to food burning on the center bottom before its outer edges are cooked through.

A baking stone (also called a pizza stone) does wonders to even out the heat. It should be sized so there is an inch of space on all sides for air flow (a tile shop can cut a stone down if necessary). Also, stones that are at least half an inch thick are much less likely to crack when heated.

Place the stone on the oven rack.

I use all-metal binder clips on the rack to keep it from sliding around and I leave it permanently installed in the oven. As the oven preheats, the stone warms up evenly and holds heat so that air in the oven quickly warms back up after you open the oven door. Place your pan on top of the hot stone and bake as usual. Never put a cold pan on a hot stone and never let liquid spill on a hot stone—both will cause it to crack.
– Carolyn Shearlock

Becue Your Anchor

A trick I learned while sailing with Don Street aboard Iolaire in the Fastnet Race. We were becalmed off the south coast of England, confronting a soon to be extremely contrary tide, and were preparing to anchor to hold position if necessary. Because we’d be anchoring in very deep water in uncertain holding ground, Don absolutely insisted we “becue the anchor.”

None of the crew had any idea what he was talking about. Needless to say, he was more than happy to demonstrate.

The concept is quite simple. Instead of shackling your rode to the stock of your anchor, shackle it instead to the head of the anchor. Then lash the rode to the end of the stock with some light line. Set the anchor as you normally would. If the anchor gets fouled and won’t break out when you try to hoist it, you then yank on the rode hard enough to break the line on the stock. You’ll likely need to come up short on the and use your engine to do this. But once the line is broken, the rode will be pulling directly on the head of the anchor, and the anchor should come clear easily.

From time to time you’ll see fancy new gadgets on the market that promise to help you retrieve hopelessly fouled anchors. They are normally just variations on this age-old theme. One way or another they shift the rode’s attachment point from the end of the stock to the head of the anchor. You really don’t need a gadget to do this. Some twine or even a plastic wire-tie should do the trick. —Charles J. Doane

Stop the Drain

If your refrigerator has a drain to the bilge, make sure this drain has a stopper or a trap in it. Otherwise, since hot air rises and cold air sinks, all that lovely cold air from your fridge will go straight into the bilge instead of chilling your food. The drain in the bottom of our cold box turned out to be our single biggest problem. Five minutes of work and a wine cork trimmed to size cut the time that our refrigerator ran by about 20 percent. Just make sure you can remove the stopper when you defrost and want to drain meltwater.

Water and the Prodigal Crew

Pressure water is always nice on a boat, but when a landlubbing crew comes aboard it only encourages them to waste a precious commodity. They will merrily clean their dentures under a running tap until, about three days out, they shamble aft to announce the water system seems
to have busted. The solution here is not to rave and curse or deliver lectures they will hate and ignore, but to take direct action. Don’t get mad, get even. Good planning and a touch of sabotage is all that is required.

First arrange to run out of water while anchored well offshore on a rainy day. You have also already scuppered the outboard, if you have one. Now invite the crew to row the dinghy to the beach, taking some jerry jugs for fresh water along with them. These should be of at least 5 gallons capacity each. The tap is at the top of a steep cliff.

After they’ve gone floundering off into the murk, you can pour yourself a beer and open a good book. Who needs water anyway? –Tom Cunliffe

Mizzen Boom Motor Hoist

When we purchased our boat Indigo, a Celestial 48 with high freeboard, we worried our backs would suffer passing our 5hp outboard motor from the deck to our dinghy and back. Luckily, Indigo is a ketch with a mizzen boom that reaches out to the corners of the aft deck. We figured we could use this as a crane to help move the motor much more easily. 

We used a short length of high-modulus Amsteel rope to create a lifting strap that we could loop through the fitting on the end of the boom. We then put a snap shackle on this strap and made up a 3:1 tackle with a fiddle block and cam cleat on one end and a becket block with another snap shackle on the other.

We connected the tackle to a harness that is permanently installed on the outboard. I can now lift the outboard off its rail mount and lower it to the dinghy with one hand. Better yet, we now also use our boom hoist to lift a variety of other heavy gear, including scuba tanks, jerry cans and sacks of provisions. The mizzen topping lift allows us to adjust the height of the boom, so if we need gear coming aboard to clear the lifelines, we just lift the boom higher and deposit the goods on the deck. 

This solution should work for most ketches and yawls and even some sloops, depending on the length of the main boom and the placement of the outboard mount. Thanks to our mizzen boom we’ve avoided installing a dedicated engine hoist and can now manage a heavier outboard if we like. –Zuzana Prochazka

Listen to your alternator

Broken alternator belts used to be a common problem aboard our boat Winterlude. We learned the leading cause of this is rust on pulleys. Now we scour our alternator pulleys every month with a wire brush, then sand them smooth with fine-grit sandpaper. Correct pulley alignment and belt tension are also very important. In our case, when we replaced our alternator with a higher output alternator, the new bracket we installed to mount it probably contributed to the pulleys not lining up exactly. Now if we start the engine and the belt squeals, we stop everything and check the belt alignment and tension. A squealing belt is usually too loose. To check tension, push down on the belt with one finger; you shouldn’t be able to shift it more than half an inch. Our new maintenance regimen and a pulley alignment has solved our problem, and now we always listen when our alternator speaks to us.

No-foul jib sheet

The bowlines used to attach sheets to the clew of a headsail have an annoying habit of catching on inner forestays, babystays, and shrouds. Here’s a why-didn’t-I-think-of-this-before idea: if you’re replacing your headsail sheets, don’t cut them in half. Double the sheet over and thread the looped end through the clew. Pass the tails through the loop and draw tight. Then say goodbye to those hang-ups.

Fouled prop

If a rope is sucked into your propeller running ahead or astern, there is sometimes a chance of freeing it without a dive. First, activate the fuel cut-off by pulling the stop cable. If you have an electric cut-off activated by the start switch, you may have to attend to its wiring manually. Once you are confident the engine will not fire, engage the opposite gear to the one the engine stopped on, grab a bight of the rope, take the strain, and crank the starter motor. The engine may well turn the propeller. So long as you keep pulling, and keep the rope winding on cleanly without hitching itself, you might get lucky—and the rope will unreel as easily as it went on.

Protecting Wires on Deck

Sheathing exterior wiring in old rope covers looks quite tidy and helps protect the wires[/caption]

We have an extra solar panel we keep unmounted on deck so we can move it where the sun is brightest. This leaves us with two loose wires running across the deck that are easy to trip over. My husband, Dave, found this unacceptable and decided to sheath the wires with an old piece of doublebraid rope.

Dave first cut the rope to the length of the wires and then removed the rope core. After disconnecting the wires from the panel, he pushed them through the line cover and reconnected the panel. At each end, he doubled-back the cover and secured it with light line. The single nylon line is less of a tripping hazard, and the rope cover protects the wires from sun damage. This little trick should also work well to protect wiring for panels and other equipment that is permanently mounted.—Connie McBride

Halyard Retrieval

Losing a halyard up the mast is always a big pain in the rear, but if the mast in question has a spare halyard on it, there’s a good chance you can bring the lost halyard back to the deck without leaving the deck yourself. Take a spare line, preferably an older one that is slightly stiff from a little too much exposure to salt and sun, and make a noose with a slip knot at the end of it. Then take your spare halyard’s snapshackle and clasp the shackle around the standing part of your retrieval line just below the noose you made (the slip knot must be big enough that it does not slide through the snapshackle). The noose should be opened as wide as possible without going limp.

Next, use the spare halyard to hoist the noose aloft into close proximity with the end of the lost halyard. By twitching your end of the spare halyard and the retrieval line with a bit of creative body English, you should eventually be able to get the noose around the end of the lost halyard. Then all you need do is yank on the retrieval line to close the noose. Pull the retrieval line back down to the deck and both the spare halyard and the lost halyard will come down with it. C.D.

Avoiding Tainted Drinking Water

Here are a few tips to keep the water in your tanks tasting sweet.

At least once a year, drain the tanks completely and pour in half a cup of Clorox bleach for every 20 gallons of each tank’s capacity. Then refill the tanks, pump them dry, and refill them with fresh water to which you have added a little lemon juice or Aqua Tabs water-purifying tablets.

Check the condition of the hoses. Most molds grow in the clear-plastic water pipe. It doesn’t take long, either—just a year or so.

If possible, remove the pipes while the tank is empty and run some boiling water through them, squirt some lemon juice down them, and leave them to sit for 30 minutes before repeating the boiling-water treatment. Once the hoses are clean, reinstall them while they’re still warm; it will be easier to deal with barbed connections and bend-around corners. If the hoses are still black, you should replace them; more algae grows in the hoses than in the tanks, so this alone will make your water taste better.

Use water that comes from known good-quality sources. In some parts of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, the water is of dubious quality—almost unfit for drinking. If you regularly cruise in far-flung waters, consider buying a filtering arrangement that treats the water before it comes into your tanks. Also, install charcoal filters between the tanks and the galley sinks. Munster Sims makes a good selection of filters, and the cost is cheap when you consider that they remove taste and odor from drinking water for pennies per day.

Going Backwards is Embarrassing

You’ll notice most experienced sailors choose to back into a slip while the less experienced come in bow-first. This is because backing a boat can be challenging, but boarding a boat whose bow is pointed toward the destination can be preferable. Before attempting to go stern-to with your new sailing buddies watching from the dock, do your ego a favor and get some practice.

Sailing Through Reefs

Negotiating a reef inlet, be it in the Bahamas or the South Pacific, requires precise navigation and skilled seamanship. Detailed charts are essential, and you should always consult any local sailing directions you have onboard in advance. You can also glean local knowledge by asking for help via VHF radio. You’d be surprised how eager others often are to offer advice.

Run a cut only in daylight, ideally with the sun aft. If you’re approaching at night, heave-to and wait for dawn, or even better, plan your passage to arrive just after sunrise. Plot precise compass bearings, confirm any visual reference points and program a series of waypoints into the GPS. The helmsman should have a hand-bearing compass at the ready. Establish a bail-out point that allows you room to safely turn around if anything seems amiss.

In a sailboat, it’s actually easier to sail through a narrow inlet (unless the wind is on the nose), especially with a sea running. Driving the boat at speed with sails flying helps to stop rolling and improves directional stability. Keep the boat below hull speed, but sailing fast enough to answer the helm. Have the engine running, but in neutral. The anchor and rode should be ready to run, and all halyards and sheets ready to let fly.

Station a crewmember at the bow to read the water. Know the charted depths and keep a sharp eye on the depth sounder. White water across an inlet—like the “rage” conditions often seen in the Bahamas when the wind and sea are up from the east—means “no go.” Sit tight and wait.

Once past your point-of-no-return, trust your visual bearings and hold a steady course. Now is not the time for indecision, so be sure to triple-check everything before entering. The reward is tranquil water and a cold beverage once your anchor is down.

Granny Bars

Anyone who has stood working at the mainmast aboard a sailboat underway in heavy weather knows how awkward, even dangerous, it can be, juggling a halyard, reef cringle and lines, and a winch handle while simultaneously hanging on for dear life. Working the starboard side, where the main halyard usually secures, with the boat on a port tack puts you on the “downhill” slope with nothing between you and the briny but thin air. Of course, any sane sailor will clip their safety harness to the mast in such conditions, but you can still be thrown around and possibly injured.

Now, compare that scenario to having a stout, broad railing braced against your back, one you can lean into with complete confidence so that both your hands are free to work. The macho lubbers who nicknamed these rails “chicken bars” or “granny bars” have obviously never been offshore.

I’m talking about mast pulpits, standing stainless steel rails mounted on either side of the mainmast. With the possible exception of those vessels aboard which all halyards and reef lines are led aft to the cockpit, any sailboat that ventures offshore should have these life-savers. While there are some one-size-fits-all rails advertised, mast pulpits must generally be fabricated (or modified) to fit an individual boat’s coachhouse camber. Price, quality, design and dimensions can vary widely. It pays to query several metal fabrication shops and welders. If your boat is a production model, an online owners’ group may be able to direct you to a fabricator who already has the appropriate mast pulpit plans. A boat with a roller-furling genoa halyard permanently secured on the port side of the mast might get by with just one starboard mast pulpit. But then again why scrimp when trouble (not to mention heavy weather) can come from any direction?

Fitting Under Bridges

No matter how much clearance you actually have, any time you approach a bridge in a sailboat it looks from the cockpit like your mast will never make it through. Some bridges have tidal markers that show exactly what the clearance is at any state of the tide, but many don’t. Many boatowners also don’t know exactly how high their masts are. Even if you do, there are variables to consider, such as masthead sensors and antennae, whether the boat is in freshwater or salt (boats in saltwater ride higher) and how heavily loaded it is.

There is one sure way to know whether you can fit or not—just put a pair of eyeballs at the top of the mast. I learned this while crewing for SAIL’s tech guru Nigel Calder on delivery from Maine to Maryland some years ago. We were hoping we could fit his Pacific Seacraft 40, Nada, under the bridge over the Cape May Canal, but weren’t at all sure we had clearance. Nigel knew at once what to do, and in a heartbeat we had his buddy Mike in a bosun’s chair and hauled him up to the masthead to get a better perspective on things.

As you can see in the photograph, it was close, but we did fit through, and Mike got to exchange pleasantries with some baffled pedestrians up on the bridge. It goes without saying, of course, that when doing this you need to approach the bridge carefully so as not to accidentally behead your crew! – CD

Parbuckling Dock Lines

If ever you find yourself with a heavy boat tied to a dock or wall, blowing off so that no amount of heaving will bring her in, you can always use the simple principle of parbuckling on your docklines. Dig out a stout rope of reasonable length. Make one end fast to the dock, somewhere between your two docklines. Now pass it around a bight in your bowline, bringing the working part back to where the bitter end is secured, and haul away. The bowline will take on a V-shape, and your boat will march in toward the dock in defiance of all the natural forces acting upon her. Once she’s alongside, you can either rig another bowline to replace the one you’ve parbuckled, or you can smartly release your parbuckling line and have the crew snatch in the slack on the existing bow line.–Tom Cunliffe

Heavy Going

The yacht on the left is beautifully reefed. Even her half-rolled headsail is setting a treat. The trouble is, she’s carrying all she can, and it isn’t very windy. If your standard suit of sails can’t really stand up to a heavy breeze and you intend serious cruising, there’s no choice but to invest in a trysail like the one on the facing page. Set with a dedicated storm jib, either yacht would then take a lot more wind in her stride. What’s more, because the storm sails see little use, they’ll never blow out.

Look over your shoulder

“Ready about. Lee-ho.” Crunch! Skippers at the helm have a tendency to make sure the crew are ready for a tack, that all the sheets are cleared away and that nothing is going to foul up. Things on board can get so fascinating that it’s easy to forget there’s a world out there that doesn’t know what we’re about to do. In crowded waters on a busy Sunday, or anywhere during race week, make a point of looking over your shoulder one last time. You never know what’s coming up astern

A Decent Lead

How often have we all had to do this? Trying to shift the car on the lee side deck with load on the sheet is a horror movie waiting to be made. And yet a reefable genoa needs to have its sheet lead altered every time a few rolls are taken; otherwise, performance drops off even more than it inevitably does after reefing. Injury is not impossible and, in any case, the whole point of a roller sail is to do away with any requirement to leave the safety of the cockpit. The only possible answer is to rig a setup like this. (Pic slider) It works like magic.

Rusty Centerboard

I’ve always liked the versatility that comes with a centerboard. The ability to vary your boat’s draft from deep to shallow greatly increases the options you have when cruising. The other side of the coin is maintenance.

A centerboard can be made of anything from foam or plywood sheathed in epoxy to solid bronze or cast iron. The former will need fresh antifouling each year. The latter will demand to be stripped down to the bare metal and refinished every three or four years, and once in a great while it will want to be dropped out of the boat so the pivot pin and/or the lifting mechanism can be serviced.

Removing the centerboard on a big cruising boat is no laughing matter. Confronted with a sight like this, I would reach for the trusty angle grinder, bolt on a floppy sanding disk and get that board down to bright shiny metal in next to no time. A couple of coats of epoxy primer followed by your favorite antifouling will get that board looking good again.

Epoxy Resin in a Caulking Gun

I used the larger Flexpoxy dispenser—ideal for bigger projects. The smaller cartridge that fits in a standard caulking gun should suit most needs

Like all owners of older boats who like to do their own work, I’m extremely familiar with epoxy resin. I reckon I’ve used a good few gallons of it, for both major projects and little jobs where only small amounts are needed.

