Sailboat Cruising

Racing or cruising, Mexico’s Bahía de Banderas is drawing in more and more of the West Coast actionBahía de Banderas is a foulies-free environment. That’s almost enough to know, and I walked off the plane without a plan. If I had a plan, something could go wrong. But I was on pilgrimage, sure enough. This sunny bight on mainland Mexico is emerging as the

You’re sailing off the coast of Haiti and come across a wrecked boat with people on board. Do you think “pirates” or “rescue”?By Jan HeinOne night, at a gathering in the cockpit of a friend’s boat, someone posed a question: “If you came across a small fishing boat miles offshore and the people on board needed water, would you give it to them?” Compassion vied with

Even if you aren’t going offshore, you should carry a ditch bag that you can grab quickly in case there’s a problem. Ours is the kind used by sea kayakers to keep their gear dry, and we store it underneath the dodger when we’re sailing so we can check the bag’s contents and test the handheld VHF. A quick-release buckle that wraps around a grabrail on the cabintop holds one end of the bag. A

Making up the tail end of a halyard or furling line in a standard coil almost always guarantees a foul-up if you need to free the line in a hurry. Certainly you will waste valuable time untangling the coil and making sure it is free to run. By making a long coil and then wrapping the top of the coil over a lifeline or grabrail before tucking it back through itself, you’ll make sure the line stays

Discovering that your fridge isn’t cooling things down properly and that only the bags of ice cubes you brought with you are keeping the box from becoming really mushy is a downer. When this happened to a friend of mine, he asked a refrigeration technician to take a look. With no time to make a permanent repair, the technician poured several glasses of warm water over the unit’s expansion valve

Finding a place to put a winch handle so it is secure but can be reached quickly when it’s needed is always a challenge. Winch pockets are good solutions, but they can crack, and many of them need to be screwed on or mounted with hardware. Those are some of the reasons why some racing crews are using Velcro to hold their winches in place.Here’s how it works. First, decide where the

Motoring at an “optimum” RPM might not always produce the greatest benefitBy STEVEN J. HENKIND and MICHAEL RYANMost sailors understand that by paying attention to sail trim, they can make their boats go faster under sail. But many sailors don’t realize that by paying attention to engine RPM, they can make their boats go farther under power. Because the engine is an

Reaching under a spinnaker in a good breeze calls for good teamwork between the helmsman and spinnaker trimmer. When you are close-reaching under spinnaker, keep the following in mind: • Keep a balanced helm; excessive weather helm is a sign the boat may be about to round up. • Watch for changes in wind strength; to maintain a consistent boatspeed, always

In sailing there are always old lessons to be learned (or relearned) and conventional wisdom to be challenged. When I took my 57-footer offshore from Mystic, Connecticut, to Miami, Florida, I learned again that following a cold front is not always a great idea. While a forecast may be upbeat and indicate improving conditions, cold fronts—particularly those that occur when the seasons are

Many boatowners, racers and cruisers alike, have upgraded their genoa cars so they can be adjusted while under load. These systems are great for achieving proper sail trim, but sometimes the genoa cars end up high enough above the deck that the sheet lead to the winch drum is on a downward slope. This creates an inherent tendency for the sheet to override itself on the winch.To avoid