Boat Maintenance

PS Seeking Reports of 3M 4000 UV Failure

Six years ago (“Marine Sealant Adhesion Tests,” published November 2016) Practical Sailor began exposing samples of marine sealants to weather and sunlight to compare...

Making the Dinghy Decision

Spring and fall on the Chesapeake Bay delivers cruising at its best. Last fall, we were ready to go, the crowds were gone, along...

Binos and Aging Eyes

A dockside expert told me that larger objectives made binoculars brighter, and that his optical view was actually brighter than ambient conditions. The problem...

Folding Kayak Field Trials

Small boat sailors are plagued by a lack of storage space, and nowhere is this pinch felt more dearly than dinghy storage. Transportation to...

Deck Core Repair, from Underneath

One of the “never-evers” of boat building is to use high density polyethylene (HDPE) as a backing plate or load bearing spacer, but the...

Scrubbis Test Defies Skeptics

We like premium multi-season paints, particularly for sailors who sail year round. The copper leaches into the water more slowly than single season paints...

Is Azek the New Starboard?

I’d heard Azek described as a low cost alternative to Starboard, but never paid much attention. I’d used a few boards around the house,...

Sailing Gear of the Year 2021

What a difference a year makes! Last year, Practical Sailor testers were holed up in their home workshops, garages, basements, and home offices, meeting...

Non-Skid Ten Years After

Boat decks take a beating from sun and salt that eventually take their toll on factory-molded nonskid. Once nonskid loses its grip, resurrecting it...

A Beach Plastic Disposal Dilemma

Ninety percent of micro plastics generation comes from laundry fibers. Fortunately, standard primary, plus secondary wastewater treatment removes 88-94 percent of this, lowering laundry’s...

Why Is This 46 Foot Sailboat So Cheap? Hunter 460 Review

Is the Hunter 460 really one of the best-value cruising sailboats on the used market? In this video, we take a deep, honest look...

Latest Sailboat Review

Irwin Citation 38 Used Boat Review

As the largest of the Citations, the Irwin Citation 38 is probably the best looking, handling the high-sidedness better than her smaller sisters. The boat has three windows set in the sheer stripe on each side, so they are not very noticeable. Like the other Citations it is distinctly modern-looking not pretty, but not ugly either.