Search results

My advice is, whatever size windlass you think you need, go up one size. Of course, that's the same advice I give on anchors and the rest of a ground tackle system. If you are doing serious cruising, there may be a time when that oversized ground tackle will be what gets you through a very...

Nothing wrong with that, since most have manual backup in any case.

And that's exactly what you are: prepared for what comes your way. I've never been ashamed of that when it comes to getting my boat ready for cruising. Back in the mid-1970s, when my wife and I and several of our friends first lived on boats, we used to say "when the revolution comes, we are...

I was too busy hand-sewing a torn genoa together at the time to pay the much attention to the water in the head.

Effectively. Failure to zoom in on the electronic chart.

That would be Neptune, in my book. He got a bit of Mt. Gay from our boat, just N of the Galapagos.

This^ Can't reiterate enough how critical the gooseneck is, including the pin connecting it to the mast. It may be worth carrying a spare pin, depending on the configuration of your gooseneck. If it is a loose fit, everything is going to wear, constantly. Even with a good fit, the...

It's the dry start-ups that help shorten their lives. I have an electric pre-luber pump on my current 7.2 litre  diesel. It pumps sump oil up into the engine for about 30 seconds before starting.  The only thing really wrong with the Perkins is that like most English engines, it never learned...

If my sailboat flew, I would probably do that.  I have a powerboat that depends on a 420 horsepower diesel to get me from point A to point B. I do check the coolant level, oil level, and alternator belts on a daily basis when on the move. I got even more religious about that a couple of years...

Flying and sailing have a lot in common, but aircraft ownership is a different animal. You don't normally invite your friends over to sit around in the cockpit of your airplane and have a drink. And you don't have a beer while flying.

Offshore cruising is not a zero-sum game, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the cruising boat choice dilemma. If you get to the end of your intended voyage with both the boat and crew intact, you had a boat that did the job for you. Bottom line, that's all you can ask.

This, too. ^

This ^

I didn't always appreciate every skill I learned from my dad just by watching him do it. When he was gone, however, I still had those lessons to fall back on, even if I had forgotten where I learned them. He would take me into his woodshop to watch from the time I was a small child, including...

In deep water, the bigger the waves get, the further apart the crests are, but generally speaking, the waves are always moving faster than any boat I've ever sailed on offshore, even if you are running with them. My experience is that the bigger the boat, the more comfortable she will be in a...

Most experienced, competent, and rational  offshore cruisers choose and equip their boats for far more serious conditions than they hope to ever encounter. They try to cross oceans at the best times of year, and pay attention to the weather before departure and during their passages to minimize...

I'm not sure anyone is or should be using the typical  flat-out IOR race boat as an example of anything good when it comes to sailing qualities or seaworthy designs.

That would depend on who you ask, on any particular day. I once thought I knew a lot more than I probably do. Ironically, thinking you know a lot can get you started in the direction to understand how much more there is to learn. I take some things as truths, others as guidelines, some as...

Never bothered, actually. But I do know how to build my own boat, and sail it around the world. That's a pretty decent start on "knowing something" when it comes to sailing.

Like virtually every sailing-related book, you have to put it in the context of its time. Not many of them hold up if you view them as textbooks of absolutes. You have a lot of classic sailing reading in that book case. I see at least one book there that I wrote a lot of.