Boat Maintenance

Letters to Practical Sailor, March 2012. This month's letters cover subjects such as: Durabak Feedback, Inflatable Bottom Paint, US Sailing Reports, and More!

Letters to Practical Sailor, March 2012. This month's letters cover subjects such as: Smart Plug and Forespar.

We generally recommend high-grade, three-strand nylon for anchor rodes because of its cost effectiveness and elasticity—essential under surging loads. Certainly there are more chafe-resistant lines, but using chafe gear is a more sensible way to prevent rode chafe

The trick is to choose the right one. Some sealants get hard enough to sand or drill, and others stay supple. Some will stick to anything; others pull away from glass and certain plastics. Some will writhe and stretch as your boat "works." Others crack. And some, designed for household use, won't hold up in the harsh heat, cold, wind, and ultraviolet your boat is subject to. We recently took a look at a range of the most common types in the August 2010 issue. If you've got a teak deck to caulk, then our test of teak deck caulks can be found in the October 2008 issue.

A few months ago, we noticed that our dock neighbors were cleaning their decks with spongy-looking nanofiber pads. Ditching a multitude of cleaners for one re-usable sponge was quite appealing, so a test was in order. We pitted the original Mr. Clean Magic Eraser from Proctor & Gamble against the WipeOut Eraser made by Ralph Perez. These rectangular, nanofiber pads resemble sponges but they don’t require added cleaner, and both use a unique cleaning action to lift and trap dirt. We used them to clean dirty gelcoat and nonskid, and to tackle the waterline, rust stains, and scuffs on our test boat.

Determining how much faster a boat can sail with one paint versus another would be difficult as the prep and application of both paints would have to be identical, as would test conditions, in order to have a fair trial. None of the antifouling manufacturers we spoke with are aware of any documented head-to-head speed tests of paints.

Letters to Practical Sailor, February 2012. This month's letters cover subjects such as: Engine-Free, Titanium, Sabre Solace Twin, and More!

Letters to Practical Sailor, January 2012. This month's letters cover subjects such as: West Marine/Navico Reps, Raymarine, Garhauer Marine, and More!

Ordinarily, we don't enlist animal subjects for our testing at Practical Sailor, but our report of odor-eating chemicals this month called for special measures. Ziggy the iguana stepped up to the plate, and I can assure you he was well treated throughout the process. I had hoped to feature his photo here so that you might admire his healthy green complexion, but he was a bit camera shy, and I couldnt bring myself to use a photo of just any old iguana.

Boat owners looking to put some stick back into a slip-and-slide deck have a few options: apply a deck paint with a nonskid additive or glue sections of specialized nonskid mat to the deck. Choosing which type of nonskid is the right one for your boat makeover is a balancing act between aesthetic taste, traction needs, and budget. Practical Sailor tested 11 commercially available nonskid options that the average boat owner can easily apply: one paint with no filler media, five paints ready mixed with nonskid compounds, three nonskid additives that testers mixed with two-part topside paints, and two nonskid mats (one is self-adhesive, and one is glued on with an epoxy). All of the products can be applied to fiberglass, wood, or metal. Manufacturers included Pettit (Kop- Coat), Epifanes, AkzoNobel (Interlux and Awlgrip), West Marine, Pachena (KiwiGrip), Durabak, Tiflex (Treadmaster), and SeaDek. Using some creative bench tests, we evaluated how much traction, grip, and drag resistance each offered; we also rated how easy the products were to apply, how uniform the grit was, and how easy they were to clean.