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Bootleg Bronze Cleaners
Lest you think multi-billion-dollar chemical companies and their geeks in white lab coats have a lock on cleaning your bronze, there are numerous homebrewed cleaning solutions that folks claim have the ability to put a shine on your bronze and a gleam in your eye.

We decided to test of a few of these strange brews. Below are three recipes and our test results. The first two were pulled from the Internet, and the third was sent in by one of our wise and loyal Practical Sailor readers.

HOME BREW NO. 1: SALT AND VINEGAR PASTE
Recipe: Dissolve 3 teaspoons of salt into 1 cup of white vinegar. Add enough flour to make a paste, then scoop the paste onto a clean sponge and polish. Rinse with hot water and buff dry with a soft cloth.

Result: This polish worked surprisingly well. While it took a little scrubbing, and we had to let the tougher stains soak for 10 to 15 minutes, it worked well overall and earned a rating of Good on our test scale.

HOME BREW NO. 2: LEMON PASTE
Recipe: Polish with a soft cloth soaked in a solution of lemon juice and baking soda, or sprinkle baking soda on a slice of lemon and scrub. (We made a paste as in Brew No. 1.)

Result: After the mini-volcanic reaction of mixing lemon juice and baking soda settled down, the resulting paste powered off the stains exceptionally well with minimal scrubbing. We tried using a slice of lemon, but the cloth held up better and worked best while rubbing-it was also less messy. This home brew polish earned a solid rating of Very good on our test scale, comparable with many of our top commercially produced performers.

HOME BREW NO. 3: MORRIS MIX
Recipe: Subscriber Scott A. Morris makes his polish by blending polishing compound (not rubbing compound) with a small amount of silicone car wax-according to Morris, a little experimentation will yield your best mix.

Result: Fair to Good overall, however, it took a bit of rubbing to clean our nasty bronze. We used a half-and-half mixture. Varying the mixture (say adding more polishing compound for tougher stains) might have produced even better results.

CONCLUSION
Overall, the results in the home brew category were pretty impressive, particularly considering that the first two have all natural ingredients and that all three are economical to make. While the Brews Nos. 1 and 2 cleaned the bronze, they lacked the luster of products such as the Miracle Cloth. Following up the cleaning with a coat of wax (or even Morris Mix) would add shine and additional protection.

For more on the cleaners for the specific job on your boat, purchase and download Practical Sailors ebook, Essential Marine Cleaners today!

To read even more about the cleaning and maintenance of all your boating surfaces, buy the entire three-part series for the price of two! Available for purchase and download is Practical Sailor's ebook series, MARINE CLEANERS. This three volume set contains the ebooks GELCOAT MAINTENANCE AND RESTORATION, ESSENTIAL MARINE CLEANERS and SPECIALTY MARINE CLEANERS.

You'll get one complete ebook FREE.

The second you drop a loaded oil filter into your bilge, you realize that the most important piece of gear on your boat is the bilge absorber. If youre prepared, you already have one strategically placed under the filter, or at least somewhere under the engine. Even then, any errant oil will very quickly turn all the surfaces of the bilge a slick gray-black. It will foul the bilge pump, it will slosh up against the undersides of the floorboards, and it will coat every wire and connection.

An oil or fuel spill has to be cleaned up by hand-pumping it overboard is criminal, as well it should be. A bad spill, or a small spill thats left to slosh around, is a nightmare, and some bilges, particularly those with rough fiberglass or wood surfaces, never look the same again.

We wanted to find out which of the oil-absorbent products on the marine market work best, so we ordered a variety of them and put them in plastic bins filled with six gallons of water, a half a cup of antifreeze, and one quart of oil. We then let the bins sit for about two months in the back of the office, regularly jostling and jouncing them to keep things sloshing.

A couple of the products worked quickly and very well. A couple worked slowly and fairly well. One didnt seem to work much at all.

ABSORBER TYPES
There are two basic types of absorber. One type absorbs mechanically, by means of wicking and adsorption or absorption. (Adsorption means that a liquid is attracted and adheres only to the outside of a surface, while absorption... well, you know what absorption means.) The other type absorbs the fluid and then reacts with it chemically or biologically, converting it into another state.

