Boat Maintenance

I want to varnish my companionway hatch boards, but I need to remove the old finish. Is there a varnish remover that works well and doesn’t ruin the wood?

Letters to Practical Sailor, July 2012. This month's letters cover subjects such as: Dinghy Launcher, iPad Glare, Racor, and more!

Letters to Practical Sailor, July 2012. This month's letters cover topics such as: BEP Marine, Sparcraft /Tylaska, and more!

I did some research on gluing plastics and came away more confused than when I started. My research revealed that some plastics cannot be glued, while others can be, as long as the right glue is utilized. I don't even know what the smoke-colored, half-inch-thick hatch cover material is: acrylic, poly-carbonate, Lexan? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Rutherford, who took 309 days to sail the 27,000-mile route in a 36-year-old, 27-foot Albin Vega, braved icebergs in the Northwest Passage, freezing winds in the Bering Straits, and relentless gales near Cape Horn. His was a tale of great adventure, the kind that sailors love to hear and tell.

Practical Sailor recently tested a nonskid mat from Soft Deck Inc. as a followup to our January 2012 report on do-it-yourself options for replacing worn nonskid. Soft Deck Inc., owned by brothers and lifelong sailors Ross and George Champion, is a family-run business with manufacturing based in Southern California. The January report reviewed six nonskid paints, three nonskid additives, and two nonskid mats. For this evaluation, we used the same test protocol to compare the Soft Deck to our Best Choice mat, Tiflex’s Treadmaster (www.tiflex.co.uk.com).

Just about every sailboat owner has at some point mixed up a batch of epoxy to fill a hole, glue parts back together, or tackle an extensive project. Practical Sailor testers evaluated four marine epoxy resins based on their mechanical properties (strength, adhesion, hardness, and flexibility) and key handling attributes such as wet-out, sag, curing, and overall handling. We tested West 105 Epoxy Resin, MAS Flag Resin, Raka UV-inhibited epoxy, and Interlux’s Epiglass HT-9000.

Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo equates spare time with boat projects. His basement shop/test facility has spawned a wide range of boats, boards, and parts for bigger boats. The two latest are test platforms for long-term evaluation of the resins and materials looked at in this round of epoxy evaluation.

Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo equates spare time with boat projects. His basement shop/test facility has spawned a wide range of boats, boards, and parts for bigger boats. The two latest are test platforms for long-term evaluation of the resins and materials looked at in this round of epoxy evaluation.

Prompted by several reader queries and our own curiosity, Practical Sailor recently launched a test of an electronic alternative to metal-based bottom paints: the M20, an ultrasonic antifouling device from the Canada-based SmartAntifouling. Electronic antifouling uses ultrasound waves to prevent algae and other organisms from attaching to a boat’s hull. A transducer, which is mounted on the hull skin inside the boat, emits a high-frequency vibration that creates a micro-thin layer of rapidly moving water blanketing the hull and making it difficult for barnacles and algae to take up residence there. PS installed an M20 on a Florida-based test boat and will be monitoring its performance this season.