Five Best Homemade Sail Repair and Splicing Tools
I doubt there is a sailmaker out there who doesn’t have a few shop-built tools in daily use. Here are five of my favorites:...
Six Best Homemade Boat Maintenance Tools
OSHA has a thing against homemade tools. While a shortened extension on a paint roller won’t give them heartburn, modified power tools and attachments...
A Smart, Easy Way to Rewire
Running the wires for new electronics requires your best cursing vocabulary, lots of sweat, twisting body contortions, luck, and the occasional bandage. For tips on how to make this job easier, we turned to PS contributor Bill Bishop. A professional marine-electronics installer, Bishop has many ingenious ways to thread a wire from point A to point B.
Hose Fitting Tips
Pulling hoses is generally low on the fun list. They are in bad places, jammed onto crusty hose-fitting barbs, and have stiffened over the years. As part of our 2016 update on long-term tests, we needed to wiggle loose a few of the sanitation hoses were testing to see how they were looking on the inside-a job much less pleasant than new installation.
Small Wire Connections: Best Methods
Connecting two standard-size wires is pretty straightforward: Grab a ratchet crimper, adjust it to fit the crimp connector, strip the two wires to fit into the butt connector, slide the wires into the connector, and squeeze the crimper. The required materials are readily available: butt connectors for inline splices, ring connectors for terminal blocks, and a dab of anti-corrosive grease for the bolts and rings. Done right, these connections can survive some extremely tough conditions. In a recent test of anti-corrosion greases and connections, we demonstrated how these connections can last up to five years in the worst bilge conditions.
Considering Fiber-Reinforced Composites for Sheathing
As we explore material legacies and evolution with a regenerative lens for our Wharram Narai Mk IV build, the focus now shifts to sheathing...
Seacocks for Thin Hulls
A proper below-the-water line sea cock consists of three parts: the outside portion or mushroom, which threads into the flanged valve, the flanged valve, and the backing plate.
DIY Fairing and Filling
Epoxy deserves its wonder resin status as a highly adhesive, water-resistant laminating resin. It is the secret sauce behind a shelf full of fillers, glues, and fairing compounds.
Non-Skid Refinishing with KiwiGrip
Like most sailboats from the heyday of factory production in the 70s and 80s, our 1978 Islander Bahama came with a textured non-skid gelcoat...
Wheel Thimbles for Synthetic Line Terminals
This is not a completely new concept. Spool thimbles have long been used on multi-pulley block beckets to increase the pin diameter to better...
Latest Logbook
Practical Sailor Logbook – September 2026
In September we tour the Hans Christian 48T — the offshore cruiser many sailors call the holy grail — walk the custom Antigua 60...
Video: The 11.5 Knot Cruiser – Bavaria Match 42 Yacht Tour
Could this be the fastest family cruiser you’ve never heard of? The Bavaria Match 42 is a genuine performance sailboat hiding beneath the interior...
Latest Sailboat Reviews
Cal 2-27 Used Boat Review
Our story begins in 1970, with the introduction of the Cal 29. Looking for something similar but a bit smaller, the company asked designer Bill Lapworth for a 27-footer, which at first was the Cal 27, a fin keel, spade rudder design with a convertible pop top; another incarnation of this basic hull was the T/2. But the concept of the 29 found its full expression in the Cal 2-27, which began production in 1975 and continued to 1977, after which it was again modified and called simply the Cal 27...again. Production of it ceased in 1986.