In both cases, the products are intended to absorb only oil or fuel-not water.

The products come in three forms-thin sheets, pillows or packets, and rolls or socks (mini booms).

The sheets are intended to be used both during work projects and for long-term maintenance. The pillows and rolls are intended more for long-term absorption; they are typically left in the bilge for several months or one boating season.

For more details on oil absorption products as well as other cleaners for specific jobs on your boat, purchase and download Practical Sailors ebook, Essential Marine Cleaners today!

To read even more about the cleaning and maintenance of all your boating surfaces, buy the entire three-part series for the price of two! Available for purchase and download is Practical Sailor's ebook series, MARINE CLEANERS. This three volume set contains the ebooks GELCOAT MAINTENANCE AND RESTORATION, ESSENTIAL MARINE CLEANERS and SPECIALTY MARINE CLEANERS.

You'll get one complete ebook FREE.

Build Your Own Fender Boards

Fender boards are almost a necessity when docking against pilings because without them, no matter how you position and secure your boat and fenders, movement of tide and boat will displace the position of the fenders relative to the piles.The result dinged topsides.

Fender boards, designed to ride outboard of two fenders, protect a much larger section of topsides much more effectively.

The simplest form of fender board as illustrated, is adequate for most needs.All that is needed is a 3- to 4-foot length of 2 x 4, 2 x 6, or 2 x 8 inches. As a guide, Id start at 2 x 4 for a 20-foot boat, a 2 x 6 for a 30-footer, and a 2 x 8 for a 40-footer.

On a larger boat, you may want to use a slightly longer board, perhaps up to 6 feet long.Anything longer than that, however, is likely to take two people to handle, and be a nuisance to store.

Just go the lumberyard and get normal dimension lumber, which may be any variety of softwood. Make sure that it doesn't have any large knots in the middle of the board which might cause it to break under heavy loading. A hardwood like ash will take more abuse, but the extra weight can make it a handful for one person to handle.

A hole slighty larger than the diameter of the suspension or drop lines (say 9/16-inch hole for a -inch line), is drilled through the larger dimension at either end of the board, about 6 feet from either end.

Next, round the ends of the plank and chamfer all edges. Your lines should be long enough to suspend the plank down to the waterline from whatever stanchions or cleats you plan to use.

After threading the lines through the holes, tie a figure-8 stopper knot at the bottom of each line, and youre finished.

Because of the abuse fender boards are intended to take, painting or varnishing them is pretty much a waste of time.And, because you want a fender board to be as gentle as possible to your boat, complications like metal hanging straps or eye bolts are best avoided.

You can use your fender board with conventional round fenders, or you can purchase solid rubber cushions made specifically for attaching to 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 spars.Made by Taylor, they are available though most retail chandlers and mail order forms. In our experience they do not give the board quite as much standoff from the hull that a large round fender will, but because they are permanently attached to fender board, there is no risk that they will pop out of position, allowing the board to rest- and rub- against the topsides of your board.

The one embellishment you might wish to consider, if you have sufficient time and/or inclination, is a laminated fender board.This board is composed of three layers of 1 x 3-inch fir, hickory, or ash with the layers separated by 1/8-inch strips of wood epoxied in at either end with the object of creating a leaf-spring effect.I saw one of these years ago, and, though I don't imagine its much more effective than a length of solid 2 x 6, it certainly looked impressive and showed a certain pride of ownership that a simpler board would lack.Only you can decide which sort of board would satisfy you.

For more than 1,000 tips, suggestions, evaluations, and nuggets of hard-won advice from more than 300 seasoned veterans, purchase Sailors' Secrets: Advice from the Masters today!

Painting fiberglass boats is a huge business. The development of high-gloss, long-lived polyurethanes means you can get multiple years out of a paint job. But a good paint job can be breathtakingly expensive, and a single careless docking can mar that beautiful finish. Better by far is a program of gelcoat maintenance that preserves the finish your boat came with for as long as possible. Whether its topsides or super-structure, your gelcoat surfaces will last a long, long time if properly cared for.

