Sailing is all about pulling and securing strings. For infrequent securing, a horn cleat works fine. Others are constantly tweaked and require something more responsive. Cam cleats have become the go-to tool when we need easy adjustment or instant release. But for the cam cleat to work as intended, an often overlooked component comes into the picture—the fairlead. Before you replace or add new cam cleats, consider the following fairlead options
Sails, Rigging & Deck Gear
On the 4th of September 2015, Andrew Ashman was killed during an accidental jibe, when the boom delivered a fatal injury to the base of his neck. The boat, CV21 Ichor Coal, had been running in strong conditions, and yawing allowed the wind to get on the wrong side of the mainsail,...
Belowdecks & Amenities
No one really wants just practical gifts, so we’ve tried to locate a few items that go beyond pure utility for this holiday season.
Safety & Seamanship
Recent fatalities involving racing sailors raised a long-simmering concern we’ve had regarding the harness and tether design, and the shortcomings of current design when used aboard boats that cruise at double-digit speeds. Although these harness and tethers might keep a...
by Darrell Nicholson on December 12, 2018
Practical Sailor’s search for longer lasting prop paints has led us down many rabbit holes, we've experimented with several different prop paints with varying degrees of success, although none of the results so far have been dazzling. Some of our testers have had better success with dedicated “slick” prop paints such as PropSpeed. In our testing, however, mostly in Chesapeake Bay, no prop paint had lived up to our increasingly faint hope that the paint repel growth as effectively as our hull paint.
19%
12%
60%
9%
