Boat Maintenance

Can We Trust Plastic Boat Parts?

When a plastic part on our boat breaks, we often deem it “damn cheap plastic” and toss it away. In some parts of the...

Mailport: Marine plywood, fuel additives, through bolt options, winch handle holders

DIFFERENTIATING FIRS I enjoyed your destructive wood testing and your patience in waiting eight years to report comprehensive results (see PS December 2023, “Wood Rot...

Random Orbit Sanders for Bottom Paint Prep

More than a century has passed since Art Emmons, a visionary young engineer at the 15-year-old Porter Cable Company, launched a technology race in...

Deep Cleaning the Supremely Dirty Boat

One reason for my aversion to scrubbing is that a Corsair F-24 trimaran is a folding trimaran, making it a nightmare to clean. Comprised...

Making Sense of Plywood Choices

With the myriad ways to combine resins and wood into layers to create plywood, it is no wonder we can get confused when selecting...

Uses for Medium Density Overlay in Boats

Medium Density Overlay, abbreviated as MDO, is a pre-surfaced plywood product developed to make highway signs, so it’s about as weatherproof as you can...

Real World Antifouling Testing

In addition to our panel testing of dozens of paints, we applied six different antifouling paints to our test boat, a Corsair F-24 trimaran....

Install a Standalone Sounder Without Drilling

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

Antifouling for Brackish Water

For two years, we’ve been soaking both our test boat and 11 test panels with 30 different antifouling paints in Rockhold Creek, a brackish...

Wood Rot Prevention Eight Years Later

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.

Everything You Need to Know About Yanmar Sailboat Diesel Engines

Are you interested in a sailboat with a Yanmar diesel engine? Or wondering how to maintain your Yanmar diesel? This week, we dive into...

Latest Sailboat Review

O’Day 30 Used Boat Review

Over 350 O'Day 30s were built between 1977 and 1984. During 1984, the 30 was modified by changing the keel and rudder, and the stern was lengthened to accommodate a European-style boarding platform. This "new boat" was called the O'Day 31, and it stayed in production until 1986.