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Use an insurance agent. It is fine to do some initial price-checking online, but you likely will pay more acting as your own insurance agent. We recommend talking to marine insurance specialists who do this every day and get paid for it. They are your advocate and your liaison to the underwriter, whom they often bring hundreds of thousands of dollars in business. Shop around for an agent. Avoid folks who sound like they are operating out of a telephone boiler room with canned scripts. Ask questions and test to see how proactive and knowledgeable they are. Every boat is different, as is every owner’s needs. You want to work with someone who will work to understand your unique needs and will customize a policy for you. For this reason, we recommend working with marine specialists who represent more than one underwriter.

Practical Sailor recently interviewed market insiders on the state of marine insurance, and we found that several factors—a slack economy, sharply reduced boat sales, consecutive mild hurricane seasons, and an overall aging of insured boats—have led to insurers working harder for boatowners’ business. Not only is it becoming easier for boat buyers to find an insurance policy that meets their needs and pocketbook, but existing boat owners are finding ways to reduce insurance premiums. This comprehensive marine insurance buyer’s guide will show you how to find the best insurer for your boat, and the breakdown of coverage options will help you choose the comprehensive policy your boat needs, without overspending.

As we ease into 2012—the Year of the Dragon—we’ve rounded up some winter reads from dragons in the sailing and writing communities. Offshore voyager and Practical Sailor contributor Ed Mapes, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael D’Antonio, and bluewater sailor Charles Doane have recently published new titles, and sailing journalist Herb McCormick has two new books out. Professional meteorologist Alan Watts recently added to his stockpile of weather books, and Laura Hillenbrand’s latest bestselling non-fiction book, “Unbroken,” has already been optioned for a movie. We’ve also included Yan Martel’s “Life of Pi” for this year’s picks for off-season reads because a movie based on the book is due out later this year—if you haven’t already, we suggest reading it before the movie launches. And the children’s adventure tale, “The Lion’s Paw” by Rob White is a must-have for those with young sailor’s on their crew. Enjoy!

Highlights from 2011 here at Practical Sailor included the long-awaited debut of the new website, with 13 years of archives now open to subscribers. And then there were the downers: Scrap metal scavengers ran (limped?) off with the 600-pound keel for Jelly, the Catalina 22 that is the focus of our excruciatingly slow-moving boat restoration project. Then, the over-enthusiastic workers hired to clean up our workshop property mistook our elegant wood-coatings test rack for scrap. Straight into the dumpster. So its back to square one on wood coatings, and dear Jelly is now a boat in search of a keel.

The gift-giving holidays are upon us. If you still have some last-minute shopping to do, here are a few inexpensive stocking-stuffer ideas for the sailors on your list.

A few months back, I received an email from Laura Frye, the apparently very tolerant wife of Drew Frye. (Drew is pictured above repairing the familys washing machine-again.) In the most polite way, she suggested that Drews ongoing study of holding-tank deodorizers for Practical Sailor might be better carried out in a remote location, rather than at the Frye household. (Without giving too much away, the project involves large amounts of iguana poop.)

The cruising boat, like an army, travels on its stomach. If you can't eat well while sailing — whether day racing or cruising the Pacific — much of the pleasure of sailing will be lost. If you can't eat at all due to deteriorated food stores, more than simple pleasure can be lost. Galleys on American production sailboats have come a long way in the last 20 years. We particularly remember one 40' cruiser-racer by…

Struggling to remove the number one genoa in a squall, the foredeck man momentarily forgets the "one hand for yourself, one hand for the ship" axiom. You've taken the boat almost head to wind in an effort to make it easier to get the flogging sail inboard. There are only two of you aboard, and one has to steer. An errant wave knocks the boat completely head to wind, and the jib backs. Plunging over…

Every now and then, I’ll clear out the attic and come across a shoebox full of receipts and an oil-smeared ledger, testimonies to the steep learning curve we faced when we began outfitting Tosca back in 1989. Many of the crumpled receipts are illegible; their ink faded with the passage of time. But between the paper scraps and the figures in the ledger, an instructive story emerges. These artifacts of a well-spent youth remind me how we nearly fell into the same trap that keeps so many aspiring voyagers forever tied to the dock.

Who wouldn’t accept with open arms a renewable product that is produced right here in the United States, reduces our dependency on foreign oil, and reduces pollution? You’ve probably already heard of biodiesel, a fuel made from, among other things, soybeans and used deep-fryer oils. Similarly, ethanol or ethyl alcohol is made from various agricultural products such as sugar cane and corn. (It’s what moonshiners used to make in rural stills in the early part of the last century.)