Mailport & PS Advisor

Practical Sailor conducted a series of tests on childrens PFDs in October 2006. Disappointed with the offerings, we presented a conceptual infant-toddler vest in June 2007. The relevant articles are posted in the "Tools and Techniques" section of our website at www.practical-sailor.com. The challenges of designing a universal infant/toddler PFD are great, and we would not want to instill a false sense of confidence in these devices. Habituating your child to wearing a vest and finding one with a proper fit is important, but even the best fitting jackets had trouble keeping our test children in the face-up position. These jackets may buy you some seconds should your child slip into the water from a dock or an anchored boat, but constant vigilance and proactive measures such as lifeline netting, safety harnesses, and swim lessons should be high priorities. Key components in an infant jacket are crotch straps, head-up collar flotation, and a collar strap for lifting/supporting the child when moving from the dinghy or dock to the boat.

Every so often, I find myself boat shopping and turn to the reviews in "Practical Boat Buying." I’m looking for a trailerable, 20- to 26-foot, easy to rig, singlehandable boat—and fast wouldn’t hurt either. I am a beginner, thinking about the Rhodes 22, Tanzer 22, O’Day 23, or Balboa 26. Did I mention I didn’t have a lot of money to spend?

In light of your recent letters on copper/epoxy antifouling bottom coatings, Id like to share my experience. Near the end of my Searunner trimaran boatbuilding project, I decided to apply a product known at the time as Copperpoxy. I applied the coating to all three hulls to about 20 mils thick, and then sanded this "orange peel" surface down to about 10 mils. I finished up with 220-grit sandpaper. In the end, it was beautiful. It was just like a perfectly smooth, new copper penny, and just a bit thicker than recommended. We started our cruising adventure in the foul waters of Beaufort, S.C. Very soon, I was doing a huge scrape job every week. The bottom was covered with grape-size barnacles. I noticed that the aft half of the main hull, the part with underwater metals, was fouling the worst. (I was changing zincs every week.) Two years later, in Pensacola, Fla., we decided to give up on this product and paint over it with Pettit Trinidad SR bottom paint. When doing the weeks-long prep for this painting, we could see that the skin of our epoxy/ply boat was electrically conductive and corroding all the way through in the entire area of the bonded shaft, strut, prop, gudgeons, and copper mast ground. We put on three coats of Trinidad, waited a few days, and splashed the boat. Within two weeks, the new paint had peeled off in the electrically active area. We re-hauled, stripped the paint in this area, and coated the problem Copperpoxy area with three coats of epoxy. After sanding and repainting, we set off for the Western Caribbean. Over the following six months, we noticed that even the epoxy would not stick to the Copperpoxy.

I’m a member of the Stonington Harbor Yacht Club in Stonington, Conn., and we need a better way to contact members on the water. We would like to use the full features of DSC (Digital Selective Calling) group calling for that purpose, but it is not clear to us what the best way is to obtain a group identity call number for DSC calls.

I read with interest your evaluation of first aid kits, which wrapped up with the final installment in the December 2008 issue. Id like to add a couple of points: Weekend, cruising, and bluewater sailors should invest in a good up-to-date first aid and CPR course. It is as important as a functional bilge pump. The responsible sailor can outfit a substantial and superior first-aid kit for much less money than a commercially available kit. The kit should be appropriate for the expected duration a victim will need treatment prior to evacuation. Most commercial kits contain a lot of fluff and are unnecessarily redundant-a lot of Band-Aids. I stress to distance sailors stocking a few prescription items and aggressive treatment for seasickness, beyond Bonine. I favor a solid medical text such as "A Comprehensive Guide to Marine Medicine," by Dr. Erick Weiss and Dr. Michael Jacobs, or "Medicine for Mountaineering and other Wilderness Activities," by James Wilkerson. The latter is available from Mountaineer Books. Both texts give guidance on stocking kits appropriate for your boat. Remember, the victim may be the captain or medical officer, and a novice may be the one rendering treatment. A medical guide is an invaluable resource.