It’s for these latter tasks—sometimes involving no more than filling a few screw holes or bonding together small pieces of wood or fiberglass—that I’ve often cursed the need to get out the two cans of resin and hardener and mixing the required amounts. I’ve usually ended up with more resin than I can use, and that stuff’s too expensive to waste. Also, the epoxy invariably needs to be thickened so that it stays put, fills gaps, doesn’t sag and generally behaves itself the way you want it to.

Which is why I’m a total convert to Pettit’s Flexpoxy and WEST SYSTEM’s Six10 epoxies. These are both two-part epoxies that come in cartridges that fit in caulking guns; you just squeeze out as little or as much as you need, and mix the two parts together with a spatula. Six10 comes with a static mixer tip that dispenses the epoxy premixed, a good idea if you’re going to be using a lot of it at one time.

Both are extremely thixotropic, a ten-dollar word that means they won’t sag. This makes them ideal for overhead and vertical surfaces.

Having used these products extensively, I can recommend both of them. They’re described as “gap filling, structural epoxies.” I used the Flexpoxy when filling and fairing my cockpit prior to painting it, and for underwater fiberglass repairs. Most recently, the Six10 came in handy for filling a couple of dozen 5/16in bolt holes after I removed the beat-up old genoa sheet tracks—I applied masking tape under the deck, reamed out the holes with a slightly bigger drill bit to get rid of old caulking, and squirted the Six10 into them. A job that would have taken ages the oldfashioned way was accomplished in a few minutes.

Both products retain some flexibility when cured, and can be used above and below the waterline on fiberglass, wood, steel, aluminum and just about any other substance you’ll find on a boat. They’ll last for a year or more.

Snub the Load

If you anchor on a chain rode, you should always use some nylon rope as a snubber to absorb shock loads from the chain that would otherwise be carried directly by the boat and its hardware. Be sure to use three-strand nylon rope for maximum stretch. It’s also a good idea to use two separate lines, effectively creating a snubber bridle.

The correct length for a snubber line varies depending on your boat’s windage and the height of the bow off the water. The windier it is, the more line you’ll need. We always like to keep the attachment point for our snubbers about a foot underwater. Depending on how hard it’s blowing, their length ranges from a minimum of 10 feet to about 20 feet.

You can attach your snubber to your chain any way you like. Some use a chain stopper or hook; others just tie a rolling hitch around the chain. To keep a hook from falling off the chain, keep tension on the snubber as you deploy it. Once it’s all the way out, let out more chain so there’s a loose bight of it sagging below the attachment point. The weight of the chain in the bight will keep the snubber’s hook from coming loose in calm conditions. – Jan Irons

Check the Waypoint

“Rubbish in, garbage out,” was one of the first maxims to stick when GPS came onto the scene, and it’s just as true today. Datum shifts aside, the instrument is highly unlikely to be wrong if it’s working at all, but the human element punching in the numbers is prone to error. A bad waypoint is a classic case. The answer is to check each one as you put it in. Note its lat/long on the chart, then bang in the numbers and give it a name. Now, hit the “GoTo” button and read out the course and distance to it. As like as not you’ll be in your slip and know your precise position. Grab the paper chart and lay off the real bearing and range from the marina to the waypoint. So long as the two agree, you’ve got it right. Otherwise, start checking! —Tom Cunliffe

Downwind Mooring Pick-up

Most sailors pick up their moorings head to wind, which means if they misjudge the approach the boat’s bow is blown off to the side in all but the lightest wind. Since single-screw boats do not handle well with no way on, the helmsperson can do little to retrieve the situation and the mate on the bow is often left clinging to the mooring pennant for dear life. Or the pennant is dropped, and you must circle around and try again.

I prefer to take advantage of the fact that most sailboats tend to blow downwind bow first. I approach my mooring going downwind with the engine shifted into reverse, goosing the throttle to slow and stop the boat at the mooring ball with the bow downwind, where it wants to be. This makes it easy to secure the mooring pennant without a big tug of war. Once hooked up, I cut the diesel and the boat swings to the wind. This has worked well on our Morgan 382 and now on our Endeavourcat 30.

If you approach a mooring head to wind (inset), your bow may be blown off at the critical moment. If you come in downwind, the wind will keep your bow in line. Control your approach speed by playing the throttle in reverse. – Vaughn Weaver

Boomed-out Headsails

I will say it until I’m red in the face: displacement cruising yachts, no matter how nimble, always make faster passages sailing in a straight line. Forget the gybing angles that racers use when sailing downwind. Square the sails off and run!

As you are doing so, you might want to try sheeting a large genoa to the main boom with the mainsail down—
a very efficient low-maintenance configuration, especially on yachts with swept-back spreaders. To do so, furl your mainsail and run your boom out as far as the shrouds will allow. Use a preventer—attached to the end of the boom and led forward around a turning block and back to a secondary cockpit winch—to pull it out while easing the mainsheet. Once set, tighten both the preventer and the sheet to hold the boom in place. 

Next, clip a snatch block near the end of the boom (or lash it there with a strop if necessary) and run the headsail sheet to it. It can be tricky to get a fair lead, so experiment with different arrangements to avoid chafe. From the boom end, run the sheet down to a block on the toerail or genoa track and then to a winch.

Unfurl the headsail. Depending on the clew height, use the topping lift and the boom vang to set the height of the boom so the leech doesn’t flutter. In heavy seas, set the boom extra high to avoid dipping it when the yacht rolls. Sheet the headsail reasonably tight so that the sail presents its largest area flat to the wind. A downwind rig set up like this is very forgiving, light on the helm, and fast and easy to reef or douse in unsettled weather. —Andy Schell

Maintenance: Propane Tank Protector

We used to have to scrub our deck to remove the rust bleeding off the base of our steel propane tank. Then my husband, Dave, cut a piece of garden hose long enough to completely enclose the tank’s circular base. He slit the hose lengthwise and fit it over the lip of the tank base. The hose keeps our deck free of rust and protects it from getting dinged by the metal tank. Don’t forget to remove the hose before you exchange the tank or take it ashore to get a refill.

Clearing an Anchor Rode

Here’s a simple trick I’ve used many times to clear a rope anchor rode caught on a keel. First, I get out my 15lb mushroom dinghy anchor and attach it to the snap shackle at the bottom of the big snatch block that I normally use as a sheet lead for my genoa. I then mouse the shackle with a light piece of line so it can’t pop open unexpectedly and attach a 40-foot retrieval line by tying a bowline to the top of the snatch block. 

To clear the rode I pop open the snatch block, attach it to the rode, and then gently lower the block and mushroom anchor into the water until I feel the mushroom anchor bump into the keel. Then I pull the anchor about two feet aft. I loosely coil about 8 feet of retrieval line in my hand and secure the bitter end of the line to a lifeline. Meanwhile, a crew member takes about 15 feet of anchor rode out of the anchor well and loosely coils it on the deck. On my mark the crew takes the rode off the cleat and drops the coiled rode in front of the boat while I simultaneously drop the extra retrieval line in the water. The slack in the two lines allows the weighted rode to slide off the keel; the retrieval line can then be used to pull the snatch block and mushroom anchor up to the bow of the boat.

To do this singlehanded, depending on the conditions, I figure you would have to work the mushroom anchor back to the keel and drop considerably more anchor rode off the bow of the boat to allow more time to release the retrieval line. –David Emsellem

Reversible Weather Cloth

When sailing in rough weather, cresting waves can send buckets of seawater flying into a cockpit. Some people pay big bucks to install full curtains all the way around their bimini tops, but I found a cheaper, more practical way to keep my cushions and crew dry.

My weather cloth, as I call it, is a simple water-repellent fabric barrier that I snap in place along the windward edge of my bimini top and the outboard base of my cockpit coaming. The forward edge snaps to my dodger; aft I lash it to anything convenient. When it’s time to tack, I shift the same cloth to the other side of the cockpit. My weather cloth goes up in a minute, even in a blow. If you like, you can incorporate slits or cutouts to accommodate turning winch handles, sheets and other lines led aft. Adding one or two windows so watchkeepers can check the windward horizon without getting a face full of spray is also a good idea. –Tor Pinney

Compass Mask

Sunlight is not good for your compass. The liquid inside gets cloudy over time, making it hard to read a heading. Most new compasses have covers to shield them from the effects of the sun when a boat is at rest. But there are times even when you’re not sailing that being able to see your “heading” is important.

We always cover our new compass on our Creekmore 34, Eurisko, when at anchor. But in unfamiliar anchorages, we found we were continually taking it off in order to verify the direction we were facing. After removing the cover and then forgetting to put it back on a few times, my husband, Dave, came up with a compromise and cut a small slit in the front of the cover. That way most of the compass is still protected, but a small area is exposed so that we can see our heading. We can now check our relative position at a glance while still protecting our new compass. –Connie McBride

Drain your Rudder

When I bought my first cruising sailboat, I falsely assumed the rudder was watertight. I later learned otherwise when I began seeing rust streaks at the seams. The staff at my boatyard informed me that water can get into the rudder around the rudderstock where it meets the fiberglass. To reduce fiberglass delamination, internal rusting of the rudder’s armature and the possibility of blisters forming, they recommended I drill a small hole near the bottom of the rudder whenever I haul my boat for storage in the fall.

Now every year when I drill a hole in my rudder, I am amazed at the trickle of water that comes running out. I leave the hole open through the winter to allow the rudder to drain completely. In the spring before bottom painting, I patch the hole with a little Marine-Tex. –Bill Bleyer

Wing and Wing

The only chance of sailing this boat goose-winged in the chop that’s running is to use a cruising chute. A genoa doesn’t have a hope unless you rig a full-length pole. With a chute, if you keep right off the wind and—here’s the secret—let go a fair bit of slack on the tack line, the luff can drift off and curve well up to windward, away from the backwind off the mainsail. A genoa will only flap and bang until it drives you nuts. So dig deep if you don’t want the trouble of poling out. Buy a decent cruising chute and you’ll fly on a reach, too. It’s a whole new dimension to sailing and, with a snuffer, it’s a breeze to set and drop it.

Know your way around

The most common cause of engine failure at sea is blocked fuel filters. A bit of a chop on the water stirs up last winter’s sludge in the tank, it gets sucked through the lines and you experience the silence of impending doom. Changing a filter element is simple on many boats. This one’s builder and engine maker have done the owner proud. All he needs is a hefty rag, a good grip or maybe a filter strap spanner (cheap from all automotive shops) and a screwdriver to bleed the air from the system after the new element has been screwed into place. That’s the trick. Do you know how to bleed your engine through? If not, the time to find out is not when you are blowing down onto a lee shore. Follow the fuel lines from the tank and find the bleed points before you have to. —Tom Cunliffe

PROPANE HANGERS

Storing propane tanks on a small boat without a dedicated propane locker can be a challenge. You want to keep them out of the way, but in a location where any leaking gas will flow overboard rather than belowdecks. On Eurisko, our Creekmore 34, we solved this problem by hanging our four 6-pound propane tanks from our stern pulpit rail. We took lengths of straight aluminum stock, bent the top end to conform to the shape of the rail, and then bent the lower end at a sharper angle to clip under the lip of the tanks. We hang the tanks from the rail and secure them with lanyards, tying a constrictor knot around the rail. This keeps the tanks out of our way, securely inside the rail and out in the open where leaking fuel can’t get trapped. – Connie McBride

Deck Sure

Hatches, like windows, are designed to allow light and air to enter the interior space. But there’s a price to pay if someone accidentally steps on top of a wet hatch. A slippery hatch can suddenly turn an orderly footstep into a chaotic crash on the deck. Or worse. The best solution—applying bands of anti-skid tape on the hatch—isn’t very pretty and lets in less light below. But it is much better than having nothing at all.

And there is always room for one more great idea, which is why C. Sherman Johnson’s new billet 316 stainless Jackline fairlead can take a bow. When a cruising sailor asked the company to consider fabricating a fairlead unit that would keep jacklines five or six feet above the deck—allowing a shorter tether on a safety harness and minimizing potential fall distance—they asked well-known rigger, Brion Toss, for his thoughts. Toss said that to date, his own solution had been simply to lash D rings to shrouds. Johnson’s solid stainless unit is CNC machined and its 1/2 in diameter lead is perfect for a 3/8 in diameter low–stretch jackline. Cap screws hold the unit to a shroud, and shims ensure that it can’t move and won’t overclamp or damage wire, rod or Dyform rigging from 5/16 into 1/2 in. Nice idea (csjohnson.com). – Charles Mason

Wind shadows

Sailing is always more fun when you can look ahead or astern and see puffs of wind coming across the water toward you. Learning how to react in these conditions isn’t hard, particularly when puffs arrive—as they often do—in a repetitive pattern. Being able to spot puffs is the first step. When wavelets on the water’s surface are roiled by increased wind, they change shape and this, in turn, changes the reflected light patterns on the surface. A puff is easy to spot, because the surface of the water in the area of the puff is darker than the water around it.

If you are sailing to windward and a puff is coming directly downwind toward you, the wind direction inside the puff will be different from the ambient wind. In almost all cases the wind will shift ahead of you, and you will either have to fall off or tack. If you do decide to tack, there’s nothing wrong with doing so before the puff arrives. If you are sailing downwind and a puff is overtaking you from astern, the best thing to do is trim the sails properly, steer so your course is aligned with the direction of the puff, and hold on! – Charles Mason

Flopper Stopper

I’ve spent months anchored in places where wakes and wave conditions can make life a misery for the unprepared. But this simple stopper device that you can build in less than an hour from scrap materials will stop your boat from rolling and make the experience a pleasant one no matter what the conditions are. Here’s what you need.

•Two 18in x 12in pieces of plywood with a thickness of 3/8 or 1/2 in. Aluminum plate is better but more expensive.

• 20ft of 5/16 or 3/8 in non-stretch line

•A weight (heavy belt or mushroom anchor) to hang below the flopper stopper to hold it down.

•A drill and 7/16 or 1/2 in bit.

•Some seizing twine or light cord.

Drill bridle holes in each piece of plywood that are big enough to receive the line you will use. Place the holes about two inches above the centerline of the plywood. Drill three more holes in the bottom of each piece of plywood about 1 1/2 in from the bottom. Put a hole at each end and put the third in the center of the piece. The two outer holes are used for the hinges. Next, loosely tie the two bottom edges together so they form a hinge. Make sure they will hinge open and shut smoothly. Make the bridles by cutting two pieces of line 6ft long. Mark the center of each and then run the two ends of the line through the bridle holes; pass the line through the holes from the outside to the inside of the plywood and put a strong knot in the ends. Make a small eye in the middle of each bridle line and tape it. Whip the two eyes together and your bridle is ready.

To deploy the stopper, hang the weight from the holes in the center of the stopper’s bottom edge and then tie an 8- to 10-foot piece of line from the end of your boom to the bridle eye. Use a preventer to wing out the boom perpendicular to the boat as you ease the mainsheet. Be sure your topping lift is strong enough to absorb the energy of the flopper-stopper: attach the main halyard to the end of your boom to back up the topping lift if necessary.

When the boat rolls up, the device will hinge open and check the boat’s roll. When the boat sinks down the hinges will close. The next upswing will open it again. You’ll be amazed at how easy to use and how effective this device is. – Andy Deering

Log time

I have found it is very useful to carefully record all inspections, repairs and gear upgrades or replacements in a maintenance log. My log has so much information that I can look in it and see when the useful life of my batteries might be coming to an end. Reviewing log entries on a regular basis has minimized, and sometimes even eliminated, unnecessary effort and expense.

When setting up your maintenance log, be sure to include categories for all the gear on your boat. And when you write up an entry, always include the important “what-if I need replacements; who are the contacts,” in your narrative.

I have also established a routine maintenance log inside my general maintenance log which I use to track when it is time to maintain or inspect a particular piece of gear. If you believe nothing can happen to your equipment, then you probably won’t need a log. However, the truth is that all gear needs some maintenance, and performing work before a piece of gear fails, breaks or wears out is the best way to keep things working properly.

Always use the detailed maintenance schedules in the owner’s manuals for your onboard equipment. Put these schedules in your routine maintenance log (see right). This section includes generators, watermakers, A/C units and everything else that requires some sort of regular maintenance schedule.

I spend more time inspecting gear and equipment on my boat and recording what I’ve discovered in my log than I do actually replacing or repairing things. That’s fine with me because I know that if I stay ahead of potential problems, I’ll have more time to go sailing. – Bob Tigar

Hemming Canvas

For my winter canvas work projects, a 11/2 in hem gives me a perfect base for installing grommets, snaps or turn-button fasteners. A proper hem not only reinforces the edge of the item, it also makes it look nice.But getting a 11/2 in hem requires that you make a 2in hem allowance because the raw inner edge is turned under 1/2 in.

