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Ask SAIL: VHF Portables on Land

VHF PORTABLES ON LAND Q: Our dockmaster tells me that portable marine VHF radios are now permitted for use on land. Does this mean I

Ask Sail: Stove Troubles

STOVE TROUBLES Q: I have a Broadwater two-burner propane stove with an oven and broiler. It’s from 2003 but still looks new. When I acquired

Ask SAIL: A Crack in the Keel

Q: I am the owner of a 1985 Cal 22 sailboat that is moored during the season in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The boat is in

Ask SAIL: Ready About!

Q: Is it common that transmitting on marine single sideband will cause an automatic pilot to abruptly change course?This could be dangerous for those on

Ask SAIL: Walking the Prop Walk

Q: I have an old 35ft, full-keel CCA-era sloop, and I love everything about it save one thing: the serious prop walk whenever I try

Ask SAIL: Smoking Diesel Engine

SMOKING DIESEL Q: I have noticed black smoke from my diesel under high rpm, over 2,000, and suspect unburned fuel to be the cause. I

Ask SAIL: Better Radar, Less Power

Q: My new television is ultra-high definition, and I now see at boat shows that marine radars also offer UHD options, with dramatically fewer transmit

Ask SAIL: What’s with Those Rings?

WHAT’S WITH THOSE RINGS? Q: I’ve been seeing a bunch of boats at boat shows where each jib sheet passes through an aluminum ring, which

Ask SAIL: Holding Tank Blockage

HOLDING TANK BLOCKAGE Q: I recently purchased a 34ft cruising boat that has been sitting unused for a couple of years. Everything is great except

Ask SAIL: Where Should Telltales Go?

Q: My crew and I have been debating the location of telltales on our boat, a 30-footer we race only casually. We’ve already got telltales

Boat under shrinkwrap

Selecting a Marine Pro

Note: This story is excerpted from SAIL Contributing Editor Christopher Birch’s upcoming book The Four Seasons of Boat Maintenance—a compendium of lessons learned during his

Squalls at night are no joke, but good preparation will get you through safely. Photo courtesy of Andy Schell

Storms & Sea Stories

The wind built faster than it was forecasted to. We ate dinner with full sail, close-reaching on a building SSW’ly breeze. Before dark we had

Photo: Lisa Smith Molinari

A Charter Passage Rewritten

Sailing on a schedule is famously a recipe for disaster, but on charter you don’t have much of a choice. The adventure is what you make of it. 

Photo: Zuzana Prochazka

Tahiti Revisited

After a long absence, one sailor finds herself sailing the waters of her youth and contemplating years of change in all its forms.

C1_SAIL_0526_Final-01-may-2026

May Issue Preview

Spring is in the air and warmer weather is right around the corner. Get ready for the season with SAIL’s adventure issue! Through the Eyes

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