Boat Maintenance

Owning and using a boat is all about maintenance. While maintenance is not fun—it can be filthy and arduous—it must be done if you...

Insulation is a greater energy-saving expedient; if our heater or air conditioner is undersized, fixing drafts, shading or insulating windows, and insulating non-cored laminate are all ways to reduce the thermal load. For boaters, however, that is only half of the equation.

I’ve been a member of my yacht club going on over 35 years now and spent 16 of those years as Harbor Master. Now,...

After two years of panel and on-boat testing on the mid-Chesapeake Bay, we settled on Total Boat Krypton, one of the top performing copper-free...

When a rope is no longer fit for purpose, for example a halyard with a chafed spot, we either keep it for future might-needs...

Some will claim urine is sterile and doesn’t smell. Horse hockey. No matter how careful you are, urine is loaded with nitrogen (urea) and...

Many of the fiberglass sailboats constructed during the 1970s and 1980s are still in existence, though often in varying states of disrepair. These vessels...

Well intentioned friends and relatives often make comments along the lines of, “Aren’t you scared of being out on the ocean, all alone, in...

Self-adhesive hardware-store hooks don’t stick well to bare fiberglass. Just last week we had one wash into the bilge-pump strainer on our test boat....

In the old Star Trek TV series Captain Kirk would press a button on a machine called a replicator and request banana cream pie,...