Before making any hem, you need to crease the canvas at the fold and then feed the material into the sewing machine. The traditional way to crease a hem is to either drag the fold perpendicular to the edge of a table or use the back of a pair of scissors to crease the fabric at the desired fold location. I like to use a stiff putty knife because a relatively light amount of finger pressure can create a lot of pressure at the end of the blade. This allows me to press a crease into the canvas with a modest amount of effort.

There’s also the added benefit of a putty knife’s width. If you use a putty knife with a 2in-wide blade, you have a measuring and pressing tool all in one. All you have to do is make the width of the fold the same as the width of the blade, and then press in the crease with the blade edge.

Use the putty knife to work the crease in 10- to 12-inch sections. If you continue until you’ve creased the entire hem, you should get a straight and uniform hem every time.

You can crease the turned-under 1/2 in of canvas either before or after you crease the main hem. To do so, simply make the turnover section width a quarter of the blade width. If you aren’t sure of your ability to estimate, you can make a 1/2 in mark on the putty knife blade. If you really want to do it right, engraving the blade at the 1/2 , 1, and 11/2 in marks will give you a first-rate canvas tool. – Don Case

Slip-sliding away

In theory, plastic sail slides should always whizz up and down the mast track like the proverbial rat in a drainpipe. But after a winter layup, things may get sticky. The answer is definitely not a squirt of oil from an aerosol can, because that’s usually messy. And it doesn’t last long.

Instead, think first about heading for the hardware or furniture store. Until recently, the best product was a “dry” silicone spray lubricant designed to make curtains slip sweetly on their rails. Now there are specially designed marine products that can do the same job, and perhaps even a bit better.

Applying either sort of product to the slides will make them slippery again and allow you to smoothly raise and lower your mainsail. Prices will vary, and of course, the choice is yours to make. Whatever product you decide to use, be sure you do something—before you find yourself caught in a bind. – Tom Cunliffe

Tennis Ball Grommets

When covering my boat for the winter, I like to use heavy gray-green poly tarps, as they are inexpensive and last several years if they are protected against chafe and are properly secured. I’ve learned that just tying down the cover won’t keep it from catching wind, so I also fill jugs with water and tie them to the edges of the cover. That way when a gust lifts the cover, the weight of the jugs immediately pulls it back into place.

There is just one problem with this setup: the weight of the jugs tends to tear out the tarp grommets over the course of the winter. I tried putting in stronger grommets, but they didn’t last much longer than the originals. Plastic tarp clips don’t work very well either. Not only are they hard to install on the heavier tarps I prefer, but the plastic fractures during the winter.

The ultimate solution was to get some old tennis balls, which I rolled into the edge of the cover and tied in place as shown in the photograph. The balls spread the loads created by the harsh winter wind without ripping the tarp and do no harm to the gelcoat on my topsides. A similar arrangement should also work well if you want to use a poly tarp as a low-budget awning when out cruising. – Bill Bleyer

Servicing Dinghy Valves

A well-built Hypalon inflatable dinghy can last well over 10 years if properly cared for. In many cases, the first thing to fail isn’t the fabric but the fiddly little spring-loaded valves used to keep the boat inflated. Typically, the small diaphragm inside the valve deforms and won’t seat properly, or the valve stem separates from the diaphragm and shoots off into the stratosphere.
This happened to my faithful Avon dinghy recently, and I was relieved to find a valve rebuild kit (Avon Part #V00001) that soon had the dink holding air again.

With a large crescent wrench or a big pair of channel-lock pliers, it is easy to remove the outer valve body from the inner part and then insert the new valve stem. The tricky part is when you push the inner part of the valve into the inflatable compartment and then turn it around so you can screw the little diaphragm on to the bottom end of the valve stem. It’s not very hard to accidentally unlock the stem while trying to do this, in which case it will shoot off into the interior of the compartment, where it can be difficult or even impossible to retrieve.

The best way to prevent this is to stuff the valve with a bit of paper towel and then cover it with masking tape so the valve stem can’t spring free. With the stem thus restrained, screwing on the diaphragm and reseating the inner part of the valve becomes a good deal easier, and you’ll soon have your dink floating again. – Charles J. Doane

COOLING COIL

When we replaced our 15-year-old refrigerator compressor, I noticed a great deal of corrosion caused by an occasional leak from the unit’s seawater cooling plumbing. To eliminate this problem on the new unit I was installing, I fashioned an 8-inch diameter coil from a 10-foot-long piece of copper tubing and installed it into our freshwater tank. I drilled two holes in the inspection plate for the ends of the coil to pass through and connect to the 5/8-inch hose that runs to the refrigerator’s compressor. I then filled the coil with water and hooked it up to the reefer’s circulating pump, and the freshwater tank became the perfect heat sink. There was no more saltwater corrosion, and I was able to eliminate a through-hull. (The cost does not include the circulation pump, which was already installed).

Wind shadows

Sailing is always more fun when you can look ahead or astern and see puffs of wind coming across the water toward you. Learning how to react in these conditions isn’t hard, particularly when the puffs arrive, as they often do, in a repetitive pattern. Being able to spot puffs is the first step. When wavelets on the water’s surface are roiled by increased wind, they change shape which, in turn, changes the reflected light patterns on the surface. A puff is easy to spot because the surface of the water in the area of the puff is darker than the water around it.

If you are sailing to windward and a puff is coming directly downwind toward you, the wind direction inside the puff will be different from the ambient wind. In almost all cases the wind will shift ahead of you, and you will either have to fall off or tack. If you do decide to tack, there’s nothing wrong with doing so before the puff arrives. If you are sailing downwind and a puff is overtaking you from astern, the best thing to do is trim the sails properly, steer so your course is aligned with the direction of the puff, and then hold on and enjoy the ride! – Charles Mason

ENGINE ROOM LIGHT

Rummaging through an auto-wrecking yard one Saturday, I came upon a handy trouble light under the hood of a Chevy truck. It throws a bright light, has a 6-foot retractable cord on a reel, and is great for peering around dark nether regions in the engine compartment.

BILGE PUMP ALERT

We don’t always hear the bilge pump when it comes on, so a simple LED light wired to the automatic bilge switch and mounted in a conspicuous location (in our case right between the instruments in the cockpit) solved that problem. Now a red light comes on to alert us when the bilge pump cycles on.

WIRELESS REMOTE CAMERA

Using the handheld monitor for the remote-control camera we’ve mounted in the cockpit, we can check on outside activity without having to go on deck. It’s comforting to be able to take a look outside while anchored—or at a dock—if you think someone (or something) might be coming aboard. I found online an inexpensive camera with monitor that was marketed as a reversing camera to be attached to a trailer hitch. – Terry J. Kotast

Get into the Watchkeeper’s Head

Approaching the bows of a big ship like this it isn’t hard for us to determine whether or not a collision risk exists. It may well be that a small course alteration on our part will deal with it. The trouble is, while we may be able to see the ship’s bearing slowly changing and be confident that, if all else fails, we can make a major alteration late on, the watch officer can’t read our minds. He’s standing up there thinking, “What’s this yacht up to?” To set his mind at rest, it’s far better to make a major alteration—perhaps show him the other side of our bow—so that he’s left in no doubt. It’s kinder, and it’s safer in the end as well.—Tom Cunliffe

Instrument Repeater

At anchor, whenever the wind came up in the middle of the night I’d be forever making trips to the cockpit to check out the wind speed and direction. I installed a repeater at the foot of our berth, so now I can check out the situation from the comfort of my bed.

Sentinel

It has other names, but whatever you call it, it is a weight hooked to or lowered on your anchor chain. It sits on or near the seafloor after the anchor has been set and the result is a smaller swing radius and a better angle of pull on the anchor. Sentinels can be pretty expensive, but ours is a rectangular piece of lead (2in x 2in x 12in). I found it in a salvage yard and attached an inexpensive small bow roller to it.

Anchor Snubber Hook

Early in our cruising life we discovered that a regular chain hook and rope snubber didn’t always hold up to the task of taming the chain in pounding waves. We fashioned a new, deeper hook out of ½-inch stainless, with the slot being over 4 inches long. To date, no amount of hobby horsing has caused the hook to disengage. – Terry J. Kotast

Stronger Anchor Snubber

The combination of low wear, fiber construction and large reinforced sewn eyes on each end makes a nylon crane strap an ideal anchor snubber. We use a 2-inch x 10-inch strand rated at 6,000 pounds breaking strength.

Transom Windlass

How to take the strain out of dealing with a stern anchor. Long-distance cruisers need be prepared for all eventualities, including sometimes deploying a stern anchor—for example, if you’re cruising in Pacific Northwest or the Baltic where anchorages are often steep-to and it’s common practice to anchor from the stern and tie your bow off to a rock or tree on the shore, or in the Mediterranean where you often have no alternative except to go bow- or stern-to a quay.
Except on smaller boats, though, it can be a real bear to haul up a stern anchor and rode by hand, especially when you’ve dropped it in deep water as in many Pacific Northwest anchorages.
I saw this nifty arrangement on a Norwegian boat in St. Lucia at the end of the 2015 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC); a nicely fabricated anchor roller and electric windlass combo that makes it a breeze to deal with a heavy stern anchor and its rode. If you use a stern anchor often, it seems logical to do this, yet this is the first boat I’ve seen with a windlass on the transom. —Peter Nielsen

Freeze Free

If you don’t maintain your padlocks, one day you will find your outboard so securely locked to the rail it will take a hacksaw to get you back in business. Here’s how we keep this from happening on our boat.

Every six months we soak all our padlocks in white vinegar. This dissolves corrosion and salt buildup. If there is a lot of corrosion, we will soak them for an hour or more. The first time we tried this we had to soak several locks all day! Make sure the locks are fully immersed in the liquid and that they are open so the liquid will reach all the internal components. It doesn’t hurt to turn them over occasionally. Take a wire brush and remove any external corrosion from the lock bodies while they are still in the vinegar bath.

Afterward, let the opened locks dry completely in the sun and then lubricate them according to the manufacturer instructions. I lost my instructions years ago, so I spray Sherwin Williams’ Tri-Flow Superior Lubricant into every cranny. Before doing so I put the lock on a paper towel, because the excess lubricant can be quite rusty. When you are finished, wipe off all the excess.

You can find Tri-Flow at most stores in the Ace Hardware chain. Lock repair people also recommend WD-40. Work each lock several times, and resoak and relubricate as necessary until the device works smoothly. Lock maintenance is a regular item on our monthly checklist when we are living aboard. That way, when we leave our boat in the Caribbean for a period of time, we know that when we return our locks will work just as well as they did the day we left them. – Jan Irons

No More Cotter Pins

Standing at the bow of Eurisko, our Creekmore 34, my heel always scrapes the turnbuckle for the cutter stay when I operate the windlass. For many years I inevitably returned to the cockpit after setting the anchor with a bloody foot where the cotter pin had gouged me. Though my husband, Dave, tried to bend the offending pin out of the way, it wasn’t until we rerigged the boat that he thought up a permanent solution.
Working on customer’s boats, Dave had seen cotter pins that were turned and twisted by turnbuckles until they broke. So when it came time to buy cotter pins when we rerigged our boat, he balked. Instead he bought a spool of seizing wire.
Typically used to mouse shackles (as on anchors), seizing wire is a great substitute for cotter pins. The wire cannot twist or bend; there are no loose ends to snag sails, lines and feet; and the rig looks “finished.” The turnbuckle can’t turn without the wire first breaking, which isn’t likely to happen. Both my foot and I appreciate the improvement. – Connie McBride

Headsails Furled Tight

Lots of folks think all they have to do to make sure their furled headsails don’t unravel in a big blow is take a few extra tugs on the furling line so the sheets get wrapped clear around the rolled-up clew a couple of times. But in fact the trouble almost always starts north of the clew.

Unless a headsail has a high-cut clew, as on a Yankee jib, the sail above the clew normally gets furled much more loosely than the sail below the clew, because of the sail’s asymmetric shape. This is the area that is most vulnerable when the wind starts howling. Walkthrough a marina after a storm, and any shredded genoas you see will have all suffered damage above the clew.

There is an easy way to prevent this. Just as you need to move your sheet lead forward as you reef a furling genoa to maintain a proper shape under sail, you should also move the lead forward as you furl the sail. You needn’t do this every single time you furl. But if you know some heavy weather is headed in your direction, you’d be well advised to take the trouble to do it right and furl it tight. – Charles J. Doane

Winterizing a Freshwater-Cooled Engine

Here’s a way to run an engine with the boat ashore. The intake through-hull was tapped for a ½in NPT to garden hose adapter. The hose is run aft to another adapter in the bottom of a 5gal bucket positioned under the exhaust. Just fill the bucket and start the engine. Last spring it was used to break in a new Beta 20 diesel; the water was still cool after 15 minutes running. This fall the engine was warmed up before pumping out the lube oil, then after draining the water two gallons of antifreeze were dumped in the bucket and the engine run until the exhaust turned pink. This avoids adding
antifreeze below decks via the raw water intake hose or the strainer. -Jay Paris

Open the Slot

Many cruisers tend to over-trim their sails when sailing to weather in light conditions. They dial in the same narrow headsail sheeting angles they normally use when sailing in stronger conditions, get frustrated by the lack of boat speed and quickly decide it’s time to start motoring. Next time the wind goes soft, instead of submitting to this self-fulfilling prophesy of slow-going, try opening up the slot between your mainsail and headsail.

Use your traveler to pull the mainsheet’s attachment point well to windward of the boat’s centerline. This will allow enough room to ease the sheet a bit and still keep the main boom at or very near the centerline. By easing the sheet, the outhaul, the main halyard and the backstay (if you can), you’ll impart a fuller, more powerful shape to your mainsail. With the boom on the centerline, you’ll also have room to ease the headsail sheet a bit and increase that sail’s power, too. You’ll be surprised to see how well you can sail “close-hauled” with a lot more space between your main and genoa. In the photo you see here, we were sailing at an apparent wind angle of 30 degrees, maintaining speeds of 3-5 knots in 5-9 knots of apparent wind. It’s much nicer than motoring, I assure you. –Charles J. Doane

UV Damage

Instead of attaching lifelines to pushpits with clevis pins, it’s good practice to use lashings of pre stretched line. They provide enough tension to take the slack out of the lines but can be cut in an instant if need be—for instance, to clear the lifelines out of the way quickly for a crew-overboard recovery. A word of warning: UV radiation can weaken the line without your realizing it, causing the lashings to give way unexpectedly. It would be cheap insurance to replace them annually.

Stern Anchor

If you’re getting into serious cruising, there will be times when you want to set a stern anchor. Usually, this involves emptying fenders, lines and whatnot out of a cockpit locker until you unearth the kedge and its rode. Then you have to haul the anchor into the cockpit and untangle its rode before deploying it. Retrieving and stowing the anchor is just as cumbersome. No wonder stern anchors are a last resort for many casual cruisers.

A 30-foot charter boat I sailed in the Med had a wonderfully simple arrangement: a Danforth anchor hooked on the stern pulpit with 20 feet of chain and 100 feet of nylon rode tucked into a plastic jerrycan with the top cut off. This also was attached to the pulpit. This setup was perfect for Med mooring, as the helmsman could drop the anchor and control the rode while coming bow-to a jetty. When leaving, we just pulled the boat out from the jetty by the stern rode.

That was fine for unambitious coastal cruising with nights spent in sheltered harbors, but high-latitude cruising demands a more rugged approach, like this smart custom pivoting stern-anchor roller I saw on a German boat in Chile. The Bugel anchor’s short chain leader could be connected to either of the big spools of nylon residing on the stern rails. When retrieving the anchor, the rode is rolled up until the boat is over the anchor. Then if the hook cannot not be broken out by hand, the rode is led over the nylon roller on the top rail to a primary winch. Simple, elegant—just do it. –Peter Nielsen

Furled Too Tight

On a good day a furling headsail is like magic. You pull on the furling line and your sail is neatly rolled away until you need it again. At some point, however, most of us have rolled up our headsail in such high winds that it furls much more tightly than usual and we run out of furling line before the clew of the sail is wrapped away. This leaves a scrap of sail to catch the wind just when you don’t want more windage.

Lots of people think the only way to solve this problem is to unfurl the sail, drop it, and then roll more line on to the furling drum. With many furlers, however, you needn’t unfurl the headsail at all. If you can unbend the end of the furling line from the drum without disassembling it, it’s easy to make adjustments. Just remove the line, manually twist the headsail (with the sheets still attached) until it is completely furled, then reattach the end of the line to the drum. Be careful not to roll up the sail and sheets any more than necessary. Having too much line on the drum may cause it to jump out and bind when the sail is unfurled again. –Connie McBride

Inshore Piloting

When you’re close inshore, the benefits of a plotter require close examination. A large screen mounted on the binnacle has obvious benefits when you’re entering a well-buoyed harbor. Piloting through rocks, on the other hand, where sailors have been operating for centuries, may be a different matter.

