Repair, Tools & Materials

In light air, a major portion of the total resistance of a sailboat derives from skin friction. To oversimplify, the smoother the boat's "skin" — the submerged part of the vessel — the less power is required to drive it to a given speed. Put another way, given two boats identical in every way, including sail area, the boat with the smoother bot­tom will be slightly faster than a boat with a rough bottom in light air. Most racing sailors have learned the value of a smooth bottom. Ironically, cruising sailors can benefit at least as much from the creation of a low-resistance bottom as racing sailors, although you rarely see a cruising or daysailing boat with a bottom to match that of a good racing boat.

In addition to all of that lovely salt, seawater is very hard, nearly saturated with calcium. All it needs is something to react with (uric acid in the head) or localized overheating (engine) to create concrete-like incrustations. Sometimes mechanical removal is possible; a favorite cruiser ritual involves hauling out the sanitation hoses and beating them on concrete to remove internal scale build-up. Heat exchangers can be reamed out with a rod, but most engine and plumbing systems are inaccessible without considerable disassembly.

The tools and materials required to maintain and repair everything on a boat will barely fit in a room. Just the kit required to maintain vital systems will raise the waterline of a large boat and is impractical in a smaller boat. Fortunately, when day sailing and even cruising locally, all we really need to do is get back to the dock...any dock.

In fact our list is much, much longer than this, so we picked five specialty tools that we thought would help most sailors for...

Pulling hoses is generally low on the fun list. They are in bad places, jammed onto crusty hose-fitting barbs, and have stiffened over the years. As part of our 2016 update on long-term tests, we needed to wiggle loose a few of the sanitation hoses were testing to see how they were looking on the inside-a job much less pleasant than new installation.

My summer cruise took me up to the Discovery Islands just north of Desolation Sound off the coast of British Columbia with sailing buddy...

As we explore material legacies and evolution with a regenerative lens for our Wharram Narai Mk IV build, the focus now shifts to sheathing...

Epoxy deserves its wonder resin status as a highly adhesive, water-resistant laminating resin. It is the secret sauce behind a shelf full of fillers, glues, and fairing compounds.

It all started when I needed to make a number of large cuts inside the house and outside of the confines of my shop....

Every rope we have on board has its quirks when you’re trying to form a knot that won’t slip or come untied. Dyneema is a...