Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a proponent of the KISS principal when it comes to cruising boats – keeping it simple. A few years ago I wrote about the benefits of this policy when it comes to heavy weather sailing: On a small boat in really heavy weather the only thing …
From the steering oars employed by the earliest sailing vessels rudders have evolved into the centrally mounted foils we see today. On a production boat you don’t usually have the option of specifying the rudder configuration – you get what you’re given – but the design of the rudder will certainly affect the suitability of …
Two months from now an intrepid group of men and women in sailboats, rowing boats and kayaks will set off on the 750 mile Race to Alaska which runs from Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, to Ketchikan, Alaska via a stop at Port Townsend, BC. The race is open to any boat that has no …
As I’ve said earlier, a major difference between weekend sailing and setting off to cruise the wide blue yonder is the requirement for self sufficiency. You’ll need to look at your systems and gear in a different light when faced with a lack of ready access to shore side facilities. In particular you’ll need to …
The piece of the Lancaster Canal that runs north from bridge 75 to the Glasson Branch has a particular flavour. The countryside is beautiful in the conventional sense but there’s something about the light that casts a special tenor on the place. When the sun radiates from a cloudless deep blue sky and the air …
There’s a new generation of fixed DSC/VHF radios incorporating an AIS receiver that are seriously worth considering. The clever bit is that they combine excellent radio performance and AIS receiver functions in the same compact unit. An internal splitter shares the radio and AIS reception from a single VHF antenna. The not quite so clever …
If you regularly anchor you need to handle chain and if you handle chain you need an efficient anchor winch. You can choose to crank it by hand or have it driven by an electric motor, it can be capable of handling just chain or both rope and chain and it can be a capstan …
I like an anchor light that hangs just above head height, either in the fore-triangle or over the cockpit. A light lower down like this illuminates some of the boats superstructure and is more likely to be seen by boats moving into the anchorage than is a masthead light. I don’t really care if my …
There is a bewildering array of sealants available at your chandlers for jobs requiring a watertight seal or bond between surfaces. Attaching deck hardware, repairing the inflatable dinghy, making a hull to deck seal, fitting portlights or sealing through-hulls and seacocks all require sealants with special qualities. Here’s a brief run through of what’s available …
If you have a top class radio and a top class antenna you’ll want the right type of cable in between or you won’t get the maximum performance from them – simple as that. For a cruising boat, selecting the right coax is as important as selecting the right anchor chain, so let us begin: …