Before GPS, local pilots set up simple ranges that allowed them to thread hair-raising channels in safety. A range is bombproof, all you have to do is keep the back mark in line with the front mark and it’s happy days.

Trying to steer through a tiny gap using a 3-D vector chart is, by comparison, a bad joke. The pilots who set up the ranges weren’t interested in peripheral dangers, they just wanted a safe route through narrow channels. An electronic chart may pinpoint every last brick, but such obsession with unnecessary detail often obscures the one thing you really want to know.

The problem with ranges has always been identifying them for the first time, and this is where the plotter can help. From safely out at sea, steer toward the range line. When the plotter says you’re on it, eyeball the bearing and find the markers. Once identified, forget the electronics and go with the old-fashioned navigation technique of surveying your surroundings. If the pilot who set the range up got it wrong in the War of Independence, he’d have been strung up in the town square. The guy who muddled the electronic chart has no such direct action to concentrate his mind. —Tom Cunliffe

Headsail Furler Roll Up

The first bareboat I ever hired in the Virgin Islands, many moons ago, was from a small hole-in-the-wall charter outfit with a rather motley fleet of vessels. Much to my surprise, the old Cal 29 I was issued performed flawlessly until the very last day of my charter, when the headsail furler froze up solid with the genoa all the way out in a brisk tradewind breeze in the middle of the Drake Channel. After flapping my arms helplessly for a few minutes trying to get the furler unstuck, I arrived at a very elegant and simple solution. Instead of using the roller-furler to wrap the headsail around the furling rod on the headstay, I used the boat to do it.

This is easiest, of course, with an engine. In my case, I started up the iron genny, took the sheets off the real genny, and just drove the boat in tight circles until the sail was all rolled up. I then reattached the sheets, returned the boat to the charter company, and wished them luck with the repair.

Without an engine, assuming you have a boat that can sail through the eye of the wind under main alone, you could do the same thing by tacking and gybing around in circles. It ain’t a pretty way to stow a sail, but it works well enough in a pinch.

—Charles Doane

No Wire Nuts

I see wire nuts on boats all too often. Many times they are installed by an owner as a temporary measure, “just to make sure it’s working,” or by electricians more used to working on houses than boats. Just to be clear—wire nuts have no place afloat, and if I see them soon after stepping aboard a boat, I know there is almost always more bad news to come.

Wire nuts and seawater make poor bedfellows. Wires that are simply twisted together can easily work loose as a boat moves and vibrates. And when water finds its way in (as it soon will), the inferior metals in the wire nut quickly corrode and increase electrical resistance.

Perhaps most importantly, you often find these connections very close to bilge water, potentially creating a path to ground and a distinct possibility of electrolysis, leading to the swift destruction of underwater metals and the depletion of the boat’s batteries.

I’ve even seen wire nuts used on 120-volt cables, a practice that can potentially kill someone. All wire connections should be made with crimped marine-grade terminals. If there is any possibility of them getting wet, they should also be covered with adhesive-lined heat shrink.

Stanchion Blues

Stanchions are a weak point on many boats, which is kind of ironic, since their sole purpose is to support guardwires to keep people on board. Sometimes their mounting holes are drilled through deck core and not properly sealed, which is why you often find large areas of soggy core around stanchion bases; any hole through deck core needs first to be drilled oversize and plugged with epoxy resin, and then drilled again through the epoxy plug. This ensures water cannot migrate into the core.

On many older boats you’ll notice a pattern of stress cracks in the gelcoat, radiating out from around the stanchion bases. All too many builders failed to provide adequate backing plates for the stanchion bases, leading the deck to flex as strain is put on the stanchions from people clambering aboard or from fenders tied to guardwires. The inevitable result? A weakened laminate, and often, deck leaks.

This is an ugly example—the owner has tried to stop the leak with a smear of goop, and you can see the cracks in the gelcoat around the base. The only fix is to remove the base, grind out the cracks with a Dremel tool and fill them, make a proper backing plate, and rebed everything really well.

Anchoring Hints

Go for a heavy anchor—in any given anchorage a heavier anchor will perform better than a lighter one. If you are outfitting a boat for cruising or looking to upgrade, why not increase the size your anchor at the same time?

It can be difficult judging the distance to your neighbors in deep anchorages, since more rode means you need to be farther away from nearby boats. Try a range-finder app or even a laser rangefinder.

Use binoculars with a range finder (such as our Fujinon 7X50 binos) to judge neighborly distance.

Use GPS and Radar to plot the positions of nearby boats.

Judge neighborly distances in boatlengths. If your boat is 33ft, you can guess the distance to a nearby boat by counting how many boatlengths away you are.

Ask neighbors how much rode they have out to make sure you will not hit each other.

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Paul Shard

Recycling Bag

We recycle everything when coastal cruising or island hopping. We do not like to carry disposable plastic water or drink bottles on our boat. I normally assign a drink bottle to each crew member, identified by color or a number, and then let them be responsible for refilling it and keeping track of it. We always try to minimize the amount of recycling that we have onboard in the first place, but a sailor’s got to have beer, thus must carry cans or bottles. We use the Soda Stream machine to make our own sodas, and we use refillable drink bottles for water and drink mixes. We usually end up with plastic, glass jars, wine bottles and a more than a few beer cans.

I stow all of the recycling in an out-of-the-way spot in a homemade recycling bag. This is made of a sturdy mesh material sewn into a 2ft-by-3ft bag with grommets at the top and about halfway down to hold it in place. We place ours on the outside of the stern rail so that it hangs more over the water than the boat. That way, if anything drips, it falls into the sea. I have mine zip-tied onto the rail right now, but ideally, if it was fastened in such a way where you could carry it to the recycling center, that would be best. If you can’t sew one yourself, keep an eye out for any old mesh bag that could be adopted for this use.

Bill Cullen

Safety: Twist and Shout

Here’s a maneuver that can make it easier to get someone who is not injured out of the water. First, have the person in the water is face you, and then ask them to raise their arms straight up and cross them over their head. When their arms are crossed, grasp their wrists firmly with your hands—put your right hand on their right wrist and your left on their left. When you pull up on their wrists the lifting motion will also twist the person around 180 degrees. The rotation will leave them facing away from you, but it will then be easier for them to assume a seated position on the edge of a deck, dinghy, or dock.

How to Wind Winches

If you have invited guests aboard for an afternoon sail or for a cruise and you know they have limited sailing experience but want to be involved on deck, here’s a way to get them working that lets you be sure things are in order. Cut out some circular plastic rings that will fit snugly around your winch bases. Then put a series of arrows on the upper ring face—you can either use decals or draw them with an indelible pen—pointing in a clockwise direction; the same way a sheet is wound around a winch. You can also put the arrows directly on the deck, but that’s a more permanent arrangement.

Once it is obvious everyone knows the right routine with the winches (you should include some hands-on instructions about the proper hand positions), you can quietly remove the rings and put them below until the next group of friends want to go out and help you sail the boat.

Reel Length

Having a long length of line ready to use at short notice is always a good idea when cruising. You never know when you may have to run out a long mooring warp or set a kedge anchor. The trouble is that such a seldom-used line often ends up under piles of gear in the cockpit locker. This is a bad arrangement, because when you want a long line you often need it right now. You don’t want to waste precious time burrowing for it.

This sailor has probably learned that lesson the hard way, which is why he has installed this spool of strong webbing on the stern rail and has made sure that it is ready for instant deployment.

Extending Whisker Poles

A standard spinnaker pole is as long as the J measurement on your boat – that is, the distance from the base of the mast to the forestay chainplate. This is purely a racing rule requirement; longer poles are penalized under PHRF rules. If you’re cruising, your whisker pole can be any length you like.

On a couple of occasions when I’ve wanted to run downwind with poled-out headsails instead of a spinnaker, I’ve found J-length spinnaker (whisker) poles to be too short to get the tack of a 140 or 150 percent genoa out far enough. I don’t like the sail to be too full; it tends to flap around as the boat rolls, which it will if you’re running in any kind of a seaway. I usually roll up the genoa until it sets fairly flat – I would do this in any case in strong winds — but that means I lose valuable sail area if the wind is light.

Some cruisers carry an over-length whisker pole – about 1.25 times J – to use in light airs, but unless your boat is big enough to carry two poles easily (not a bad idea if you can get away with it), that adds deck clutter you could do without. This is where a telescoping pole, slightly longer than J, comes in handy. The pole will extend half its length again, which is extremely useful in light air. I’ve winged out an asymmetric spinnaker with a fully extended telescoping pole attached to its clew, and it’s amazing how much more power you get. Only do this in very light wind, though, because a fully extended pole can’t take too much punishment. Forespar does not recommend that you use its telescoping poles with a spinnaker, as they aren’t designed to handle the tack loadings; Selden says it depends on the pole section, boat displacement and other factors. Bottom line: if you destroy your expensive telescoping pole while using it with a spinnaker, don’t count on any sympathy from the manufacturer. Even if you’re just using the pole with a headsail, if it comes on to blow you’ll have to reef the pole along with the sail.

A telescoping pole costs more than a regular pole and weighs more too, unless it’s carbon fiber. Both Forespar and Selden make good telescoping poles, but only Forespar makes a carbon one.

Floss Your Scuppers

Especially during the off-season, deck and cockpit scuppers tend to get clogged with debris, usually leaves. Wind-driven rain and snow have a diabolical way of getting into things, even on a boat under a cover, and much of that moisture eventually finds its way into the scuppers. A stopped-up scupper can lead to an accumulation of water, which will help create mildew and mold. The worst-case scenario is freezing, after which the frozen water will expand and may cause damage. Keeping scuppers open and unobstructed should be a priority. That’s why I like to floss mine when paying the periodic visit to my boat in its yard during the winter. There are different ways to do this, depending on how your scuppers are configured. But a few lengths of light line with weights on the end (perhaps left in place over the winter), or a length of wire (a straightened coat-hanger, for example) should be all you need.

Fog Navigation

The only time the classical navigator deliberately missed a landfall was in fog. So long as the desired harbor didn’t have a rocky entrance, the best technique was to find a safe depth contour leading to the dock on the chart while still out at sea, then steer off to one side or the other. When the contour came up on the depth sounder, you’d know which way to turn and could run along it to safety.

With GPS, it’s tempting just to bang in a waypoint and go for it. A plotter makes it even easier, and there’s nothing wrong with this. However, there’s no sinking feeling like being in a dense fog and having the plotter go blank. Even contemplating this brings skippers out in a cold sweat.

The answer, as always with GPS, is to have a contingency plan. If you’re homing in on a harbor wall and the electronics start looking like a deflated football, plot your last known position on the paper chart, and then either turn out to sea and wait, or steer positively to one side and watch the depth. Like sailors from the beginning of time, it won’t matter if you don’t know exactly where you are. When you find the 20ft line, you will at least know which way to turn. —Tom Cunliffe

Waterproof Logbook

Making changes to your boat to reduce the need to go below can be easy. One simple change is to create a waterproof logbook that can safely be left on deck in any weather without fear of damage. A side benefit is that it is inexpensive as well.

Use a spreadsheet software to create a logbook format you like. I purchased waterproof copy paper online and headed to my local copy center for printing and binding. After laser printing (Inkjet printer ink is not waterproof) 10 sets of logbook pages on my paper, and properly collating them, I had the shop bind them with a hard plastic back, clear plastic front and plastic GBC spiral binding. The result is a customized, inexpensive, waterproof logbook which stays on deck at all times. If you are obsessive, you can also obtain pens with waterproof ink from the paper vendor.

Industrial Strength Safety

Rope clutches, or stoppers, are wonderful items to have on board. Not only are they quick and easy to operate, they eliminate the need for extra winches. But each one must be labeled so the trimmer can see immediately what line that particular stopper controls.

When San Francisco sailors Russ Irwin and Fay Mark labeled the clutches on their brand new 52-footer New Morning, they wanted to be absolutely sure there could never be a situation where someone might be confused about which lever was controlling which line. Their solution; put the same label on both the top and the underside of each lever. Smart idea.

Shipping News

When our wind generator stopped spinning in Fiji, we wanted to have parts sent to us by the manufacturer. Then several friends told us they were having trouble getting gear sent from overseas; the problems ran from having packages stopped in customs to shipments that never even showed up. So instead of having our purchases mailed directly to us at our marina, we asked a local chandlery that receives regular shipments from overseas whether we could have our order shipped to them. The chandlery agreed. They told us what information had to be on the shipping label—our official customs arrival number, for example—and recommended we have the package shipped by DHL, the carrier they use on a regular basis. When our package arrived, it quickly cleared through customs and was delivered right to the chandlery. If you can arrange to have a local business receive parcels from a marine business or manufacturer overseas, you may also be able to avoid a lot of the red tape you’d otherwise have to deal with.

Quick Compass Check

Here’s how to “swing” your compass with no special equipment.

• Have your mate stand in a likely “non-magnetic” spot with the hand-bearing compass.
• Steer slowly in a circle while he/she sights on some conspicuous object a couple of miles or more away.
• If the bearing alters, stand somewhere else. If it stays steady, you’ve found a place with no deviation.

You can now check any heading by comparing the steering compass with the hand-bearing compass in the magic position. Any discrepancy is deviation.

Diesel in the Air

Spilled diesel fuel leaves an unpleasant odor that can nauseate some people, especially if they have to be down below in heavy weather. It’s tough to get rid of the odor once it takes hold. I tried oil-absorbing rags, bilge cleaner, and whatever else I could find on board, but the smell remained. Then a retired diesel mechanic stopped by the boat and, without missing a beat, told me to get some liquid Calgon fabric softener. It was, he said, one of the tricks of his trade. I followed his advice, and when I wiped down the affected areas, the fumes disappeared and the boat was once again livable. A few months later a local charter company called me about a diesel spill on one of the boats they manage. I recommended Calgon and even gave my bottle to them to use. It worked perfectly again, and the boat’s owners were thrilled.

Make a Boat Garden

There’s nothing better than having something fresh from the garden on your dinner table, but aboard a sailboat that’s at anchor or underway that can be a challenge. We really do miss fresh basil and rosemary, but the cute planters that work well in a marina aren’t easy to deal with at sea.
Aboard Mermaid, we’ve found that modified plastic milk or juice jugs work great. We cut a section off the top but leave the handle intact. Putting holes in the bottom for drainage would allow mud to drip out on the decks, so we put a layer of wine corks in the bottom and fill the container with soil. Laying in extra wine for corks is just a sacrifice you’ll have to make. We’re experimenting with using the innards of disposable diapers to soak up excess water, but the jury’s still out on that.
We hang the jug planters from the lifeline with carabiner hooks when we are at anchor and move the plants to a shower stall underway. We’ve learned the hard way that most plants don’t care for saltwater spray. We cruise the tropics so rain and sun are both plentiful, and the “garden” is easy to maintain. I love picking some fresh herbs from my boat garden.

The Trim Stripe

Even if you’re a cruiser, and therefore not as anal about sail trim as the typical racer, you probably like to get your boat sailing as well as possible, right? It’s one thing to get your genoa’s luff telltales flying in unison when you’re hard on the wind, but gauging trim when the sail is eased on a reach usually involves some trial and error in moving the genoa sheet cars forward. There is an easier way. Next time you send your genoa in for servicing, have the sailmaker add a trim stripe to the clew. This is oriented so that a line extending from it bisects the genoa at mid-luff. Adjust your sheet car so that the sheet and trim stripe form a straight line, and your headsail trim should be just about dead-on.

Keep Your Eyes Moving

Becoming a good helmsman is similar to becoming a skilled driver or pilot. In all three cases the best operators follow a routine that lets them continuously check many variables: the outside environment—the road, the airspace around them—the navigation instruments, and other important inputs, such as how much “pull” the machine might have when it goes into a turn.

Since these principles also apply on a boat, it’s important to establish a routine that’s comfortable for you and then practice it until it becomes second nature. Specific details might vary depending on boat size and the location of the helm, but here’s a basic routine.

Start by looking at the compass or the bow of the boat to be sure you’re headed where you want to go. Next look around you to see whether another boat is close enough to warrant some sort of evasive action. Then look up at the sails to ensure that all are properly trimmed for the conditions and the course you are steering. If the trim isn’t correct, you can make the adjustment yourself or ask a crewmember to do it. As part of your routine, confirm that the sails are not being chafed or damaged.

Next, take a look around the deck to make sure everything is in place. Finally, return your eyes to the compass or bow and start the routine all over again. When you have established a pattern that works for you, your scan will become automatic. When that happens, you’ll be a better and more confident sailor.

