Boat Maintenance

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From shore, you can see the bright-green violation notice stuck to the hull of the San Juan 21. Several other boats in the soon-to-be "public" mooring field in Practical Sailors home port of Sarasota, Fla., bear similar stickers. The letter that the city mailed to the owner of the San Juan spells out the terms: Move the boat by Aug. 1, or it will be impounded and possibly destroyed. Its a familiar story. Burdened by a variety of "boat problems"-some real, some imagined-city officials move to further regulate the local harbor. Responsible boaters whove historically used the anchorage for free plead their case, but they are no match for the landlubber majority. A common solution is the one Sarasota has chosen: Install a fee-based mooring field and force boaters to use it. Many such mooring fields around the country are fairly priced, often administered by a government agency. In Sarasotas case, the mooring enterprise is supposed to be run as a not-for-profit enterprise. The contractor, Jack Graham Inc., also has a controversial long-term lease to run the adjacent marina, Marina Jack. The proposed mooring rates are above the norm, making it hard to dismiss the accusation that the fees are inflated to "keep the riff-raff out."

Practical Sailor tested eight high-end marine handheld VHFs from three manufacturers: Cobra, Standard Horizon, and Uniden. Among those tested were two updated Standard Horizon VHFs, the HX500S-LI and HX600S-LI, and three of the companys latest floating VHF radios, the HX750S, HX760S, and HX850S. From Uniden, testers evaluated the MHS450 and MHS550. They also tested the Cobra HH425 LI. These feature-rich handheld marine radios, priced from $130 to $350, were tested for transmitter power, frequency accuracy, frequency stability, receiver sensitivity, audio output, and audio quality. They also were submerged in fresh water, dropped from 4 feet onto concrete and batteries were left on for 15 hours to test battery life.

I own a 1978 Columbia 9.6, which I sail on freshwater Lake Erie four to five months each summer at Sandusky Harbor Marina in Ohio. My problem is keeping the 1-inch white bootstripe between the bottom-paint line and the molded-in black stripe clean. After three or four weeks, the scum buildup requires heavy brushing or sanding to remove.

The cost of buying and maintaining a sailboat has spiraled to an all-time high. There are a few steps sailors can take to help keep boating cost effective, including buying a sound older boat and finding a boatyard that is friendly to do-it-yourselfers. In an effort to support affordable boating, Practical Sailor has launched a reader survey on DIY yards, where boaters can rate their favorite boatyard on criteria such as protection from foul weather, boat hauling equipment, service quality and availability, Travelift operator skill, and yard ambiance. These are among the criteria PS Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo used to rate our sample DIY yard, Galesville Harbor Yacht Yard on Marylands western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Our look at Galesville and some tips on choosing the best do-it-yourself yard offer valuable insight for the DIY boat owner looking for a place to haul out.

Offshore sailor Skip Allan tested two entry-level tillerpilots, the Simrad TP10 and Raymarine ST1000, aboard his 27-foot sloop during last years Singlehanded Trans-Pac race. The autopilots were used during varying weather conditions and sea states, including gale conditions. The review considers characteristics of the Raymarine tillerpilot and Simrad tillerpilot, including price, power supply, drive thrust, installation ease, user friendliness, construction, and performance.

Sailors looking for a chartplotter who tend to stray from the beaten path or those who spend a fair amount of time fishing may want to consider a combination chartplotter-fishfinder. Our last look at plotter-sounders named the Garmin 545s the Practical Sailor Best Choice for combination chartplotter sounders. This review compares the Garmin to the new Raymarine A50D. Testers looked at display unit features, plotter features, and sounder features. The Raymarine unit uses Navionics cartography and can interface with AIS devices.

The Delorme Earthmate PN-40 is one of the newest additions to the handheld marine electronics market. Practical Sailor evaluated the rugged, palm-sized Earthmate using the same tests used in past GPS evaluations to see how it matched up against the Garmin GPSMap 76CSx, our top performer in past tests. Testers used the unit for multiple days and rated key functions, battery life, lighting, waterproof quality, cold starts in multiple locations, and visibility under different conditions.

Practical Sailor tested three kits that convert onboard ice boxes into full-fledged refrigeration systems. The three reefer conversion kits in the review-the Waeco-Adler Barbour Cold Machine (CU 100) from Dometic Corp., the Frigoboat Capri 35F by Veco SPA, and the Sea Frost BD-represent a cross-section of whats available on todays refrigeration conversion kit market. Testers looked closely at energy efficiency and the 12-volt units abilities to cool a small ice box with the least amount of amp hours possible. Testers looked at quality, details, reliability, and cooling capacity.

With the increased demand to have all the electrically powered comforts of home onboard, it should come as no surprise to boaters that the majority of AC-related electrical fires involve overheated shore-power plugs and receptacles. Prime Technology, aims to change all that with the introduction of its Shore Power Inlet Protector (ShIP for short), a monitoring and alarm device that automatically disconnects AC shore power when excessive heat is detected at the power inlet connector. We reviewed the ShIP 110 designed for use with a 110-volt, 30-amp system. The company also offers a similar unit (the ShIP 220) for use with 220-volt, 50-amp service. Charred plugs and receptacles are the result of resistance build-up (due to loose or corroded connections), which generates heat and the potential for fire, a problem especially prevalent among vessels that continually run high energy loads such as water heaters and air-conditioning units. In addition to monitoring the temperature of your vessels shore-power inlet plug and its wiring, the ShIP system automatically disconnects AC shore power when an unsafe temperature is detected, providing visual and audible alarms. (The audible alarm shuts down after five minutes to avoid prolonged disturbance to surrounding boats.)