Safety & Seamanship

Well, Hurricane Ian plowed south of the refuge-by-default for Opal, the 1971 Yankee 30 I spent a good part of last year working on. With...

For many boaters, damage control means a cell phone call to Sea Tow, Tow Boat US or another marine assistance provider. These are reliable...

Cruising Club of America member Mike Keyworth, has done some significant research into emergency steering. Mike has had decades worth of ocean racing and...

Rigging problems at sea are like broken shoelaces. Ideally, replacement is in order, but in reality a knot might be the right short-term solution....

Most mariners, especially those on the West Coast, have heard about the horrific fire aboard the dive boat Concepcion near Santa Cruz Island, California,...

For many in the northern hemisphere winter is the off-season, which means it's a great time inspect safety gear. Lifejackets and throwable rescue aids like the Lifesling which incorporate materials that degrade over time deserve particularly close attention. Even new safety equipment deserves close inspection. Probably the most startling safety equipment failure we've experienced was that of a newly bought child's safety harness with a polypropylene tether that immediately broke under very little load.

Our first LED flashlight test appeared in March 2000. Even two decades ago, we were becoming concerned with beam patterns. In fact it was...

Every year I read of near-drowning episodes that were compounded by the deficiency or complete absence of a boarding ladder. A fall from a...

At least once each season, someone should make the trip up top to inspect the rigging. There can also be more immediate needs. An...

A few years ago, while sitting on the gravel applying fairing compound to my keels (see “Fairing the Keels,” July 2016), I heard a...