Know-How

Smart Plan

by Sail Staff, Posted June 24, 2008

MAKE A PLANNING SPREADSHEETI use Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for my planning documents, and I use four different worksheets. The main sheet covers a full year of sailing (I know, that sounds llke a lot of planning but I have found that it is very helpful to me) while the other sheets detail my plans for a long trip in the spring, plus shorter weekend trips and another long trip

Winter Battery Maintenance

by Peter Nielsen, Posted January 27, 2010

A few years ago, I left my boat’s two lead-acid batteries on board over winter. It wasn’t intentional—an early snowfall led me to cover the boat up sooner than anticipated, and I just never got around to taking the batteries off.After three months of freezing New England winter, I suddenly remembered they were still on board. I snuck down to the yard one mild Saturday and hooked the

Make that RIB Sparkle!

by Adam Cort, Posted August 23, 2012

Give your poor abused RIB the makeover it deserves with the environmentally friendly RIB Clean & Shine Kit from Ensearch.

Genoa Gybe

by Tom Cunliffe, Posted August 21, 2008

A sailor quickly learns the right way to gybe a mainsail: Trim the mainsheet carefully, and always keep the boom and sail under full control. But in all the moving around, the headsail, often a genoa, tends to be forgotten. Unless you have a crew of eager sailors in search of a permanent job, that's usually a good course of action. Do nothing with the headsail until the mainsail has been

Electric Horses

by Nigel Calder, Posted March 10, 2011

This past summer I tested the latest generation of electric outboard motors from Torqeedo. These are much more efficient than traditional electric outboards, but with this advance comes a quantum leap in sophistication and electronic complexity.I find it intriguing that these outboards have been designed by landlubbers. One of the owners of Torqeedo, Dr. Christoph Balin, bought a house on

Power on the Move

by Adam Cort, Posted July 10, 2012

After proving itself in a number of offshore races, including last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre, the Watt&Sea hydrogenerator is now available in a cruising version.