Burning the Midnight Oil

If your boat has only a modest battery bank, you are probably very aware of the electrical power consumed by your masthead anchor light whenever you anchor out at night. In remote locations, you may even be tempted to switch the light off, figuring no one will see it anyway. But there is a better way. Anchor lights with fresnel lenses that burn lamp oil are still widely available. Hung from your forestay in the foretriangle, they are in fact more likely to be seen by anyone transiting the anchorage at night because they are much closer to eye level. The distinctive yellow glow of the light they cast also stands out well against backlighting. Filling the lamp’s reservoir, trimming its wick, polishing its lens, and hanging it out on the foredeck as night is gathering makes a great end-of-the-day ritual. It’s certainly more romantic than flicking a switch on an electrical panel. And your batteries will thank you for it.

Stowage for Clothing

Providing proper stowage for clothing often seems to be way down the priority list on a cruising boat; most cruisers give a higher priority to stowing food, spare parts, and tools. But what happens to your clothes if there is no closet, dresser, or even a single drawer for them to occupy? Often they wind up in a locker with a front-opening door and lie there, loose on the shelf. While you may have stacked them neatly, they soon become jumbled when a shirt or a pair of shorts is extracted from the bottom of the pile. Over the years we have tried various strategies to bring some order to stowing our clothes, but most have proven to be unsatisfactory. Boxes don’t breathe, baskets waste precious space, and both hide their contents.

Finally, my long-suffering mate had had enough of seeing her lingerie hanging out with a rougher crowd, and she began storing it in a zippered net bag—the kind that’s used to protect delicate items in a washing machine. The net bag worked so well that she bought one for her bathing suits, and then one for her blouses. Soon all her clothes—and not long after that, all of mine—were happily ensconced in ventilated, visible, and accessible net bags. Best of all, the clothes stay unruffled, even after we’ve been crashing to weather for a few days.

No stowage arrangement we’ve tried or seen works as well for clothing. A shirt that may not have been worn in months can be located and retrieved quickly, without difficulty, and without disrupting the adjacent items. We’ve refined the process a little by grouping our seasonal clothes together and moving them to a less-accessible space until they’re needed again. The bags are cheap, durable, and washable. If you’re less than happy with the way you now stow your clothes, give the nets a try.

Tack for a Gybe

Certain techniques on a small centerboarder can land you in the drink if the wind is strong and your reactions are slow. One technique that works in any kind of wind—and on any size of boat—is to tack onto your new heading instead of gybing. Visualize it like this: Imagine you’re on a heading of zero degrees on starboard tack, with the wind coming from 170 degrees, and you need to come onto a heading of 270 degrees. Instead of turning to port and gybing, turn hard to starboard. As you come through the wind, tack the headsail across—the boom will take care of itself. Then you can come onto the new course and trim the sails to suit. I’ve used this technique many times, with much less noise and concern than a normal gybe.

Going Sideways

It’s no secret that bow thrusters are a big help when you’re maneuvering in close quarters, which is why they are becoming common on boats in the 40-foot range. One reason for this popularity is that the units themselves have gotten better. But it’s also true that freeboards are getting higher and many of us either are getting older or are sailing with fewer crew. My 47-footer came with a bow thruster, and I quickly learned to appreciate it. It’s simple to use: hit the button and the bow goes right, hit the button and the bow goes left.

But I soon discovered another level of use. Everyone knows that a thruster moves the bow when the boat is stopped. And everyone knows that you use a thruster to hold or move the bow to port or starboard against the wind. But not everyone knows that the thruster can be used to make the boat go sideways. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say you’re in a marina and the wind is blowing from your port side, pushing you into the dock, and you want to get away from the dock without damaging the starboard side of the boat.

After you’ve gotten the dock lines on board, you might think about pushing the thruster button to push the bow to port, away from the dock. The problem is that only the front half of the boat will be clear. The twisting motion caused by the keel—as the bow goes to port, the stern goes to starboard—will start to press the stern firmly against the dock.
There is another way. First, turn the helm hard to starboard (toward the dock) and accelerate forward under power. Simultaneously, push the bow thruster button to port, which will push the bow to port and away from the dock. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it works. As you turn the helm to starboard, the leading edge of the rudder is pointing to port. The prop wash against the rudder along with the forward motion will move the stern to port and away from the dock, while the thruster’s push to port keeps the bow from swinging to starboard and into the dock. As the boat starts to move forward, it will also be moving sideways to port and clear of the dock. Obviously, you need to practice this maneuver to learn exactly how your boat will react.

If you’re turning and the stern is about to bump into something, you can quickly check that motion by using the thruster to move the bow in the same direction the stern is moving. You are, in effect, getting the boat to move sideways even as it is moving forward. When you get these procedures and their timing down correctly, you’ll add a whole new dimension to using your bow thruster to help you maneuver confidently in close quarters.

Spinnaker Net

Like most cruisers, I was happy to ditch my symmetric spinnaker and defect to a more easily handled asymmetric kite, but I can’t deny that the symmetric sail has its advantages. It works better on downwind runs with the apparent wind at 140 degrees or more, and on most older boats it has the considerable virtue of already being on board (no need to spend money) and is probably lightly used.

One reason cruisers fear these sails is the dreaded spinnaker wrap, which is much more likely to happen with a symmetric kite. One way to avoid a wrap is to rig a spinnaker net. I saw this one on a Cal 40 that was being prepared for a trans-Pacific race. It was a simple affair, made of webbing and attached in this case to the genoa halyard. It would be easy enough for a cruiser to fabricate a net that fits over a rolled-up genoa. I’d like the peace of mind at night and when sailing shorthanded. A net would also be useful in light air and a big swell, when the boat’s rocking often causes the spinnaker to collapse and refill—prime conditions for a spinnaker wrap.

Knot Log Drain

If you’re like many boatowners, you’ll only learn that the hoses connecting your cockpit drains to the transom through-hulls have failed when you see your floorboards afloat. The hoses most often fail over the winter when the freezing cold helps crack them open, and it always seems to happen during particularly windy winters when your cover rips or shifts out of position so as to allow rain and snow into the cockpit. You may also have a keelstepped mast that likes to funnel water into your bilge during winter rain storms, regardless of how secure your cover is.

My O’Day 31 has twice been flooded like this over the winter, and both times removing the freezing cold water from the bilge was a nightmare. After the second time, it dawned on me that an easy solution would be to just leave the impeller assembly for my knot log out of its hole for the winter. This way any water that accumulates in the bilge can drain right out. I ran the idea by my yard crew, and they said they recommend the practice. I also decided to put a plastic pot-scrubber ball into the hole to keep critters out. So far the system seems foolproof—although I still make sure to check my cover periodically.

SHAFT SEAL SQUEAL

I was powering at low rpm when my wife asked, “What is that high-pitched sound?” I thought it was a belt, but when I went below and looked in the engine box all seemed fine. The noise seemed to be coming from behind the engine, so I lifted the small hatch over the PSS (Packless Sealing System) unit and found that the shaft, boot, and clamps were too hot for me to touch.

I immediately knew what had happened. I had been diving to change the shaft zinc and clean the hull, and I had spent a lot of time around the shaft. Some of my air bubbles had traveled into the stern tube. The rising air displaced the water there and air instead of water had filled the bellows hose and shaft collar of the shaft seal. With no water lubricating the rotating bearing, things inevitably got hot. To solve the problem, I gently pulled and compressed the rubber bellows boot to break the air seal. A gush of water came in and cooled down the parts.

If you have this system, remember this when you go back into the water after a haulout, or if a diver spends a lot of time near the prop and shaft. If you have an older setup, as I do, always “burp” the bellows on the shaft seal to make sure it is filled with water. PYI (pyiinc.com) has installed a hose nipple on all PSS units built after 2002 that can either vent the air or inject water from the engine.

SEAMANSHIP: Snatch and Release

If you anchor out a lot, as I do, eventually you will be in a situation where the flukes get snagged on something: a rock ledge or an abandoned cable are typical culprits. You’ll know you are hooked when you shorten up on the anchor rode and it will not break out, even when you power ahead over it. To retrieve the anchor you need to reverse the digging-in process and back the hook out the same way it went in. To do this, I use a 1/2 in nylon retrieval line and a length of chain 18in to 24in long, with links between 3/16 n and 1/4 in, formed into a loop at the end. The length of the line can vary, but a good rule of thumb is to have one at least twice the water depth.

First, slide the chain and retrieval line down to the crown of the fouled anchor and then take a gentle strain. If the rode is all-chain, make it as vertical as possible before sliding the retrieval loop down to the anchor crown. This will help keep it from getting hung up.

Always pull from the direction the wind was blowing from when you anchored. If the wind was northeast, for example, take the strain when you are heading in a northeasterly direction. For maximum maneuverability, detach the anchor rode from the boat, tie its bitter end to a good-sized docking fender and put it in the water. Never run the engine at more than half speed. Finesse rather than brute strength seems to work best. Start with the engine in gear at idle speed. If nothing happens go to quarter speed and, if necessary, half speed.

Some crews like to attach a trip line to the anchor before they set it. My view is that the freestanding retrieval line does the same thing, and avoids having multiple lines and buoys. However, if you use a fisherman’s anchor, a preset trip line might be a good idea because its stock will prevent a retrieval chain loop from moving up the shank to the crown.

PROBLEM SOLVING

According to veteran ocean cruiser and racer Don Street, every sailor who considers himself competent should also be an MBLU (Master of the Bastard Lash-Up), an accreditation he first learned to appreciate when he was a young crewmember aboard a Navy submarine.

As an example, Street likes to tell about a delivery he made aboard a 40-foot ketch sailing from North Carolina to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. After several days at sea, the wind dropped completely and in order to keep to his schedule, Street turned on the gasoline auxiliary. But six hours later the engine’s water pump packed up and there was no replacement on board.

But there were several five-gallon jerry cans of fuel on deck and that was all Street needed for an MBLU solution. After emptying the contents of one jerry can into the main fuel tank, he cut off its bottom, turned it upside down and lashed it into the shrouds, making sure it was low enough that the shortest crewmember aboard could pour a bucket of water into it.

Next, Street collected all unused hoses and hooked them together to make one long hose running from the spout of the can to the engine’s salt-water intake. With three other crewmembers on board, Street then established a schedule: one hour on watch steering—and pouring a bucket of seawater into the jerrycan every minute—and three hours off. With the engine running at 1500 RPM, the system worked fine until the wind finally returned and he could hoist the sails again. Street concedes this might not work with some of today’s engines. But that’s not his main point. Every problem has a solution—just as long as there’s an MBLU on board.

Coastal Cruising: Reel length

Having a long length of line ready to use at short notice is always a good idea when cruising. You never know when you may have to run out a long mooring warp or set a kedge anchor. The trouble is that such a seldom-used line often ends up under piles of gear in the cockpit locker. This is a bad arrangement because when you want a long line you often need it right now. You don’t want to waste precious time burrowing for it.

This sailor has probably learned that lesson the hard way, which is why he has installed this spool of strong webbing on the stern rail and has made sure that it is ready for instant deployment.

The most accurate tool for estimating your distance to a solid target is radar. When you have to traverse a narrow channel close to the shore with off-lying dangers and you can’t line up two objects to see you through, select the most appropriate range setting, then set the variable range marker (VRM) to a safe distance from whichever shore seems likely to offer the best radar target. You can then sail or motor along and be sure of your distance off. Double-check everything, make sure you have a bailout plan in case the radar goes on the blink, then forge ahead while keeping the VRM just touching the echo of the shore.

A Good Night’s Sleep

I’ve spent months anchored in places where wakes and wave conditions can make life a misery for the unprepared. But this simple stopper device that you can build in less than an hour from scrap materials will stop your boat from rolling and make the experience a pleasant one no matter what the conditions are. Here’s what you need.

•Two 18in x 12in pieces of plywood with a thickness of 3/8 or 1/2in. Aluminum plate is better, but more expensive.

• 20ft of 5/16 or 3/8in non-stretch line

•A weight (heavy belt or mushroom anchor) to hang below the flopper stopper to hold it down.

•A drill and 7/16 or 1/2in bit.

•Some seizing twine or light cord.

Drill bridle holes in each piece of plywood that are big enough to receive the line you will use. Place the holes about two inches above the centerline of the plywood. Drill three more holes in the bottom of each piece of plywood about 1 1/2in from the bottom. Put a hole at each end and put the third in the center of the piece. The two outer holes are used for the hinges. Next loosely tie the two bottom edges together so they form a hinge. Make sure they will hinge open and shut smoothly. Make the bridles by cutting two pieces of line 6ft long. Mark the center of each and then run the two ends of the line through the bridle holes; pass the line through the holes from the outside to the inside of the plywood and put a strong knot in the ends. Make a small eye in the middle of each bridle line and tape it. Whip the two eyes together and your bridle is ready.

To deploy the stopper, hang the weight from the holes in the center of the stopper’s bottom edge and then tie an 8- to 10-foot piece of line from the end of your boom to the bridle eye. Use a preventer to wing out the boom perpendicular to the boat as you ease the mainsheet. Be sure your topping lift is strong enough to absorb the energy of the flopper-stopper: attach the main halyard to the end of your boom to back up the topping lift if necessary.

When the boat rolls up, the device will hinge open and check the boat’s roll. When the boat sinks down the hinges will close. The next upswing will open it again. You’ll be amazed how easy to use and how effective this device is.

Evaporation is Cool

When I heard the skipper of a 42ft powerboat complaining that one of his five air conditioners had failed I wasn’t terribly sympathetic. Many sailboats, even in Florida, don’t have air conditioning. Our boat has a single unit that keeps us comfortable, but there’s little spare capacity.

To help cool the boat down quickly on a hot day, I regularly spray water on the deck. It’s not the water temperature that cools the boat, but rather the heat that is removed by evaporation. On a typical summer afternoon much of the heat load comes from solar radiation. Because of the sun’s angle, most of this radiation is through the deck. My dark blue hull will be close to ambient temperature, but the white areas on the deck will be hot, and the sand colored anti-skid areas even hotter. Even on a 90-degree afternoon in Florida, the difference between the air temperature and the dew point will be large enough so that water will evaporate quickly. If you aren’t convinced, spray some water on your deck and see. Of course, spraying water will not cool down your boat’s interior, but the evaporation will reduce the heat load, which will help your air conditioner cool down the interior temperature.

Whether it’s an official range that is marked on a chart or just two sticks in the sand that you have set up yourself to help get your dinghy through a narrow cut in a reef, a range is an important tool for the sailor. A range works because the two vertical poles or objects are aligned to create an unmovable line of position. Ranges work best when the aftermost stick, tree, church steeple or whatever, is taller than the marker that is in front of it. In a pinch, though, any two fixed vertical objects along a line of position will do.

When we are cruising we find ourselves constantly using ranges and have developed a rule that has served us well over the years: chasing the marker that is closest to us. For example, if the closer marker—generally also the shorter one—moves to the left of the taller marker behind it, we will “chase” it by altering course to port until we again have both markers in alignment. If, on the other hand, the closer marker is to the right of the marker that is farther away we turn to starboard until both markers are aligned again.

At anchor, many cruisers will take bearings on both the port and starboard side of the boat to check if they are dragging. This method is fine for estimating your location, but you could move as much as 100 feet and still not really notice. The system we use at anchor can tell us if we have moved as little as 10 feet. Here’s how it works:

First, we note the boat’s most frequent heading. Then we find two objects ashore abeam of us and on the same side of the boat that are lined up when the boat is on that heading. Any stationary objects, trees, rocks, radio towers, the top of a hill, will do. If possible, we prefer to choose two lit objects, because they can be used at night. For example, when we anchored recently in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, during a gale, the range we used was a streetlight and the window of a house.

When we are sure the boat is on the same heading used when we established the range, we look at our range and note whether the closer range marker has moved forward of the one behind it. If it has, we know that either the rode has straightened out or we are dragging anchor. If we see that the closer marker has moved aft of the farther one, we know we have moved closer to our anchor, either because of current or possibly a decrease in wind velocity.

During that gale in Mexico, the wind was strong enough to keep a steady tension on all four of our anchors, and when the forward range began to move ahead of the one behind it we knew that at least one of the anchors had dragged. Fortunately, by walking forward on the deck until the two range markers were again aligned, we knew that we had moved back just 10 feet.

Always look for potential range markers around you and practice using them in all conditions. Doing so will improve your navigation skills and, when you are anchored, they will provide accurate information on where you are and whether you are staying in one place.

Hatch Screens

If you cruise where there are mosquitoes, you need to get serious about keeping them out of the boat. On our boat, the hatches had wire-mesh screens that were too porous to be effective, and two of these were directly over our bed, so we knew we needed something better. Specifically, we needed an effective screen that wouldn’t interfere if we had to shut the hatches quickly in a sudden downpour. We also wanted devices that would stay put in a breeze when we were anchored and would be easy to stow when it was time for us to head to sea.

