Boat Maintenance

I received a message regarding surveying a 1980 CS 36: “I bought a sailboat with two friends and need a survey,” the WhatsApp message...

You can’t maintain a boat without ordering a few marine supplies, so Practical Sailor readers offered (mostly) high praise and appreciation for our guide...

It’s been a few years since Interlux (Akzo Nobel) discontinued the popular VC17 and VC17m antifouling due to environmental and safety concerns. However, it...

Are Marelon through-hulls a good modern replacement for bronze or a failure waiting to happen? Common refrains are: “Okay above the waterline if you...

Online juggernaut Amazon, big-box behemoth Walmart, and West Marine—with more than 250 stores nationwide—are the biggest sellers of marine supplies in North America. But...

Many coastal cruising production sailboats designed during the heyday of the 70s and 80s emerged from the factory with plexiglass cabin windows. These larger-than-standard...

Have you ever noticed that when people want to post beautiful serene moments, they use images of sailboats in the distance, usually seen from...

Southern sailors often put their boats away for a few months when the water gets a little cool. Northern sailors have a more definitive reason; they put their boats away when the water gets hard. Often, freezing is limited to harbor areas, where shallow water, freshwater input, and limited tidal flushing encourage ice formation. Far north, you can walk on it for weeks, while in the mid-Atlantic, the layer is often thin and transitory. And while a few inches of ice are generally harmless to a sound boat, thick moving ice can damage paint, exposed steering gear, and planking. Although we can't make the weather any warmer, there are measures boat owners can take to keep ice at bay.

Are the tapered plug seacocks on your boat difficult or impossible to close? If you tighten the adjustment nut enough for them to stop weeping all over the inside of your boat, does it take two hands and a hammer to operate them? If so, it's time for an overhaul. Even if they worked well last season, a little care while the boat is hauled can save you a lot of grief in the future. As part of your boat's routine maintenance, tapered plug seacocks should be disassembled, cleaned, lubri­cated, and reassembled on a regular basis.

There’s nothing worse than getting or giving yet another ugly sweater or never-to-be-worn tie. Why not try up-cycling old boat parts to give new...