Inside Practical Sailor

Our upcoming report on lifelines, stanchions, and stanchion bases brought to mind several past articles we've run on stainless steel failures. Although high-quality stainless can provide years of reliable service, sailors need to be aware of its limitations. Owners of used boats with hardware of an unknown age should be particularly scrupulous when carrying out routine inspection of stainless-steel rigging and hardware.

When making gelcoat repairs, the Preval Sprayer combines the best of the Badger 250 and the paint brush. It's quick to set up and clean, and provides adequate coverage in a single application. Best of all, it's available in auto supply and hardware stores for just $7, so when you are done with it, you can just throw it away.

Taste is as fickle as doldrum winds, and taste in sailboats are no exception. Ten years ago we explored the world of luxury daysailors,...

Let’s take away all the boats. Not the ships engaged in essential commerce, not the barges hauling goods, not the net boats catching fish....

It's nearly impossible to anticipate and prepare for every possible on-board medical emergency, but with a little bit of creative thinking, these everyday objects commonly found on most boats can be used to stop bleeding, sterilize wounds, or stabilize fractures.

While spring usually heralds the start of boating season for most of us, for others it means facing up to long-postponed projects. If you own an older boat, that project probably might be removing the years of antifouling paint that have built up on the bottom. In this blog post you'll find links to a number of useful articles to help guide you through this process.

COVID-19 has made it harder to find a clean toilet these days. This is a tiny inconvenience compared to virus's terrible impacts in the...

COVID-19 has made it harder to find a clean toilet these days. If only you could bring a sanitary bathroom with you. Maybe you have...

A respirator can't protect you if it doesn't fit your face. Its that simple. Anything that prevents a good seal-whether facial hair or a hollow under the side of your jaw-is unacceptable. In a workplace this fit test will be performed in a very rigid manner by a trained technician. However, for the sailor/occasional boat yard worker, we offer this shortcut procedure that is far better than nothing.

So, a couple of years back, you acquired a good old boat at a pretty good price-thanks to the market-but now youre wondering how many coats of bottom paint it has. And what kind? Youve put on a few coats of ablative antifouling since youve owned the boat. It has adhered well and has done its job. But each year, the bottom looks rougher and rougher-with big recesses where paint has flaked off. You sweated out some extra prep-work this season, and thought you had a nice, durable subsurface for painting, but each pass of the roller pulls up more paint. Whats going on here?