All our hatches open to a 45-degree angle, so we figured a set of wedge-shaped “tents” of screening would do the job nicely. We bought some mosquito netting (originally part of a hammock) and measured and cut the material so each tent fit rather loosely. We made the two seams that come down from the upper corner of each tent using sewn-on tape.

After that we sewed a sausage-like hem of marine canvas around the bottom of the netting to hold each tent in place once it was draped over the hatch. Using a funnel, we filled the hem with clean sand we had rinsed in fresh water.

It took us about an hour to make each hatch net, and they have worked out very well. The ventilation is first rate, the tents look smart, and they have done an excellent job of keeping insects out of our lives.

Waiting to Inhale

A decade ago, while thumbing through a cooking magazine, a photo of a bicycle pump caught my eye. It turned out to be a vacuum pump that could do the same thing as a big, boxy kitchen vacuum sealer costing more than $100. But it was small, hand-operated and cost just $20. I researched the Pump-N-Seal food saver online and then ordered one. It has been an inspired addition to our cruising galley.

Here’s how it works. First, use a push-pin (one is supplied with the pump) to puncture the center of the lid of any sealing jar; empty pickle jars are ideal. Next, cover the hole with a tiny Band-Aid-like seal (also supplied) to create a multi-use check valve. Positioning the suction-cup base of the pump over the tab, you push down on the spring-loaded plunger a few times to pump the air out of the closed jar. Simple as that.

Before the Pump-N-Seal, opening a container of nuts onboard committed us to gorging on them before they went stale. Now we eat or serve just what we like. As long as they’re stored in a metal-lid jar, we can simply close the lid and pump the air out when putting them away. Our boat spends hurricane season on the hard in the tropics, and we often leave “opened” cans of nuts in the galley while we’re away. We return to find them as fresh as ever.

Coffee lovers can also benefit by storing their ground coffee in a vacuum-sealed jar. Likewise, expensive spices maintain their potency when stored in a vacuum. Vacuum-packing flour, beans and pasta protects them from weevils and other insects. It protects meats and poultry from freezer burn, and keeps crackers, cookies and chips nice and crisp.

Engines: Full Notice

If you don’t have a self-bleeding diesel engine, here’s a suggestion that can save time and effort. Photocopy the instructions for bleeding the engine from its manual. Then blow up the type big enough so you can read it without glasses. Laminate the page(s) to waterproof them. With instructions in hand, bleed the engine’s fuel system and mark all the lines you have to break with a touch of red nail polish. Then put the laminated instructions and all the wrenches you need to bleed the lines into a sealable plastic bag. Next time you have to bleed the engine, you won’t have to search for anything

Get the weight off!

Don’t make your boat a storage shed. Develop and pursue a weight-reduction plan. New winches are nice. Now you should offload the old ones you’ve stored below, along with those pieces of pipe, broken winch handles, the old sun awning, the wrong-size propeller, and one of the two identical sets of socket wrenches. A few scraps of wood are useful for repairs, but unload the pile of lumber under the forepeak berths.

Is it really necessary to carry those extra jugs of diesel fuel? Do you really need five anchors? Think what your boat’s designer would say about carrying 2,000 pounds of extra weight.

GPS and Great-circle Courses for Ocean Navigators

Most GPS receivers are capable of delivering the bearing to a waypoint as either a rhumb-line or a great-circle course. When sailing along the coast or making an offshore passage, the two are synonymous for all practical purposes. However, when making an east-west ocean passage well away from the equator, following a great-circle course—so far as wind and wave permit—could save a day or more. Thanks to your GPS, you need not immerse yourself in tortuous calculations involving spherical trigonometry or plot new courses repeatedly from a gnomonic chart. As long as you have specified great-circle course on the setup page, you have only to create a destination waypoint, hit the go-to button, and read off the course. The figure you get will be the great-circle heading from your current position.

Figure 8 Coils

The traditional way to coil a line is to make coils of equal length and drop them into the palm of your hand. Hold the end of the line in one hand and use the other hand to lay the coils, one on top of the other, into your palm. The problem is that unless the line is uncoiled very carefully, it often becomes tangled as it runs out; the smaller the line diameter, the greater the chance this will happen. Years ago I watched a friend coil a long umbilical cable for an experimental underwater vehicle in a figure 8 configuration that made it impossible for the line to become fouled. Since then I coil all my lines—from bow and stern lines to anchor rodes and jib-furling lines—that way. Here’s how to do it.

With one end of the line in the palm of one hand, take a section of the line in the other hand and run it down behind the back of the opposite forearm—go from left to right—then under your elbow before coming back up the back of your forearm to cross over the top of your palm right to left. Go back down again under the elbow and continue (go slowly so you don’t forget which way to make the coil on the back of your forearm) until you’ve coiled up nearly all the line. Wrap the tail of the line around the middle where the eights cross; then bring the remaining line up in a loop, and pass the end of the line through the smaller loop you have just made. You can either stow the coil or hitch the end of the line over a cleat or hook.

No Snakes

When you get behind the wheel of a sailboat, you normally want to keep the boat sailing in a specific direction. Trouble is, you don’t do this the same way you steer a car down a highway—by turning the wheel one way and then the other to keep to the middle of the road. When a boat starts to stray off course, quickly turning the wheel to maintain a steady heading is called oversteering, and it will swing the bow past the desired heading to the other side of the course, requiring another turn of the wheel to bring the boat back in the right direction. The rudder movement will slow the boat, and your course will cut an irregular “S” pattern through the water.

It is best to get the boat on course and trim the sails properly; then relax and let the boat’s bow move gently from one side of the course to the other. This movement is perfectly natural, particularly when you’re sailing off the wind. To break the oversteering habit, pick out a landmark ahead of you and steer for it. Try to make as few helm movements as possible while keeping the boat heading for the target. Ignore slight wanderings of the bow. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you’ll develop the “feel” that every boat has. Keep in mind that the better the helmsman, the less the helm moves.

Shirttail Nonsense

When I see a boat sailing with a jib that is not fully hoisted, I keep hoping that it’s like someone walking around without noticing his shirttail is hanging out. Surely, if a person knew the problem existed, he’d correct it right away. The problem, of course, is that a jib sits right out front of everyone on board, and everyone can see it. There’s really no excuse for not taking the time to get the sail fully hoisted.

Sailmakers and speed mavens can offer lots of advice on how much halyard tension is optimal in different wind conditions, and it’s all good stuff. But if your jib is hanked on, there should always be enough tension on the halyard to keep the luff from scalloping between the hanks when the jib is trimmed in on a close-hauled course. The sail will be more efficient, the boat will have more power, and perhaps most important, no one will be wondering why you insist on sailing around with your shirttail hanging out.

MAINTENANCE: Trust Not Rust

This anchor chain was seen on a charter boat I sailed some time ago. If your rode looks like this, give yourself a good kick in the backside. Not only does it look awful, but in our case the friction in the rusted links caused the chain to kink and hockle as it was hauled out of the chain locker. Usually, you can extend a chain’s life by having it re-galvanized. This chain was too far gone for that, as many of the links were wasted from rubbing against each other without the protection and lubricating effect of galvanizing. Note also the rust flakes surrounding the anchor roller—if you’ve ever tried to get rust stains out of gelcoat, you’ll know why that’s bad news.

Pilotage: Keep on track

For close piloting inshore, it is important to steer down a straight track from one navigation mark to the next. Merely aiming the boat will not be enough if there is any crosscurrent. As soon as you round a mark, line up the following one with some convenient object behind it. This will establish a natural range. As long as you stay on the range with the objects in line, you must be on the straightest track. Casual ranges are not always obvious, but anything at all will do—even a distant cloud if there isn’t much wind and the leg is a short one.

Cleat Cover

Most well-equipped sailboats have mooring cleats located amidships. They’re great for spring lines and other items, but they can also snag a sail, a sheet or even someone’s foot. An easy fix calls for some foam, a marking pen, a measuring tape, a sharp knife, a saw and a drill.

First measure the length and height of the cleat’s horn and then cut a block of foam that is 6in wide and 4in longer and a 1/2 in taller than the cleat. Cut the block in half. With the pen, trace half the length of the cleat on top of each foam block; repeat on the bottom. To ensure a tight fit, make the width dimension just slightly wider than the actual width of the cleat horn.

Next cut out the inside of the block. The distance from the deck to the top of the cleat horn is the maximum amount you should cut. Also, be sure there’s a solid lip to hold the cleat horn when you slide the foam over it. Do the same thing with the second block and then test your work by sliding the pieces together over the cleat. Continue shaping until both pieces fit together snugly.

To hold the blocks together drill two holes through each of the blocks and then connect them with two lengths of bungee cord. When they are measured carefully and cut correctly the two blocks will fit snugly over the cleat and you won’t have to worry about it catching something you don’t want it to. Of course, you will have to do the same thing to the cleat on the other side of the boat.

Keep on track

For close piloting inshore, it is important to steer down a straight track from one navigation mark to the next. Merely aiming the boat will not be enough if there is any crosscurrent. As soon as you round a mark, line up the following one with some convenient object behind it. This will establish a natural range. As long as you stay on the range with the objects in line, you must be on the straightest track. Casual ranges are not always obvious, but anything at all will do—even a distant cloud if there isn’t much wind and the leg is a short one.

Running Off

If something goes wrong on the foredeck, the natural instinct for many sailors is to luff up head-to-wind until the situation can be resolved. The problem with this course of action is that on most displacement boats it does no one on board any favors, putting a strain on the forestay when everything starts shaking, and increasing the apparent wind.

As long as you have sea room to leeward, it is a far better course of action to run off instead. Doing so shelters the headsail in the wind shadow of the mainsail. This in turn will collapse the headsail and leave it hanging. There’s no mind-jarring clattering about the deck because the apparent wind will magically drop as well. Getting the boat into this position makes dealing with a fouled headsail furler, subduing a cruising chute that has gone berserk or fixing anything else that might be shaking around much less stressful than trying to do the same thing while plunging directly into the wind and oncoming seas.

Know Your Racing Flags

Everyone knows the Answering Pennant (AP or “Cat in the Hat” flag) means racing has been postponed and that the “P” flag means a standard starting sequence. But what about the “M” flag, an “N” flag over an “A” flag, or an answering pennant flying above Pennant 2?

Sail Saver

If you have older Dacron sails, a good method of preserving them while improving their working ability is to treat them with a fabric spray (the type used for tents, shoes, or furniture). Most likely you will see a difference right away. During rainy weather the sails will shed water better, keeping them lighter and better shaped, and that can really make a difference in your boat’s heavy-weather performance. The fabric treatment also makes the sailcloth more pliable and easier to flake and fold. Several of my friends now regularly treat their sails and have commented that it is inexpensive for a couple of spray cans, and it is the most cost-effective performance enhancement they can lavish on their boats.
A Cutter that Cuts It

For many cruisers, a cutter rig is the one that works best—so long as the staysail is cut for windward work, fairly flat with its draft well forward. A staysail also needs a good sheet lead. Sheet tracks and leads for many staysails seem to be placed more for convenience than effectiveness and often fail to take into account the staysail’s dual role.

On most cutters, the staysail is used with a larger headsail primarily when close reaching. When sheeted inside another headsail, the staysail must be trimmed more tightly than its companion, requiring a track fairly well inboard. However, when used by itself as a heavy-weather windward sail, a staysail may require a more open sheet lead, especially as few cruising boats are capable of pointing really high. At these times it is better for the track to be farther outboard.

The problem with staysails is that most are so small they are close to storm-jib size. If the inner forestay is attached to the mast at the upper spreaders, the sail may also have a short luff, and it is the luff of the sail that powers a boat to weather. For this reason, many cruisers have adopted what some call a Solent stay, which is attached to the mast and deck only a couple of feet behind the headstay. This allows for a staysail of sufficient size to power the boat upwind and in most cases does not require the running backstays used with most other cutter rigs. The downside is that you do have to change sails if you actually need a storm jib.

Karate Corner

Good communication between people on the bow and helm is very important when coming into a crowded anchorage or harbor. I used a system of hand signals for many years, and communications had been pretty successful other than the occasional confusing moment—for example, are your fingers pointing because that’s the direction to steer or because there is something in the water?

Then one day we watched a speedboat race on a TV sports channel. It wasn’t the standard dash around buoys, but a time trial in a narrow figure-eight channel that ran through a swamp. The boats were so fast that the driver could react quickly enough only if he followed hand signals given by the navigator next to him.

The navigator held his hand out ahead of him as though he were ready to make a karate chop on a board. When a course correction was needed, he would point his arm in the direction he wanted the driver to steer and then make a rapid chopping motion with his hand. We tried this on our next cruise to the North Channel of Lake Huron, and it worked very well. We use the chopping motion to indicate what direction to steer and simply point, without chopping, to indicate a hazard ahead. A clenched fist followed by a pointing finger indicates a rock or obstruction. When we’re pulling up the anchor, an arm pointed in a specific direction shows the general direction of the rode and anchor. A fore-and-aft chopping motion signals that the anchor is under the boat and it’s time to put the engine in reverse. Once your team knows the routine, you can start chopping and stop shouting.

Light line only

Many years ago an acquaintance was nearly strangled when his knife, which he wore on a strong lanyard around his neck, got tangled up in the anchor chain as he was easing a 45-pound hook over the bow roller. It could have ended badly had he been alone. It’s certainly a good idea to attach lanyards to valuable items like flashlights, knives, shackle keys, and so on so that you don’t lose them overboard, but make sure the line is weak enough so it will snap easily if whatever it’s attached to gets caught up in a flailing sheet or anchor rode. One way to do this is to connect the implement to the lanyard with a plastic clip. Better to lose a knife than a hand or a life.

Will we collide?

To evaluate the risk of a collision, check whether the vessel in question is maintaining a steady bearing relative to you. Initially, you can do this by keeping your head still and seeing whether the other vessel remains in place over a particular stanchion, shroud, or other likely reference. If you’re not sure if the vessel is moving, take a bearing with a compass and keep checking as the range closes. You might even use the electronic bearing line on your radar. In confined waters, it is easier to tell whether the other craft appears stationary relative to its background. While difficult to prove mathematically, this old rule of thumb works every time unless the other craft is almost on the beach. If the other vessel stays in front of the same distant field or headland as you approach, you are on a collision heading, so watch out.

Passive radar reflector

Wooden boats with wooden masts make poor radar targets; the same is true of fiberglass hulls with carbon-fiber masts. Even boats with aluminum spars are notoriously unreliable targets, which is why all sailboats should carry passive radar reflectors. Yet few boats have these permanently mounted. Instead, most rely on corner reflectors to reflect a radar signal directly back to the scanner that transmitted it. These work well on many navigation buoys, but the size is important: a 12-inch corner reflector is theoretically less than 1 percent as effective as a 36-inch reflector.

How to be seen

We all hope the lookouts on those huge container ships will see our little sailboats in rain, mist, and low light. Should we find ourselves in trouble, we pray that our rescuers will be able to take us out in the breaking waves.

Some sailors have long recognized the value of being highly visible. Many ocean-racing boats have brightly colored hulls and decks. In New Zealand, sailors are strongly advised to sew bright orange stripes on their sails. Yet most cruising sailors own boats with white sails, white or blue hulls, and gray or white masts and so are difficult to see at sea.

It is very easy and inexpensive to dramatically improve your boat’s visibility. Whether you’re bluewater cruising or just daysailing around the coast or lakes, it’s worth the effort. Painting the top few feet of your mast international orange will make the boat much more visible from a distance without affecting its aesthetics. I painted the top 4 feet of Hawk’s masthead. It’s very visible in profile, but from the front and back, the mast section is much narrower and a 6-foot stripe would be better.

Fender Boards

When you go alongside a high dock or wall, you need to protect your fenders. This means having fender boards that are rugged enough to do the job and not just look nice. Always carry two fender boards, and if there is space I carry three. There is no need to make theses fancy; mine are 6-foot-long 2×6-inch planks. I’ve drilled two 1/2 –inch holes through the full width of the boards at each end. To hold the boards in place in front of the fenders I run tie lines through the drilled holes and then use figure-eight knots to secure the lines on the underside of the fender board.

