Harold Simpson of Dallas, Texas, asks:”I was replacing the solar fan mounted in the front hatch of my 1987 Hunter 23, and when I removed the hinge screws, I found clear water in the screw holes in the cabintop. I also recently developed a leak in the cabin roof, which appears to be coming through the mounting screws of a block on the port side of the mast. The water is
Elroy Schwartz of New Orleans, Louisiana, asks: “When I was learning to sail I was taught when reefing a mainsail (with slab reefing, that is) to first tighten up the reef line securing the clew and then take full tension on the halyard to tighten the luff and tack. When I reef this way on my current boat, which I bought used a couple of years ago, the foot of the sail gets
Doug Nicholson of Seattle, Washington, asks:”My 5-year-old, 37-foot sailboat has mild steel keel bolts, nuts, washers and channel spacers securing a cast iron keel. The bolts, nuts, etc. are all quite rusted. The shallow bilge has not been kept dry, and theyve been sitting in water for some time. How worried should I be? My surveyor suggested I just knock off all the
Ron Samuelson of South San Francisco, California, asks:”When the crane crew at my yard began lifting my keel-stepped mast out of my boat, the man below- deck hastily took a pocketknife and cut all the wiring free. Now the mast is back in place, and I have about a dozen loose wires going nowhere. Can they be spliced back together, or must the mast be
Frank Hague of Jersey City, New Jersey, asks:”I repowered my boat last year with a new Westerbeke engine that came with a 100-amp alternator with an external regulator. I also have a solar array and an Air Breeze wind turbine feeding juice to my house batteries. When the house batteries are full and I am feeding them power from the alternator, my tach needle will suddenly
Lee Andrews of East Hampton, New York, asks: “Ive had electrolysis issues on my Tartan 3800, so Ive installed a galvanic isolator, I deploy a zinc grouper whenever Im in a slip, and I use shore power only when I have to. When I hauled out last fall I could see my shaft zincs were far less corroded than in previous years, but paint continues to pop off my lead keel in
Hal Garner of Fort Myers, Florida, asks: “My mast doesn’t have sheaves for a spinnaker halyard, so I fly my asymmetric spinnaker on my second genoa halyard. I also bend the sail’s tack onto a line that runs down through a block directly behind the forestay to a winch in the cockpit. When tacking the boat, I handle the spinnaker the same way I would a genoa. However I’ve
Steve Hiss of North Kingston, Rhode Island, asks:”Ive installed a rebuilt M3-20 Universal diesel on my 29-foot Ericson, and Im wondering whether the new three-blade prop, which looks a bit too big, is correctly sized. When I put the engine in gear just above idle speed the boat moves forward quietly, but any increase in rpm produces a pulsing vibration under the back of
Ralph Manies of Seattle, Washington, asks: “Weve installed a new ICOM-802 single-sideband radio and now we want to test its DSC (digital selective calling) features. Whats the best way to do this?”Gordon West replies:First enter your MMSI number into the units memory and then hook up the second receive antenna to the DSC antenna
Bob Foster of Sarasota, Florida, asks:”Last week, while my wife and I were cruising, our windlass motor suddenly stopped when I began to pull up the anchor. At almost the same moment, my wife shouted that she saw smoke coming from underneath the nav station. When we got home our local marine electronics technician told me that some of my electronic gear had been damaged as
There are a number of different terms for the motions and rotations you may encounter on the water, like pitch and heave. If you were
Rowing dinghies provide exercise, connection with the water,
and camaraderie — and they always start on the first pull.
And with that, another summer season is in our wake. We hope you get out on the water for the long weekend and have a
Biotherm remains dominant, making the best of an early morning transition zone.
Groupe Beneteau teams with industry partners to get closer to a circular economy in boatbuilding.
A new builder with composite expertise drops a cool carbon cat.
AI seems to be everywhere these days, but it’s not quite ready for world domination.
A ship that can point higher than the rest of the fleet easily creates windward-leeward separation between itself and its compatriots; so it’s no surprise
Holcim-PRB has been awarded redress for the collision with Allagrande Mapei Racing at the beginning of Leg 1 of The Ocean Race Europe.
On this day in 1851, the schooner America won the 100 Guinea Cup, which would then be renamed the “America’s Cup” in her honor. American
