Inside Practical Sailor

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. …

Now is the time of year that many mooring owners start investing in new tackle. As we prepare for our final report on mooring chains, I dove into some of our archival material on moorings to help guide people through the upgrade process. There are plenty of variations in the details of permanent ground tackle, and PS has covered most, including mooring systems designed for sensitive seabeds. The standard rig is as follows: a mushroom anchor set well in the bottom (or a concrete block, but it had better be huge, or a screw-type anchor, which works well in hard bottoms), to which a length of heavy chain is shackled, then a swivel, then a length of somewhat lighter chain, a shackle, and a rope pendant that goes to the bow cleat.

My previous blog posts on cruising rallies and how they affect decision-making raised a number of excellent comments from readers. I think every skipper realizes that, ultimately, he or she is the one responsible for the safety of the ship and crew. Their fate depends on his decisions. But how frequently do we examine how we come to those decisions?

Every November, I hold my breath as cruising sailors gird for the push southward from New England or mid-Atlantic to the Caribbean in one of the annual rallies organized for cruising sailors. Many of the people who participate in these rallies are new sailors, with limited offshore experience under their belt. The rally concept appeals to cruisers for many reasons, but underlying all of these is the belief that there is safety in numbers.

Given the growing concerns about mold allergies, super-bacteria, and public health, the anti-microbe business is a lucrative one. In recent years, a number of companies have been tweaking Dow Corning's 30-plus-year-old miracle antimicrobial, Aegis, to develop their own patents. We learned just how competitive and confusing this new landscape is as we began testing the mildew-fighting effectiveness of Goldshield, a powerful antimicrobial aimed at public facilities like hospitals and airports.

If youre looking for a good do-it-yourself boatyard to take care of some below-the-waterline projects before heading south this fall, check out our expanding list of reader-recommended boatyards that happily allow owners to do most or all of their own work. We kicked off our do-it-yourself (DIY) database project in June 2009 with a report highlighting Galesville Harbor Yacht Yard in Maryland. In the upcoming December 2013 issue, we will look at boat upgrades and repairs from a different perspective, offering advice on choosing a full-service yard and hiring contractors to do the work.

Practical Sailor Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo will be busy in October and November with seminars designed to set cruising sailors on the right course. If youre planning to go to the United States Sailboat Boat Show in Annapolis, Md., this weekend, be sure to catch Ralph at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13, in the Arnold Room at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel. He will be presenting a free Gateway to Cruising mini-seminar that focuses on launching into the cruising lifestyle.

The spectacle of computer-molded carbon fiber screaming across San Francisco Bay in the America's Cup 34 has brought heaps of attention to the sport of sailing, and if one more kid signs up for Opti camp this summer because of it, I suppose it is worth it-even if he does infuriate the rules committee in his next Pinewood Derby. Just as importantly, I can see all sorts of ways the AC trend toward automation can trickle down and revolutionize cruising sailing. Here are just some of the Cup-inspired inventions I envision for our brave new future-when the virtual world is more real than we would ever want it to be.