Trip Lines

If you ever had your anchor catch under a rock or other obstruction, you’ll be glad you rigged a trip line. But if you ever have someone else’s anchor buoy and trip line wound around your propeller, you’ll curse trip lines and all who use them. In crowded anchorages, trip lines often cause more problems than they solve. It is not unheard of for a boat to swing over its own or someone else’s anchor buoy, getting the line caught around the rudder or propeller and tripping the anchor unintentionally. If you absolutely must use a trip line, make it a long one; secure it to the anchor rode at intervals with a light, easy-to-snap string, and make it fast to one of the bow cleats. That way, the worst that can happen is that the trip line may get twisted around the anchor rode as the boat swings to a reversing current or wind shift. You may have a bit of fun sorting out the tangle when it’s time to leave, but that’s nothing compared to the joy of having your trip line wound around your own prop.

Beware of Buoys

“Just head for the buoy up ahead and make sure you leave it to the starboard.” An instruction like that is asking for trouble, especially if a novice is steering. All it takes is a bit of cross current and the boat will be gradually set off course, all the while pointing faithfully at the buoy; it may even be set onto the very hazard the buoy is marking. When you steer toward a buoy always note the compass heading and be ready to compensate for a cross-current if the compass heading changes.

A “Burned” Impeller

Impellers for the engine’s raw-water pump don’t last forever. Even if they aren’t destroyed by having been run dry following a blockage in the raw-water line, they still deteriorate over the years. If you’ve never had to change one, try installing a new one when the boat is safe on its mooring, and then go out and buy a new spare. You might be surprised by what you discover.

• Some raw-water pumps require a fresh gasket each time the impeller is changed. Do you have a gasket on hand?

• Does your screwdriver fit the machine screws that attach the cover plate?

• Might you lose a screw in the bilge? It’s so easy to do. If so, can you reach it or should you carry a couple of spares?

• All this is vital knowledge when you have to do the job heeled over in rough seas on a dark night.

Ladder Line

A walk down any dock reveals numerous ways to secure boarding ladders. Most of them are improvised from bits of string, Velcro, and elastic straps, and many exhibit the use of knots that can be hard to untie in an emergency. A SAIL reader has come up with a safer way. He mounted a clamcleat on the stanchion and tied a short length of line around the handrail directly above it. He loops the line around the last rung of the ladder in the raised position and secures the free end in the cleat. The beauty of this simple solution is that the ladder can be dropped in a jiffy with a simple flick of the wrist.

The Towing Bridle

Some boats can’t tow directly from a cleat because of its self-steering. Other boats have difficulties with backstays. The answer is to rig a simple towing bridle. Even when the stern is unencumbered, using a bridle has the advantage of spreading the load between at least two points. Make it up so that one end can always be slipped when necessary, then secure the tow rope to the bridle with a bowline. The towed boat cleats it off so that the line can be released in an emergency. Take the strain gradually, and don’t let any dangling rope be sucked into your own propeller.

Snapshackles

Snapshackles are supposed to stay closed, but unless they are specifically designed to lock shut, they can open unexpectedly. If you aren’t sure whether your snapshackle will stay closed—after all, the sudden opening of a spinmaker-haylard snapshackle can be very exciting—tape the shackle shut with electrical tape. When you want to open the shackle, cut the tape with a knife.

Ready to Run

Where do you keep your kedge anchor and rode? Ten to one it’s all tanged up in the middle of the cockpit locker, and it will take at least ten minutes of fiddling and cursing to get it ready to deploy. If you’re sailing in waters where you might need to set a second anchor in a hurry, you should consider emulating this cruiser and keep a spool of strong webbing rigged on your stern pulpit. It can serve as a towline, a long mooring warp, or a kedge rode—just shackle on the anchor and a short length of chain. When you’re done with it, wind it back on its spool.

Fresh Water

Design a shade awning so that it is also efficient in collecting rainwater. First, shape the awning with a belly on each side where water can collect; a rope running along each side of the awning forms a gutter. A shallow funnel is sewn into the lowest part of each belly, and 1-inch plastic fittings provide the attachment points for drain hoses. The system is designed to handle the large volumes of water often produced by short, but very wet tropical rainsqualls. Small-reinforced canvas loops are sewn in place near the hose fittings and along the gutter. These serve as attachment points for tie-down lines and limit the amount of flapping.

The drain hoses slide into the inside of the tapered hose to ensure a tight fit, and both hoses are long enough to reach the water-tanks fills on either side of the boat. The long hoses allow the rainwater to route into one or both tanks.

Cleat Surrogate

If you think you need to tie up to a short pontoon, you’ll have to rethink your usual arrangement of dock lines. You’ll have to lead the stern line forward—which is far from ideal—and take a short spring line from a midships cleat to the same dock cleat as the stern line. Use two bow lines, if possible, to keep yawning to a minimum. If your boat doesn’t have a midship cleat, resist the temptation to tie the spring to a stanchion or shroud except as a very temporary measure (and never let a boatbuilder see you tie a dockline to a stanchion). If you can, fasten a block or shackle to the toerail and make the springline fast to that.

Reef Untangler

We love our slab-reefing setup but constantly had problems with the reefing getting tangled up around the end of the boom. The solution was simple. We always carry a couple of spare battens inside the boom, and we discovered that leaving one poking out prevents this from happening.

Lasso the Buoy

In the course of our circumnavigation we’ve often encountered mooring buoys that don’t have pick up lines. We sail doublehanded, so these can be problematic, especially if it’s windy. Here’s how we deal with them. One of us stands near the bow with a long line that is lead outside the lifelines with one end secured to a bow cleat. We coil the line and divide the coil between both hands, with a bight of line hanging free between the hands. As the helmsman steers the boat slowly alongside the mooring buoy, the other throws the line neatly over it, effectively lassoing it with the bight. Keep hold of the unsecured end of the line, harden up on the line as much as possible, and then cleat it off. The boat will settle to the buoy, and you can rig another line through the eye on it at your leisure. You can always use this trick to snag a cleat when coming alongside a dock—for instance, if the wind is blowing the boat away from the dock and you don’t want to make a risky jump ashore.

River Anchorage

When anchoring in a river, take note of the prevailing and forecast wind directions. Will the wind at any time oppose the current? If it does, the boat will not lie well to its anchor. It might even sail around enough to pluck the hook out of the bottom. If at all possible, choose a section of the river where the prevailing wind is blowing across the current. The boat will tend to lie with its bow into the current and you’ll sleep more soundly.

Improve Off-wind Performance

If the wind comes forward of abeam, the genoa sheets’ lead will now be too far outboard. Ease the barber-hauler line and take up on the genoa sheet. This will pull the clew in to somewhere between the inboard and outboard positions, wherever the sail works best.

If the boat has a reaching strut, you can set it up on the leeward side of the mast and sheet the genoa through the jaw at the outboard end of the pole. This will get the jib clew farther outboard than the barber-hauler will, opening up the slot even more. Another alternative is to sheet the genoa to the end of the main boom. However you do it, getting the headsail’s sheet lead outboard will improve your off-wind performance.

How to Throw a Rope

You should be prepared to make contact with a MOB without special equipment: this means throwing a line as effectively as possible. Quickly form four or five small loops in your throwing hand. Then make four or five loops in your other hand; arrange the loops in the order on which they will leave your hand when the line is thrown. Throw the small bundle of loops first. They will pull the second group of loops from your stationary hand. A sideways throw can work well and improve accuracy.

Ease the Main

When maneuvering under mailsail alone, don’t expect your boat to sail properly upwind with the sheet trimmed in hard. You do this when flying a genoa to avoid backwinding the main, but without a headsail the main is cutting clean air. Close-hauled under main alone, it’s best to steer about 45 degrees of the true wind, then trim the main to the breeze as though you were reaching. The boat will end up pointing higher and sailing faster. It won’t be going sideways, either.

Headfoil Damper

Roller-furling extrusions tend to pump in high winds when the weight of the sail has been removed. Here is a wonderfully simple way to correct this problem. Make or buy a 2-foot length of luff tape with grommets on either end. With the genoa halyard at the top grommet and a line running from the bottom grommet to the base of the mast, insert the luff tape into the extrusion slot and raise it halfway up the headstay. Tension both lines as necessary. The first time we prepared for a hurricane we had to improvise a damper by tying a bowline in one end of a piece of line and clipping the halyard to it. We wrapped the line around the forestay once, and then twice more about 2 feet farther down. We raised the line about halfway up the headstay and then secured the halyard and the line. Our rig has never been as quiet as it was during that hurricane.

Wax your Bottom

We sail in the Pacific Northwest and use our inflatable dinghy year round. We had a real problem with marine growth on the dinghy’s bottom until we tried waxing it. We’ve found that waxing the bottom lets us keep the dinghy in the water for up to four weeks without problems. Then all we need to do is lift it out, wash it clean, and, after it dries, re-wax the bottom. I prefer to wax the bottom of my inflatable, in case I need to patch it, rather than paint it with anti-fouling. For longer-term wet storage, though, you might have to consider painting the bottom.

Beat the Blind Spots

I once saw a one-design racing sailboat sail directly into an anchored motorboat. The racer’s deck-sweeping genoa obscured the crew’s view of the powerboat until it was to late to avoid it. I’ve come close to taking out navigational marks for the same reason— they were hidden in the big blind spot created by my genoa. The solution to the problem is plain. If you’re on a racing boat, detail one of the crew to be the lookout. If you’re on a cruising boat, use a higher-clewed sail. There is another blind- spot to the windward when you’re close-hauled and steering from the leeward rail. Don’t forget to stick your head up every few minutes and have a look around.

Avoid Damage Aloft

One potential danger when sailboats lie alongside one another for a convivial night is that if they roll to a wash or begin to move in an unexpected sea, the spreaders can clash together and suffer catastrophic damage. Always look aloft when rafting up and make sure the masts are well out of line. Rafting bow to stern is a good way to prevent spars from clashing.

Who has the Right of Way?

A useful aide-memoire for crossing another vessel in daylight when both boats are under power–in a harbor, for example–is to ask yourself which sidelight you would be seeing if it were dark. If the answer is a red, or port, running light, you must take care and stay our of the other boat’s way. A green light would indicate that you are clear to go. So if you would see a green, or starboard, running light, you can continue carefully on your present course.

Chain Collar

If your anchor is hooked on an underwater cable or snagged under a rock, you may be able to free it with a chain collar. Loop a piece of chain about 12 inches long around the anchor rode and join the ends with a shackle. Harden up on the anchor cable until it’s vertical and then slide the chain collar down it on a length of line. The aim is to get it over the shank of the anchor and down near the crown. If you ease off the anchor cable and heave up and down on the collar line, you may be able to pull the anchor clear of the obstruction. If it proves stubborn, try pulling on the retrieval line from the dinghy as the boat settles back on the rode; the change in angle maybe all that’s needed to coax the anchor free.

Letting go the Sheet

Releasing a loaded-up sheet from a winch when a boat tacks can be just cause for nervousness. Sailors who have just moved up to big keelboats often underestimate the loads on a sheet. On a boat up to 40 feet or so, the safest way is to first ease off a few inches, keeping the flat of one hand pressed against the turns as they surge round the winch drum. Now take off a turn or two, always leaving a couple on the drum for safety, and wait for the sail to begin to lift at the luff. As soon as this happens, pull the turns positively upward off the drum, keeping your grip directly above the axis of the winch. The turns will whip off cleanly, they will never foul, and your hands will be safe.

Marking Chain

There are a number of ways to mark your anchor chain, including using paint or plastic-wire ties. I prefer to use strips of nylon spinnaker cloth.

First lay out the entire chain on the dock and flake it in even lengths. Choose a length that is appropriate to the depth of the waters you’ll be cruising in. I use 25-foot lengths. Then tie one of those easy to see pieces of cloth through the links that start each end of the designated length. I wrap the nylon strip through the link twice and tie it with an overhand knot.

We bought spinnaker-cloth tapes from our sailmaker in 2-inch wide rolls, in red, green and white. We cut the tapes into 30-inch lengths and marked each with a felt-tip marker to indicate the number of feet of chain that have been put out.

The colors let the foredeck crew know how much chain is going out even though they can’t see the actual numbers. I’ve tied green tapes on all the 25-foot marks (25, 75, 125, 175), red tapes on the 50-foot marks (50, 150, 250), and white tapes on the 100-foot marks (100, 200).

The colors are easy to see, the nylon cloth goes through the windlass easily, and the cloth last longer than paint.

Cut the Cheese

A line end that’s neatly done up into a Flemish coil, or “cheese,” looks very salty, especially on the gleaming cabintop of a classic boat, but it’s not a good way to treat a line that might have to be free in a hurry. Cheese lines are prone to kinking and need to be thoroughly shaken out before you get underway, or there’s a good chance they’ll snarl up just when you least want them to. Cheese lines are also great dirt traps, as you’ll find out if you’ve left one on your cabintop for a few days.

Stanchion Safety

When 200 pounds of force is applied to the top of a 30-inch stanchion, as much as 3 tons of pull can be exerted on the stanchion’s base. That is more than enough to rip poorly mounted bolts up through the deck. Make sure all stanchion bases have oversized metal backing plates (not just shoulder washers), and check all the bases periodically for distortion. If the base socket holds the stanchions in place with set screws, replace them with bolts that pass through the stanchion wall.

When a lifeline fails, the cause is usually corrosion. Although coated wire is popular for lifelines, the plastic that covers the wire can hide the corrosion. That is why 1 X 19 stainless-steel rigging wire is superior. If you’re still using coated wire, examine it carefully for the telltale brown stains that cast doubt on its reliability. Gate hardware is also susceptible to failure. If you eliminate it, your lifelines will be strengthened; the downside is that it might be harder to get onboard.

Lifelines must never become slack. If the turnbuckles have lock nuts, secure them with Loctite and replace the copper pins. Spread open the ends of the pins and then cover them with tape.

Sail Saver

If you have older Dacron sails, a good method of preserving them while improving their working ability is to treat them with a fabric spray (the type used for tents, shoes or furniture). Most likely you will see a difference right away. During rainy weather the sails will shed water better, keeping them lighter and better shaped, and that can really make a difference in your boat’s heavy-weather performance. The fabric treatment also makes the sailcloth more pliable and easier to flake and fold. It’s a cost-effective performance enhancement to lavish on your boat.

Signal Advantage

If you have an on-the-water emergency during the day, keep in mind that a mirror is a very effective signaling device. If the weather is clear and there is sunlight, the reflection from a mirror can be seen up to 100 miles away. While it does need sun, a mirror doesn’t depend on batteries, satellites, or the electronic watchkeeping of a potential rescuer. Reflecting sunlight into the eyes of a person on another boat or plane should get their attention. You could heliograph an SOS code, but simply keeping the beam on your target should quickly lead the person on the other end to conclude that the flash he is seeing is not a chance occurrence.
Specialized signal mirrors come with aiming devices, but any handheld mirror will work if you do the following: Hold two fingers in a “V” at arms length with your target inside it. Now hold the mirror against your cheek just below eye level and adjust the mirror angle so the reflected sunlight shines over your fingers. Turn the mirror so the sunlight plays back and forth across your fingers, and it will also move across the target inside the “V”. Keep at least two signaling mirrors on board. Put one in your ditch bag and the other on shelf near the companionway.

Anchoring: a Shorter Scope

It is well known that three times the depth of the water is a good starting point for determining the scope you need when anchoring with a chain. This rule is not cast in stone, however, and you might safely opt for less scope if space is tight, so long as your anchor seems well set, conditions are not extreme, and you will be aboard at high water. This can be particularly useful when swinging room is tight and the tide is due to fall during the night, because you know that your scope will increase for some hours before it begins to decrease once more. If your anchor is holding at bedtime, it should hang on until morning light.

To Flash or Not

Flashing white lights are far more noticeable than fixed ones and can be much brighter for the same average power drain. However, it’s dangerous and illegal to show anything that can be confused with a navigational aid, so flashing lights of any color mustn’t be used anywhere in coastal waters. The situation on the high seas, where there are no navigational aids, is not well defined. The International Rules state that the use of flashing lights for drawing attention to a vessel should be “avoided.” But if a vessel also carries the required lights, and if the flashing light does not interfere with them being seen or with the watchkeeper’s vision, their use isn’t actually prohibited. Unofficially, slow-flashing white strobes are used for various eye-catching purposes– on scientific and fishing drift buoys, for example. Masthead strobes are more likely to be noticed than ordinary navigational lights, and at a much greater range, so it’s understandable that singlehanders sometimes use them on the high seas, in addition to the regulation lights.Flashing white lights are far more noticeable than fixed ones and can be much brighter for the same average power drain. However, it’s dangerous and illegal to show anything that can be confused with a navigational aid, so flashing lights of any color mustn’t be used anywhere in coastal waters. The situation on the high seas, where there are no navigational aids, is not well defined. The International Rules state that the use of flashing lights for drawing attention to a vessel should be “avoided.” But if a vessel also carries the required lights, and if the flashing light does not interfere with them being seen or with the watchkeeper’s vision, their use isn’t actually prohibited. Unofficially, slow-flashing white strobes are used for various eye-catching purposes– on scientific and fishing drift buoys, for example. Masthead strobes are more likely to be noticed than ordinary navigational lights, and at a much greater range, so it’s understandable that singlehanders sometimes use them on the high seas, in addition to the regulation lights.

