Check Your Shorepower System for Hidden Dangers

One of the often overlooked maintenance items in the pre-season rush to the water is the AC shorepower system. Over the years of surveying, Ive amassed a small collection of scary photos from past surveys showing the common examples of neglect to this critical system.

DIY survey of boat solar and wind turbine systems

Many used cruising sailboats on the market will have a couple of solar panels, a wind turbine, or possibly both. But are they working?...
A lithium conversion requires a willing owner and a capable craft. Enter the Privilege 435 catamaran Confianza.

What’s Involved in Setting Up a Lithium Battery System?

Our 2004 Privilege 435 Confianza (Connie for short) came equipped with traditional lead-acid batteries—5 100ah for the house bank and 2 starter batteries. We...

Leaping Into Lithium

Your dock neighbor just switched out her old 12-volt lead-acid batteries for lithium-ion batteries. Should you? The lithium solution will be more expensive, but...

Estimating Total Capacity in an Old Battery

Volt meters, ammeters, and bank monitors can all give you part of the story, but only a draw-down test, performed over 6-24 hours will...

Solar Power and Battery Checkup

Batteries and solar panels can be a black box. We can’t see or hear or feel what is going on inside. They’re not complicated...

Mailport: Carl Alberg, Tinned Wire, Fiberglass Durability

HIGH PRAISE FOR CARL ALBERG Regarding your report “Small-boat Dreams and Carl Alberg’s Classic Daysailers,” my first sailboat, 25 years ago, was a Pearson Electra....

Reliable Three-way Wire Connections

Connecting two wires is simple; a crimp butt connector using a ratchet crimper, and adhesive lined heat shrink in damp locations, where there is...

Preventing Electric Shock at the Dock

The human body runs on electricity and if you overload the nervous system with an external field, everything goes haywire. Every year several people die because they go swimming near a dock, a wiring fault creates an electric field in the water, and their muscles freeze. It is called Electric Shock Drowning (ESD).

Batteries, Cleaners & More

As a subscriber, you have free access to our back-issue archive-more than 2,000 articles. Here are a few topics you might find relevant this season.

Is the Gulfstar 44 a STEAL of a DEAL?

If you plan to go cruising on a sailboat and sail in the ocean, the Gulfstar 44 might just be the perfect budget cruiser...

Latest Sailboat Review

Valiant 40 Used Boat Review

The Valiant 40 has a long history. In 1972, Nathan Rothman decided to start a boatbuilding business and approached old friend Bob Perry to...