Boat Maintenance

Spring is here, and that means its time for systems and safety checks. Among the items that should be on your to-do list are checking your seacocks and making sure essential safety gear is on board. For us, that has always included keeping an inventory of soft wood thru-hull plugs for plumbing emergencies, but this year, we decided to also add a few of Forespars new closed-cell foam TruPlugs.

As all boatowners know, spills and stains are inevitable, particularly when you count children among your crew. Our heavily trafficked teak cabin soles and fabric-covered settees have seen their fair share of misfortune, so we keep our ears open for any recommended stain removers. A recent hunt for a product to clean stains from teak led us to K2r SpotLifter, which came highly recommended by Teak Decking Systems Jeff Scott.

Practical Sailors endless testing of hull waxes and polishes gives us ample opportunity to try out electric buffers. Weve used countless brands and types over the years-from cheapos to professional grade-and decided to see how Shurhold Industries new Dual-Action Polisher compared.

Practical Sailor tested a bevy of bird repellents to determine which are the most effective in keeping the pelicans, pigeons, cormorants, gulls, and other fowl from fouling your boat. Bird repellents fit into four basic categories: acoustical repellents, visual repellents, biochemical repellents, and those that use physical exclusion. Sailboats most commonly use visual devices, which are the easiest and most economical to use and install on boats. We installed a sampling of the various types and monitored them for six months. The test products included: Bird Barriers Scare Eye, Bird-Xs Terror Eyes, Bird Xs Prowler Owl, Bird-Xs Irri-Tape, Bird Barriers Polly-Spike, Bird Barriers Bird-Flight, Fly Byes Stainless Steel Wide Spike, Fly Byes Bird Umbrella, Bird Barriers Daddi Long Legs, Bird-B-Gones Bird Spider, Birdoffs Bird Off, WhirlyBird Repeller, Gull Sweep, and Bird-B-Gones Bird Deterrent.

For the northern sailor, April is the cruelest month. Its been five years since I moved back to Florida, but I remember those Rhode Island winters well. With the morning chill and evening darkness coming still too early, it is a dispiriting time to get real work done. The false hope of April, more than anything else, chafed upon my psyche.

Letters to Practical Sailor's April 2010 issue include: MOB drills, tethers, nav lights, cleats, no-buff shines and tankless water heaters.

Cape Dory sloops-even those like the 25, which was not designed by Carl Alberg-have one of the most loyal followings among production boats. These loyal owners, added to a reputation for quality construction, enables Cape Dory boats to hold their resale value well, making them prime candidates for a do-it-yourself project boat like Practical Sailors test boat, Satori, a 1981 Cape Dory 25.Satori was purchased in 2008 in Sarasota, Fla., for $1,500. Although structurally sound for a boat her age, the interior had been gutted.Satoris sale price included an inventory of like-new sails, a new 5-horsepower Nissan outboard, and ground tackle. Completely rebuilding a boats interior would seem daunting to many, but Satori owner Jon Perkins is a carpenter by trade so he had the tools, resources, and know-how to get the job done. Cape Dory is an ideal fixer-upper boat, if the owner is up for the project. On today market, the Cape Dory 25 can fetch $3,000-$8,000. The pocket cruiser is also an excellent boat to fix and sail as a nice weekend cruiser for a family or a coastal cruiser for a couple.

These six-month and 18-month bottom paint test updates cover dozens of antifouling paints that were immersed in Florida waters.Tested paints include marine coatings from Blue Water, Epaint, Flexdel, Interlux, Pettit, Sea Hawk, and Copper Coat, an epoxy-copper blend that claims multi-year protection. BoatKoat Laminates experimental stick-on antifouling for sailboats also was included in the fray. Hard antifouling paints and ablative antifouling paints work differently and are intended for different applications. Find out which type best matches your sailing style and boat maintenance regimen. Testers flagged the best bottom paints in each category, including ablative paints, hard paints, freshwater paints, aluminum paints, racing paints, water-based paints, and eco-friendly paints. Copper-free bottom paints and low-copper coatings performed surprisingly well at the six-month mark.

The March 2010 issue of Practical Sailor features letters from readers on such subjects as: household adhesives, Union 36s, foggy electronics, digital freezer controls and converting a boat from gas to electric.

Today I went to paint the bottom of my boat with Interlux’s VC-17m, which I have used since it first came on the market. I had always cut/thinned the paint a bit with acetone. Today, the West Marine store manager (who is an experienced boater) told me that Interlux changed the VC-17m formula and that you should thin it with simple rubbing alcohol. When I used the paint with the alcohol, I noticed that it did not dry as quickly as it had with acetone and seemed thicker than usual after mixing the copper powder. Is it correct that you can now use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol to "thin" VC-17m antifouling?