Quick Anchor Ranges

To make a quick check whether you got a good bite after dropping the hook, look for a simple range—say a piling on a dock and a tree on shore, or a flag pole and a nav aid—that is roughly parallel to the wind or current. It will be readily apparent if your boat is still on the move, long before it might otherwise become apparent on a chart plotter. Assuming your anchor does hold, you can also this as one of your three ranges after taking a fix before settling down for good.

Rig Your Galley for Heavy Weather

If you’re on passage and expecting a blow, it not enough to secure things on deck and shorten sail. You need to also prepare your galley. Specifically, set aside a few meals that will be both nourishing and easy to consume, so that you won’t have to go digging around in cupboards or the bottom of the fridge when the boat is thrashing about so that it feels like you’re inside a washing machine. In terms of menu, think dog bowl food–pre-made items that can be easily reheated (nothing beats a nice hot meal when you’re cold and wet!) and then eaten out of a single dish with a spoon.

Push Yourself a Little

All to many sailors fire up the auxiliary and head back to short as soon as the wind either dies or comes on stronger than they’re accustomed to—which is too bad. There’s nothing like battling through a calm or a bit of a blow for bolstering both your skills and your confidence. With that in mind, think about how your and boat would respond in more extreme conditions, give your boat a good going over to make sure it’s ready for a little more wind, in particular. And then the next time things get a little challenging, let things hand out a little. You might be surprised at how much fun you have.

Wash away a sticky track

Having trouble with a sticky mainsail luff track, but don’t have any fancy space-age lubricants to help the sail along its way. No worries, try a few drops of dish-washing liquid, applied the length of the groove, or along the sides of the slugs or under the cars. It will, of course, was off eventually. But as a short-term fix, it can’t be beat.

Reef Your Jib Leads

As you roll in some of a roller-furling jib to keep your boat on its feet during a blow, don’t forget to move the jib-lead car as well; otherwise, the increasingly horizontal force that it imparts on the sail will allow the upper part of the leech to curve, or “twist,” excessively off to leeward. Moving the lead forward will allow the sheet to continue pulling down on the sail as well as aft, controlling the amount of twist so that it will continue to parallel the amount of twist in the main and thereby provide maximum power and efficiency.

Boxing the Winch

To ensure you don’t lose any of those tiny bits and pieces when servicing a winch, cut out a hole from the bottom of an appropriately sized box and then slip said box over the winch, securing it snugly around the base before disassembly. This is a good idea not just if your boat is in the water, but on the hard as well. It’s amazing how cleverly a pawl or some other tiny but oh-so-vital part can get itself lost among the general detritus of a typical boatyard.

Dead Downwind is Slow

Racing sailors rarely if ever sail dead downwind, and neither should you, especially in light air. Not only will hardening up onto a broad reach and then zig-zagging downwind get you to your destination faster, the sailing itself will be more enjoyable as you harness the power of apparent wind to increase your speed through the water. Don’t worry about “maximizing VMGs” or anything overly technical like that. Just harden up until the boat accelerates enough to create a pleasantly gurgling bow wave. Then as the angle to your ultimate destination approaches what you believe will your gybing angle on the opposite tack (or as you run out of sea room!) put the helm down. As you are doing so, don’t forget to take a look back at the other boats that sailed a straight-line course and are now well astern gazing longingly at your transom!

Let Your Sails Breathe!

In light air, all too many sailors over trim their sails in an effort to eke out that last bit of power, a mistake that is exacerbated by the fact that taught sheets can create the illusion of lift. The correct approach, however, is to ease your sails out a bit to ensure there is nice, smooth, laminar flow over both the windward and leeward surfaces. Otherwise, the air flow will detach from the leeward side, causing speed-robbing turbulence. When in doubt, let ’em out! Your sails need to breathe!

Shroud Telltales

There’s nothing like a few inches of yarn tied or taped to each shroud, say, seven feet above the deck, for keeping the person at the wheel in touch with what the wind is up to. In this day of electronic gadgets, it seems more and more sailors are forgoing installing these kinds of tried and true telltales, relying instead on their instruments to show them their apparent wind angles. But remember, sailing is about far more than just numbers. It’s about integrating a variety of different sensory input, and when it comes to apparent wind angle, there’s nothing like seeing the actual wind direction relative to your rig to give you an idea of how you and your boat are doing.

What Lies Beneath

When maneuvering under power or sailing at slow speed, don’t forget that the current can be just as important as your heading and the wind direction. When aiming for a mooring, threading your way through a patch of fishing buoys or conning a well-marked channel, be sure to check to see if any of these fixed objects is leaving a “wake”—a sure sign the water in which they are sitting is on the move. If so, be aware that going “upstream” of this point may be a course fraught with hazard. Also, be sure to have an escape route in mind in the event you find at the last minute that clearing it won’t be possible.

A Preventative Reef

There’s an old adage that says as soon as you start thinking about possibly reefing, it’s time to reef. But why wait even that long, especially when sailing with newbies? If things are looking at all puffy, why not throw in a reef at the same time you’re hoisting your main, as opposed to waiting until that first knockdown? Doing so is simplicity itself, and if those possible puffs never materialize, shaking it back out again will be just as easy. Remember, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with starting slow. Although the sounds or slatting Dacron and water rushing by may be music to your ears, they can be downright terrifying to someone who has never been sailing before. A preventative reef early on could very well mean the difference between your guests never, ever going out with you again or becoming a regular part of the crew.

The Second Time’s a Charm when Docking

There’s no law that says you have to make a dock on your first try, so if things start to look dicey, don’t hesitate to bail out and get yourself all lined up again and then start afresh. Marinas can be funny places, with odd wind shifts and quirky currents, thanks to the presence of the nearby shoreline and surrounding obstructions. Using the insights you’ve gained on your initial attempt can be especially helpful when conning your way into a new slip or dock for the first time. Whatever you do, don’t take a “damn the torpedoes” approach and try to jam yourself in no matter what. Although there’s no shame in a do-over, there will inevitably be plenty of shame to go around in the event things should go truly haywire!

Help out your Trimmers

Grinding in a big, overlapping headsail can be a real, well, grind—especially when short-tacking up a channel in heavy air. To help out your trimmers as they are getting in those last few inches of genoa sheet after coming around onto a new tack, try feathering up a few degrees to take some of the pressure off. Don’t alter course so much that you go back into irons or lose your headway completely. Just point the bow up enough to put a little backwind in the jib. Your crew will thank you for it, and you won’t has to listen to a bunch of mutinous grumbling next time you make the call of “ready about!”

A Hatch Headache Preventer

The sliding Plexiglas hatches over the companionways on some boats can truly be the bane of a sailor’s existence. Who among us hasn’t banged their head rushing topside without checking first to make sure the way was clear? To give you and your guests fair warning that they need to slide a hatch out of the way before going out into the cockpit, try tying a short length of line with a stopper knot in the end of it to the latch fitting at the end. That way, even if you have a cap on obstructing your vision upward, there will be an indicator right in front of your face as you start making your way up the companionway steps, warning you to beware.

Your Fellow Wind Indicators

When it comes to reading the wind close inshore, there are typically any number of indicators to choose from, including flags, smokestacks and waving tree limbs. Farther out, though, one of the best ways of seeing what the breeze is up to is to use the old racing trick of watching your “competitors.” Are the sails on the boats in a bight of land a quarter mile away all hanging limp? Probably best not to go there if you have any interest in going anywhere fast. Similarly, if you’re just drifting, but the boats to windward a half-mile off have started healing dramatically and are clearly sailing on their ear, better be alert and maybe even think about putting in a reef.

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Heave-Ho

Heaving-to in bad weather offshore is something we all read about, but many of us will never do. Since it is such an easy maneuver it seems foolish not to practice in good conditions when nothing will get broken. Simply tack without releasing the jib, and keep the mainsail sheeted. Then put the tiller back over (as if to tack back again) and find the sweet spot that enables the boat to just forereach (crab to windward) with the jib backed. If the wind is up, reefing the main before the maneuver, or easing it slightly, might help. Heaving-to can be a restful point of sail offshore, useful when meals are served, some maintenance issue needs to be resolved, or you just need a rest. Practice makes perfect and knowing how your boat will behave in different situations is always beneficial.

Make it a double

Paint and varnish WILL spill at some point. A large plastic coffee can (empty of course) makes a perfect “holder” for the can or plastic container that is filled with paint. The double can contains any drips, is less prone to tipping over, and also provides a handy place to set down your brush. Plus, if you need to do so, a couple of holes poked in each side of the larger can and a string or coat hanger will allow for hanging off a ladder or rail. Purists might want to find a couple of them and use one for varnish and one for paint, but that is getting picky.

Blade prep

If you don’t carry a knife at all times, you are probably not alone. But you should have one handy in areas where something bad might happen. Stash one securely in the cockpit (somewhere it won’t affect the compass). And tape a sheath knife to the mast or the vang in an unobtrusive place, ready for action. The precious few seconds you save from searching for a blade may make a big difference in the outcome of a crisis.

Get your head out of the boat

We all have our own way of navigating, and no single way is always the best (despite some arguments). With today’s proliferation of electronic gizmos, handheld devices, displays, and autopilots, sometimes it is easy to forget that one’s eyes (and brain) are the best tools on board. And, using multiple sources of data, even from your eyes, is better than just relying on the screen to do the navigating. So, as often as possible, take a survey of the water, mentally checking off the landmarks and navigation aids, and then compare with the chart to see if it all makes sense. A quick look at the depth sounder completes the process. A paper chart is much easier for this purpose than a display screen, as you get a much fuller context of your sailing area. Plus, you can easily check ranges (two buoys or land objects lining up) and see what is coming up on your path without having to zoom out.

Tender Towing

So your engine has failed and there’s not enough wind to sail. Your mooring is in sight, there’s no immediate danger, and you would rather not call for assistance. What now? The solution could be right behind you, if you’re towing your dinghy. Even a 2hp outboard can get a 10,000lb sailboat moving at 2 to 3 knots in flat water. Secure the dinghy alongside the boat’s aft quarter; you’ll need to rig bow, stern and spring lines, and find places on the dinghy to make these fast. Gradually give the outboard more throttle to get the boat moving; once it has some way on, it is quite easy to maintain it. Leave the mainsail up so you’ll be ready in case the wind comes up. You’ll need to judge your approach to the mooring carefully, because it’s hard to slow down by reversing the outboard.

Oil’s Well

On smaller boats—and on some bigger ones—changing the oil and filter can be a nightmare scenario. Sailboat engines are typically shoehorned into their bays and access to service points is seldom as good as it should be. I’ve found the best way to change oil is to run the engine till it’s warmed up, then use a hand-operated vacuum pump with its pickup tube inserted into the dipstick hole. You can get these from any marine store. Changing the filter can be a chore too, depending on how hard it is to reach. Even if you’ve just hand-tightened the filter as recommended, it can be devilishly difficult to loosen it, and often you can’t get a decent grip with a filter wrench. In that case, a large hose clamp tightened around the filter barrel will give the wrench something to bite on. Do not ever succumb to frustration and stick a screwdriver into the filter and attempt to use it as a lever—it won’t work, and you’ll make a hell of mess. Don ‘t ask how I know this. Which leads to another tip—a disposable diaper spread out beneath the filter makes a great oil catcher.

Cleaning au Naturel

Forget expensive and toxic cleaning products. If you have a jug of white vinegar and a box of baking soda on board, you’re covered for most scenarios. A paste of baking power and water will get rust off stainless steel and mildew off fiberglass and other non-porous surfaces. Just scrub and rinse. A 50:50 vinegar/water mix will clean varnished wood and fiberglass, and raw vinegar cuts through grime and is great for wiping down work surfaces. The smell quickly dissipates. Close the heads and galley sink drain seacocks and pour baking powder down them to clean and deodorize.

Heads Up

It doesn’t matter how scrupulous you are about keeping your heads compartment clean if you leave your intake hose and toilet bowl filled with seawater when you leave the boat. Microorganisms in the seawater will die and give off that nasty rotten-eggs hydrogen sulfide odor. If you first pump through plenty of salt water to make sure no waste is left trapped in the hose run, flushing a quart or two of freshwater through the toilet will take care of the toilet bowl and outlet hose,but what of the intake hose? “Headmistress” Peggy Hall suggests connecting the heads intake hose to the sink drain hose (if close enough) via T-fittings just upstream of the respective seacocks; before you leave the boat for more than a day or two, close both seacocks and then pump a sink full of freshwater through the toilet, which will rinse everything out. If you do this every time you leave the boat for more than a couple of days, you can kiss goodbye to stinky heads.

Rinse and Go

As turning blocks age their sheaves can become reluctant to spin freely. Sometimes this is due to wear, especially on plain-bearing blocks, but more often it’s due to buildups of dirt and salt clogging up the workings. These can harden to the extent that the usual perfunctory freshwater hose-down won’t shift them. Gently pour boiling water over the offending block. The heat should dissolve the salt build-up in no time.

Why Sailors should Motor

It’s a point of pride among many sailors to use their auxiliary engines as little as possible, maybe just to get on and off the mooring. The problem here is that your diesel scarcely has a chance to warm up, and diesels don’t like such treatment. Fuel doesn’t combust properly and you end up with carbon buildups in the combustion chambers and exhaust system. A couple of times a season, take your boat out under power and run it hard—about 80% of maximum RPM—for an hour or so to clean your engine out. It will be grateful.

Poling Out a Headsail

Here’s a fuss-free way to pole your headsail out to windward. Set your whisker pole up with a downhaul, topping lift and afterguy. Roll up the headsail and lead the weather sheet through the jaws of the pole; do not clip the pole through the sail’s clew ring. Secure the pole into position by tensioning its three lines, then unroll the headsail and harden up on the sheet. If it is blowing hard, leave a couple of rolls in the genoa so that it sets nice and flat.

Too much leeway?

When you’re under sail, your boat will not be traveling a straight line through the water but will drift slightly to leeward. The amount of “leeway” a sailboat makes is dependent on many factors—wind strength, hull shape, and current— but usually is not much less than 5 degrees if you are sailing hard on the wind. If you aim 5 to 10 degrees upwind of your destination, you won’t go far wrong.

Knotty problem

When you have to make a docking line fast to a ring or bollard, a round turn and two half hitches is better than a bowline. Why? Because you can untie the round turn and two half hitches when the line is under load; try that with a bowline and you’ll soon be reaching for a knife. As a fringe benefit, the round turn also resists chafe.

Rode Markers

Plastic cable ties are available in many colors and can be used to mark your anchor chain and/or rope so you know how much rode you are paying out: one tie at 20 feet, two at 40 feet, or whatever interval works for you. By all means color-code the ties, but leave the tails long so you can feel them in the dark. Thin ties go through a windlass easily.

Spring Time

Single-handed docking is greatly simplified if you use a midships spring line with a loop on its end. Make the spring line fast just abaft the boat’s pivot point; then as you slowly come alongside the dock, drop the loop over a dock cleat. If you leave the engine ticking over in forward gear, the boat will lie quietly alongside while you rig your other lines.

Hanging Around

Believe it or not, one of the most useful items you can keep on your cruiser is a metal coathanger. Cut and straightened, it can be used to unblock a hose, snake an electrical wire through inaccessible parts of a boat, hook lost objects out of a bilge, and catch a loose halyard that swings just out of reach. Oh, and it will keep your coat nicely crease-free!

String Theory

If you thought there already was too much “string” on your boat, think again. Keep a small bag full of odd lengths of 3/16in or 1/4in line—up to 6ft long—somewhere where you can find it in a hurry. You’ll be surprised how many uses you’ll find for short pieces of light line. There’s always something that needs to be lashed down or held up.

Hatch Love

Salt and grime can make your acrylic hatches and portlights look dull so make sure you wash them down with soap and water often. Don’t use glass cleaners like Windex, as they contain abrasives. Faded Lexan (polycarbonate) hatches can be at least partially restored with a gentle car wax compound and a buffer, or a proprietary product like Aurora’s Clear View.

Prop Paint

You don’t want barnacles or slime affecting your propeller’s efficiency, but it’s notoriously difficult to make antifouling paint stick to your prop. Here’s how: rough up the metal with some 80 grit sandpaper, then apply a couple of coats of zinc chromate primer. Then brush on your choice of bottom paint. The primer will adhere to the metal, the paint will adhere to the primer, and the barnacles won’t adhere to the paint.