Caring for the top-sides of your boat is labor-intensive, but can easily be adopted even by inexperienced sailors. All the materials are available at marine stores anywhere in the world. You will use less than $50 in materials a year with this program, but don't bother putting a price on your labor.

The first step in any topside maintenance program is to remove dirt and salt. When Nick Nicholsons Calypso arrived in Oman on the Arabian Peninsula after crossing the Indian Ocean, she was so encrusted with salt that you could literally scrape it off every exposed surface of the boat with a putty knife. Unfortunately, salt attracts dirt, so after the first Middle Eastern dust storm the boat was a pretty sad sight, more reddish-brown than sparkling white.

With any luck, you wont be faced with this type of mess, particularly if you have little water to spare to clean it up, as we did. However, any dirt and salt left on any gelcoat or painted surface will hasten its demise. Start by washing the topsides with a powerful cleaner-degreaser such as Simple Green. We use a very concentrated solution at this stage, scrubbing hard with a clean, large sponge. Rinse this sponge often in a separate bucket of water so youre not just moving the salt and dirt around on the surface. Rinse the surface thoroughly with clean water, and wipe relatively dry with a synthetic chamois or clean towel, just as you would do if washing a car. Drying will minimize water spotting.

Once this is done you can go on to gelcoat repairs, polishing, and waxing.

The keys to gelcoat maintenance are: keep it clean, keep it waxed, and repair dings in a timely fashion. Polish no more frequently than is absolutely necessary, and then use the least abrasive material that will do the job. If you get to the point where you need to use rubbing compound rather than polishing compound to remove oxidation and restore gloss, youre not washing and waxing frequently enough.

For more on the care and cleaning of your gelcoat, purchase and download Gelcoat Restoration & Maintenance today!

Want to read about the cleaning and maintenance of all your boating surfaces? Available for purchase and download is Practical Sailor's ebook series, MARINE CLEANERS. This three volume set contains the ebooks GELCOAT MAINTENANCE AND RESTORATION, ESSENTIAL MARINE CLEANERS and SPECIALTY MARINE CLEANERS.

You'll get one complete ebook FREE.

Part of our interest in acrylic hull restorers is due to the wide range of opinions on these products. Marketing materials often position these products as miracle cures for aging gelcoat, and the examples of restored boats appearing on the Internet or in brochures often seem too good to be true. While user reports are generally positive, some disappointing reports also crop up on sailing forums.

So whats the difference between acrylic coatings and conventional waxes and polishes? Waxes and polishes fill in minor surface imperfections and give the gelcoat a reflective surface. Acrylic fiberglass coatings - an alternative when waxes and polishes wont revive your gelcoat - leave a hard, clear plastic coating on gelcoat.

Acrylic coatings differ significantly from ordinary bottle or paste waxes in both their chemistry and how they are applied. Conventional carnauba paste waxes (those made from the carnauba bean) mechanically stick to the surface of the hull and usually require rubbing to get them to crystallize and shine. Buffing drives wax into the surface pores.

Synthetic polymer waxes penetrate pores and chemically bond to the boats surface. Some synthetics resist abrasion and chemicals better than true waxes, but the line between conventional waxes and polymer waxes is fuzzy. Even products that are true carnauba waxes often rely on polymer technology.

To read the details on our acrylic gelcoat restorers test as well as more tips and advice on the care and cleaning of your gelcoat, purchase and download Gelcoat Restoration & Maintenance today!

Want to read about the cleaning and maintenance of all your boating surfaces? Available for purchase and download is Practical Sailor's ebook series, MARINE CLEANERS. This three volume set contains the ebooks GELCOAT MAINTENANCE AND RESTORATION, ESSENTIAL MARINE CLEANERS and SPECIALTY MARINE CLEANERS.

You'll get one complete ebook FREE.

Weve all seen it. That slow buildup of brown discoloration along a boats waterline, sometimes growing with time to a darker brown or gray with layers of dirt, speckled black dots, a fuzzy growth, and even an embedded greasy scum. More noticeable on otherwise nice white fiberglass hulls, that boat-long streak - known along the Intracoastal Waterway as the ICW mustache - survives normal washdowns.

