Inside Practical Sailor

This week I had the opportunity to poke around a ketch-rigged Pearson 424 that was for sale in the neighborhood and I was reminded of the many advantages of the ketch design. The Pearson 424 is an example of several decades-old designs that were offered in a variety of rigs, giving owners an opportunity to compare the sail plans.

When it comes to comparing the fuel treatment products on the market-whether its for gasoline or diesel- consumers are effectively left in the dark. Our own testing with both gasoline and diesel treatments indicate that limited use of the most popular brand name products will not cause any harm, but how much good the additives actually do is tougher to measure.

One topic often overlooked in any anchor discussion is shaft strength. Yet, as anyone who has spent any time around boats knows, bent anchor shafts are hardly rare. Sure, sometimes the anchor gets wedged into a crevice where bending might be excused, but were hearing about more and more anchors bending under what would be considered normal use.In the upcoming April issue of Practical Sailor, contributor Jonathan Neeves explores this topic in great detail. In his view, the reasons behind bent shafts are many.

Depending on the size of your fuel tanks, having a professional clean your tank and dispose of the dirty fuel can cost more than $1,000. But for the careful, competent do-it-yourselfer there is another option. For those sailors whose tanks have reached the contamination point-of-no-return, heres a helpful article on DIY tank cleaning that accompanied our July 2009 test of diesel biocides.

Iron tends to retain its general shape and size as it rusts, however, it decays from within. A piece of iron that appears sound may crumble if tapped with a hammer. This type of decay is called graphitization because when it occurs, all that remains after the rusting is complete is graphite residue.

For those of you who plan to go aloft to do some work this spring, please make sure you are well aware of all the safety measures that pertain to this kind of work.

One of the most important tips that we failed to mention in recent article on bosun chairs was to never use a self-tailing winch when hauling someone aloft. In light of a recent safety warning from Lewmar, the importance of this advice is clear.

Before you fire up ye ol iron genny for the first smoke-belching run out to the mooring, to the dock, or to the fuel station (I sure hope its not to the pumpout station), you might want to think about your alternator belt. It's another one of those inexpensive engine parts that often gets overlooked until it's too late.

A trailer expands the sailors horizons, but like any endeavor that involves automobiles, it adds another layer of risk and responsibility. Compared to our boats, a trailer is deceptively simple, and this often leads us to overlook the obvious warning signs of impending problems.

We all know the guy who updated his trusty chartplotter and lost all the waypoints he'd saved over years. We don't want to be him. We don't want YOU to be him. But we also don't want you wandering the ocean with an antiquated and possibly bug-ridden device. Updating our software doesn't just fix bugs and ensure our electronics are operating correctly; it expands the equipments functionality. Updates to the multifunction displays we are testing at Practical Sailor have enabled a range of new functions, including an ability to integrate with some handy i0S and Android applications. Keeping up with updates also helps avoid the rare glitches that can occur when you leap-frog several updates by replacing a very early software versions with the latest and greatest.

If you didnt remove your running rigging last winter, then there is a good chance that you'll be coming back to sheets and halyards coated in dirt, mold, and mildew. What now? Here are some useful tips or cleaning cordage that we gathered from leading rope manufacturers and riggers.