Inside Practical Sailor

The story of the rescue of a sick 1-year-old girl, her parents, and toddler sister from aboard the boat Rebel Heart last week provoked a storm of controversy over whether ocean voyaging with young children is sensible. One of the reasons that Theresa and I chose not to have and raise children aboard our boat were our own dicey experiences with illness in the tropics. (Our threadbare, vagabond lifestyle at the time raised other salient concerns, as Theresa put it-Im not giving birth in the forepeak!) But if we had decided to cruise with young children, we would have likely avoided long passages and kept pediatric care within close reach.

Be aware that a less-experienced sailors report of a great anchorage with plenty of depth, or statements like We ran aground here! don't do you much good if they fail to include basic info such as their boat's draft, state of the tide, etc. Other sailors' facility reviews should also be taken with a grain of salt. For example: The dockmaster hates Algerian Snaggle-tooth Poodles (like our Fluffy), so were never coming back, and you shouldnt either!

As I edge toward my 200th blog post and my 10th year as the editor of Practical Sailor, Im going to detour briefly from the usual fare to say thanks, to you our readers, and to the loyal group of testers who have brought this publication to where it is today-the top of the heap in its field. This fact was recognized last month at the annual meeting of Boating Writers International, a professional organization of writers, editors, publishers, photographers, broadcasters, public relations specialists, and others in the communications profession associated with the boating industry.

Paint removal using a paint stripper is a little like dental work in that theres no one perfect tool, and getting the job done usually requires a tray full of devices. The arsenal of hand-scraping weapons used during our test of paint strippers ranged in caliber from a lightweight, extra-thin and narrow scraper sharpened to a knifes edge to what old shipwrights referred to as a slick. This heavyweight king of the chisel family was kept sharpened with a whetstone and had the mass to plow into thick paint buildup and peel the substrate evenly.

As spring fast approaches (it's coming, I promise), a few of our less fortunate sailing brethren discover their house bank batteries can no longer hold a charge. One of the most common questions we get regarding deep-discharge batteries-those batteries designed to power our lights and electronics-is whether to go with a gel-cell, AGM, or flooded lead-acid wet-cell battery.

At about 9 p.m., the wind picked up and the temperature dropped to 56 degrees, Miamis version of the polar vortex. Sailing conservatively under staysail and main, the 60-foot catamaran ripped southward toward the city lights. Tucked behind the 18-inch wheel on the leeward hull, helmsman Harry Horgan, a wheelchair-bound sailor who founded one of the nations finest community sailing programs, squinted into the wind. To the west, the nearly full moon rose above Cape Florida Lighthouse.

Three days after I blogged about the risks of having liquid petroleum gas (LPG) onboard boats, and shared frequent PS contributor and surveyor Capt. Frank Laniers tips on checking for leaks, an LPG explosion killed a Swedish sailor who was docked in Livingston, Guatemala. In the upcoming March 2013 issue of Practical Sailor, Lanier goes over LPG safety from top to bottom, and I hope everyone will read the article carefully. The article is an introduction to a series of tests comparing products found in the LPG system-ranging from tanks to valves, from aftermarket lockers to solenoid valves.

Last week, Charlie Doane, executive editor of Sail magazine, and Hank Schmitt, a delivery skipper and founder of the North American Rally for Cruisers, got caught in a very bad situation on a new-boat delivery in the Atlantic. The boat's new owners, a couple from Germany, were also on board. The boat was a brand-new Aeroyacht Alpha 42 catamaran with wave-piercing hulls. It was abandoned; the captain and crew were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard helicopter. The boat was left to drift. Even those of us who are not in the market for a luxury catamaran can draw something from the incident.

If you have your mast down this season or are contemplating an annual inspection aloft, it is a good time to consider a switch to an LED tri-color mastlight, which can cut the light's energy consumption by 90 percent. Back in 2010, we looked at six bulbs and lanterns and compared light output and energy consumption. We also checked for interference with VHF radio reception-a common complaint among early versions of several LED lights.

Our recent test of the latest generation of top-down furlers for cruising spinnakers brought up some questions from readers about the type of add-on sprit used for our test boat, an Ericson 41. For some insight into the selection and installation of an add-on sprit for a cruising sailboat, I pulled up excerpts and links from several related Practical Sailor reports for this weeks blog. …