Causes vary, depending on the waters where the vessel spends most of its time. The tea-colored stain may be from natural tannin in freshwater lakes, rivers, and brackish estuaries. Tannic acids from oak bark and leaves have been used for centuries to cure leather, leaving that distinctive brown color. Add some algae growth, some metallic salts, and a little oil and pollution, and the stain from the chemical reaction on the fiberglass or paint can seem permanent.

Attacking these waterline stains should be done with care and forethought. An aggressive use of gritty cleaners like Ajax and Comet will remove some of the dirt but could damage the gelcoat. The shiny outer layer of gelcoat can be quite thin and vulnerable to rubbing with abrasive cleaners. Depending on age, UV exposure, and wax, the gelcoat will oxidize and become more porous, thus more susceptible to deeper staining. Needless to say, a well-kept, waxed hull is easier to clean than one left to the elements.

In our recent tests of 22 products that claimed to eliminate waterline stains, we found several fast-acting, cost-effective products that, when used properly, wont harm your gel coat. Of the gel, powder, spray and liquid cleaners, we found that the thicker gels worked best and were the safest to use. They are easier to apply thanks to their easy-to-see color and their consistency.

To read the details on our waterline stain remover tests as well as more tips and advice on the care and cleaning of your gelcoat, purchase and download Gelcoat Restoration & Maintenance today!

Want to read about the cleaning and maintenance of all your boating surfaces? Available for purchase and download is Practical Sailor's ebook series, MARINE CLEANERS. This three volume set contains the ebooks GELCOAT MAINTENANCE AND RESTORATION, ESSENTIAL MARINE CLEANERS and SPECIALTY MARINE CLEANERS.

You'll get one complete ebook FREE.

While having a robust sail inventory is considered a must on most racing sailboats, its often thought to be more of a luxury for cruising sailboats. That couldnt be further from the truth.

A large part of making a successful passage - be it short or long - lies in the preparation, and stocking your boat with multiple headsail options and the right equipment to handle them means youll be able to carry on in heavy weather or light air. That can make all the difference whether youre trying to outrun a storm or keep a grip on your sanity in ever-shifting winds for days on end.

We consider the ability to quickly and efficiently reduce and add sail area to be a primary aspect of seamanship.

For more advice and recommendations on sails - what to buy, carry and use - purchase Practical Sailors ebook Sail Buying, Sail Making, & Mainsails.

Also, check out the complete 3 volume series, A Look at Sails at a price that gives you one ebook free when you buy the other two.

Asymmetrical spinnakers - A-sails as many sailors have grown to refer to them - are in many respects a simplification of the conventional, symmetrical spinnaker. For both sailmakers and their customers, this is good news. With an A-sail, theres no bothering with a spinnaker pole (though many boats these days are designed and build with bowsprits for the purpose of setting asymmetrical spinnakers), and there are fewer control lines to worry about. And not only are they simpler, A-sails are potentially much more versatile than symmetrical spinnakers. They can be flown easily through a broad range of wind angles. How low and how high you can steer with these sails is partially a function of the sails design, the boats design, and the existing sailing conditions (wind speed and sea state). But generally speaking, you can make use of an asymmetrical spinnaker from roughly 50 degrees apparent wind angle down to 130 degrees.

Asymmetrical cruising spinnakers are ordinarily constructed out of nylon, due to that materials forgiving nature. Nylon is stronger than polyester (Dacron), so it has slightly higher resistance to tearing. It also has greater elasticity, so it can resist shock-loading. Downside? Nylon sails are more prone to sail-shaping distortion when the wind pipes up.

Most sailmakers favor a tri-radial panel orientation for cruising asymmetrical spinnakers. This is because that approach allows them to make the best use of the warp-oriented yarns in the fabric. (The warp yarns - those that run the length of the fabric - are pre-tensioned during weaving and thus don't stretch as much as the fill yarns, those running 90 degrees in the other direction.) A proper tri-radial construction ensures that the majorloads on the sail will align with the most stretch-resistant axis of the cloth. This, too, makes these sails more versatile.

