Mailport & PS Advisor

Hurricane Charlie, the second of three hurricanes to hit Daytona Beach, Fla., in 2004, found my 1982 Lafitte 44 at an anchorage on the Intracoastal Waterway, just south of Daytonas three bridges. My anchors held. But a series of calamitous events resulted in Twilight breaking free, then washing ashore at the foot of a riverfront apartment complex. She was on a sandy beach, but her bow overhung a low concrete rip-rap seawall that had been reinforced with steel rebar. As the boat swung about in the storm surf, she demolished about 20 feet of the sea wall, knocking down the rip-rap and bending the reinforcing steel. There was some abrasion to the boats hull but, more than anything else, the damage was cosmetic. Her hull was not penetrated.

I read that you are going to review the Lavac head in the future. I have one on my Bristol Channel Cutter 28 and love it. A couple of things: Though the makers claim that the Lavac uses as little as 3 pints per flush, I use over 3 quarts. The Lavac manual suggests 13 to 16 strokes, which exceeds 1 gallon per flush. It will be interesting to see your results. Also, it is critical that the Henderson pump be mounted no less than 45 degrees from vertical. Otherwise, the simplicity and reliability of the Lavac is terrific. It has managed some seriously challenging flushes without flinching.

I have a 1980 Albin Cumulous with an iron keel. The keel has recently been cleaned, primed, and painted, and is holding up well. However, the seam between the keel and the keel stub is opening up. The keel bolts are not leaking. The last time this seam opened, I squeezed in some 3M 101 polysulfide sealant and that seemed to work. Is there a better sealant that I should be using?

Thank you for your excellent article on heat-related failures of nylon line ("Nylon Rope Endurance Test," December 2007). When a boat winds up on the beach after a storm, its easy to look at the frayed ends of a mooring line and announce that it had chafed. Your study reinforced what our claims experience has been with nylon mooring and anchor lines in storms: Failures are more likely to be caused by heat than abrasion. Our claims experience at BoatU.S. has been that mooring or anchor lines are most likely to fail between the foredeck cleats and chocks. A line that is compressed at the chock under storm load loses up to half its strength. At the same time the line is being compressed, it is also being stretched back and forth across the chock, which creates tremendous heat. The farther the cleat is from the chock, the more the line will stretch and generate heat.

We recently installed an aluminum fuel tank on our 1984 Endeavour 40. During installation, we took several steps to avoid galvanic corrosion, including fixing gaskets at contact points, providing airspace around the tank, and connecting it to the boats grounding system. We considered connecting one of those "zinc fish" to the grounding system, hung over the side at the dock. Could I fasten a small zinc to the tanks grounding tab? Or attach zincs to each tank and through-hull?

Regarding your query about solidly built boats, I have owned (and had built) my 1981 Mariner 47, a Ted Brewer design built in E. Rochester, N.H. She is a heavily constructed fiberglass boat (about 36,000 pounds displacement) that has seen in excess of 150,000 miles of cruising under my command. During that time, I struck the side of the Cape Cod canal (solid rock) under full power because of an autopilot malfunction while I was singlehanding. Ive also struck a ledge in Portsmouth, N.H., at 12 knots (power plus current) at night when I missed an unlighted mark (again singlehanding). Ive also struck rocks in Marblehead, off Cuttyhunk, and near Rockport, Mass. None of these fiascos resulted in more than minor damage to the solid-lead keel. A similar disaster I witnessed to a more lightly built boat (a Kalik 44) drove the keel up through the hull, fracturing the bulkheads and resulting in a total loss of the boat.

My Tayana Vancouver 42s mast wires and cables were cut when the keel-stepped mast (63 feet) was removed. The wires include those for a tri-color with strobe, DataMarine 5000, VHF radio, radar, and nav lights. I am thinking of using a terminal box for the connections when the mast is replaced, but Im concerned about bilge moisture over time as well as the multiple wires in the cables. The wires exit the mast just above the step. I tried to leave sufficient wire for a terminal box, but I don't think a box outside the bilge is currently possible without additional wire extensions. Thoughts and recommendations?

When my boat was hauled out in August 2007, there was extreme fouling in some areas. Two coats of Pettit Hydrocoat were applied in March 2006, and the boat remained in the water during the winter. By March 2007, the growth was slowing the boat. When the water was warm enough to dive, I found several areas badly fouled, including from the waterline to about one foot below all around, the rudder and skeg. I spent two hours scraping the rudder and skeg and around the waterline. Ive been using Hydrocoat for the last six seasons, painting the bottom every other year when hauling out. No significant problems before. My boat requires approximately two gallons of bottom paint. Growth showed only in those areas in which I applied the second gallon of paint. I told Pettit that what concerned me was that everything indicates that the second gallon of paint failed. Because of that, I now have to haul out the boat, scrape the bottom, sand the bad paint, and repaint. If a bad batch of Hydrocoat is the cause, I feel Pettit should provide me with an adequate remedy.

I want to be able to tell how discharged my batteries are in order to maintain them properly (not let them discharge below 50 percent of their capacity). Im dealing with deep-discharge batteries ("house" and for trolling motors). Relying on sources such as Nigel Calders books, Im told that the approximate voltages corresponding to 100 percent, 75 percent, 50 percent, 25 percent, and 0 percent of a batterys capacity are 12.65 volts, 12.45 volts, 12.25 volts, 12.1 volts, and 11.9 volts, respectively. However, contradicting those figures, the standard for measuring ampere-hours (Ah) is based on how long it takes a battery, providing a standard flow of current, to drop to 10.5 volts. This would mean that the battery is 1.4 volts lower than when its considered discharged to 0 percent (according to Calder). Whats the difference in meaning between the 11.9 and 10.5 volts?

A basic survey of mainsail slide and car systems ran in our Feb. 1, 2005 issue. Product reviews ran in the June 15, 1996 and Jan. 15, 1997 issues. You might consider a solution that is often recommended by Carol Hasse, owner of Port Townsend Sails, in Port Townsend, Wash.: a Tides Marine Strong Track (http://www.tidesmarine.com/) system with a Schaeffer Battslide (http://www.schaeffermarine.com/) receptacle, which allows you to adjust the batten [IMGCAP(1)]tension at the luff. The Strong system isn't as slippery as some of the slides with bearings, but its plenty slick and lots cheaper. Hasse says shes found that, in the long term, the Strong system maintains its slipperiness better than bearing-types. Port Townsend Sails specializes in building serviceable, durable sails for cruisers. The Strong System and Battslide have gotten favorable reviews from readers and contributing editors in the field. We will begin a new series on mainsail handling systems in our December issue with a look at the Dutchman (http://www.mvbinfo.com/).