Sailmakers put spin into more than their spinnakers, and when all is said and done, their art lies in turning flat material into a carefully controlled curved shape. The best-shaped sails-and the most expensive to build-are tri-radial shapes that are made from many smaller panels radiating from each corner of the sail. These sails have many more seams and require more sewing but allow the bias, or strength axis, of the cloth to be critically aligned. Most racers and performance-oriented cruisers opt for the cut because the sail shape can be better developed with this approach. A cross-cut and a miter-cut are both valid but simpler approaches to sailmaking. They lessen the number of panels and consequently the labor involved with manufacture. As long as the material used affords appropriate load handling characteristics associated with panel alignment, all is fine, especially for a cruising application where lighter weight and the final nuance of shape are less critical. More important than whether the sail is cross cut or miter cut is how well it fits and sets on your boat, and the sailmaker to choose is the one who will come aboard and make sure that his or her handiwork actually fits properly. If they both agree to do that, then take a close look at the detail work in their sails. Is the area around pressed-in rings well-reinforced? Are leech lines easy to operate? How is UV protection handled?

Circumnavigators and Practical Sailor contributors Evans Starzinger and Beth Leonard, who produced the drogue report, have in fact made their Jordan Series drogue in two lengths. They can stream both for maximum drag, or just one for reduced drag. However, even a shortened series drogue is still more difficult to recover than a single-element drogue because you have to be careful not to rip the sewn-in cones while winching. Putting a trip line on the series drogue is an interesting and debated topic. Various manufacturers all advise against it, because they think it will create a major tangle. Also, the series drogue still has significant drag when pulled in backward by a trip line. Starzinger and Leonard know of two boats that have tried trip lines on Jordan series drogues and reported that they have not had tangles. The couple is currently working on a setup that uses two standard drogues, one behind the other, with 300 feet of rode between. With this, they can crank away at the winch when recovering and they will have an arrangement that is unlikely to pull out of a wave face and lose its bite. They don't have enough experience yet to say if this is a good idea or not. To follow this and other projects, visit www.bethandevans.com.

While most sea anchor manufacturers may use similar formulas for determining the right size sea anchor for a boat, other factors must be considered, including the weight of the material used in the anchor and a boat’s windage. Ultimately, what matters is that the anchor can displace enough water mass for your size boat. It’s a good idea to select a sea anchor, and then use that maker’s criteria to determine what size you need for your boat. If you have questions or concerns, contact the manufacturer for clarification. According to Don Whilldin, president of Para-Tech (maker of the Sea Anchor), the company figures Sea Anchor sizing based on a boat’s length, displacement, and type. If the result is on the line between two sizes, Para-Tech recommends going with the larger size.

I enjoyed Practical Sailor contributor Skip Allans accounts of preparations for the Single-Handed TransPac Race this year, and I was very upset to hear of his loss and the circumstances ("Farewell Wildflower," December 2008). Having made a couple of single-handed small boat Trans-Atlantic crossings in the 1970s and rolled my boat in a following sea, I concluded that a parachute sea anchor should be onboard every single-handed boat, whatever the size. There is always a breaking sea somewhere that will be big compared to ones boat and quite capable of a roll-over or trip-up. Running with a storm, in addition to being dangerous, is very tiring and also keeps one in the storm for the longest period. With a big enough parachute sea-anchor and good chafe-prevention gear, lying bow-to the storm will not be pleasant, but much more restful, safe, and brief.

Each year, the rudder on my 1986 C&C 35-3 has to have water drained from it. It is my belief that water gets in from the shaft/stock entrance to the rudder, but with the rudder in place, access is restricted. From speaking with other boaters, I’ve found it to be a common problem. The initial concern is of water freezing inside and splitting the rudder, but I also have the longer-term implication of possible internal, and unseen, corrosion. For now, I drill a couple of holes in the fall, and epoxy them before launch. Is there a fitting that could be implanted in the rudder, with a screw to be easily removed for drainage?