For more advice and recommendations on sails - what to buy, when and how to use - purchase Practical Sailors ebook A LOOK AT SAILS, PART TWO: Headsails & Furling Gear.

Also, check out the complete 3 volume series, A Look at Sails at a price that gives you one ebook free when you buy the other two.

Have you ever stopped and thought about how many boat heating options there are? It can be over-whelming even for the most experienced technical mechanic. And yes, there are a multitude of ways to extend the season and keep a cozy cabin, ranging from simple to complex. But how do you choose the best heating option? You must consider many factors, when making this decision.

A definite correlation exists between the degree to which we are warm and dry, and the enjoyment of a sail, or a night at anchor. A damp and chilly environment may be exacerbated by a poorly insulated hull, leaks, and sweating. Sitting beneath a drippy port or headliner, or curling up in a damp bunk, make or break your sailing experience.

Your boat can be matched to a heating system that, at one end of the spectrum, will simply prevent the formation of icicles or, at the other, provide a space as warm as that den at home. Sources range from electric "cubes" and oil-filled radiators plugged in dockside, to hanging lamps, to the nautical equivalent of central heating. Cost ranges from almost nothing to the limits of your credit card, notwithstanding the recapture of part of the initial cost when the boat is sold.

So how do you decide with heat source to go with? Start with the hidden danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. There are two related dangers in heating a boat with any kind of fossil-based fuel. The first is the chance of producing and/or concentrating carbon monoxide in the living spaces. As we know, CO will kill us straightaway. The second is complacency in assuming that we have the CO angle covered adequately. The more the brain is deprived of oxygen, the less able it is to understand what's happening to it. So, proper ventilation of living spaces aboard a heated boat, no matter what type of system is used, no matter whether it's vented outboard or via portholes and companionway, is absolutely vital.

Whether you are just considering upgrading your heating system or you ready to start the project, start your research and sharpen you technical know-how by reading Nigel Calders comprehensive guide on how to maintain, and improve your boats essential systems.

If its on a boat and it has screws, wires or moving parts, its covered in the Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual. When you dock or leave the deck with this book, you have at your fingertips the best and most comprehensive advice on technical reference and troubleshooting all aspects of your boat gear.

Have you ever stopped and thought about how many boat heating options there are? It can be over-whelming even for the most experienced technical mechanic. And yes, there are a multitude of ways to extend the season and keep a cozy cabin, ranging from simple to complex. But how do you choose the best heating option? You must consider many factors, when making this decision.

A definite correlation exists between the degree to which we are warm and dry, and the enjoyment of a sail, or a night at anchor. A damp and chilly environment may be exacerbated by a poorly insulated hull, leaks, and sweating. Sitting beneath a drippy port or headliner, or curling up in a damp bunk, make or break your sailing experience.

What should you consider about fuel types?
Small electric heaters are handy for taking the chill off a boat in the morning, evaporating dew that may accumulate on the overhead when bodies sleep below, or on a chilly evening.

When your cold-weather travels extend beyond the marina, however, so do the requirements for a different system. Beyond the output of the heating system, a primary consideration is the capacity to carry fuel for the duration of a voyage, and the availability of fuel in destination ports. Generally, towing a barge loaded with crude oil is not a viable option. Thus, choices become diesel, kerosene, propane (LPG), natural gas (CNG), wood, coal, pellet fuel, alcohol, or charcoal. Of the options, diesel and kerosene are the most readily available. Propane is also easy to find. CNG is not. Good stove alcohol is available in chandleries, and is convenient if you're already running an alcohol stove-but it's not the fuel of choice for serious systems.

Whether you are just considering upgrading your heating system or you ready to start the project, start your research and sharpen you technical know-how by reading Nigel Calders comprehensive guide on how to maintain, and improve your boats essential systems. If its on a boat and it has screws, wires or moving parts, its covered in the Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual. When you dock or leave the deck with this book, you have at your fingertips the best and most comprehensive advice on technical reference and troubleshooting all aspects of your boat gear.