DIY Projects

Before looking for the right glue, understand why the part broke. Did it succumb to a combination of UV damage, creep (distortion), fatigue, and...

Are you one of those sailors who believes there are too many holes in the hull of your boat? Have you ever wondered if...

Wood is strong, stiff per unit weight, easy to work with, attractive, and economical. And it rots. A few special types of wood, such as teak, are highly resistant to rot, but these woods are generally heavy and almost always expensive. Pressure treated lumber is an option, but it’s ugly, warps, does not take coatings well, and is not always very rot resistant. Western red cedar, on the other hand, has long been used in canoes, and cedar fence posts have a deserved reputation for durability. We started our rot resistance testing eight years ago in 2015, and we finally cleaned out our accelerated rot test box in July 2023. Results ranged from abysmal (untreated samples of fir have nearly disappeared) to astounding (our teak samples are still just like new). Let’s see what we learned.

No one likes drilling holes in their boat, and to drill holes for a simple snap seems like overkill. I love snaps for window...

Self-adhesive hardware-store hooks don’t stick well to bare fiberglass. Just last week we had one wash into the bilge-pump strainer on our test boat....

The windows on our Corsair F-24 trimaran were obviously damaged by UV radiation. All we could see through them were shapes of objects that...

A recent test report reacquainted me with an age old problem, that has not yet fully been solved: How can one person, absent a...

In 2021 I bought Epic, a 2013 Lagoon 450 catamaran, and soon learned the boat’s forward bulkhead, along with other important structural components, were...

This is Part V, the final installment of a five-part series on rebuilding and modifying our Cape Dory 36 from a bare hull into...

This week we're moving onto hardware, winches in particular. If you haven't serviced your winches in a couple years, or you notice squeaks, groans or slips as you grind, it is high time to tackle this project. We like to inspect our jib-sheet winches every year, but we sail our boats hard and they are exposed to some pretty harsh freeze and thaw cycles. Fortunately, winch servicing is a pretty easy, and for the wanna-be watchmaker who marvels at moving parts, it's fun—until you start dropping parts overboard. Thus, our first bit of advice: make sure you have the right winch servicing kit, including pawls and springs, before you start pulling your winches apart.