Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i Cruising World

Do you ever have a feeling that your life is about to change?” § My wife said these words to me as we parked our Toyota 4Runner in front of the covered warehouse containing a 31-foot Hallberg-Rassy Monsun from 1975. I didn’t know what struck Missy, but I shrugged it off. “Let’s leave our emotions here in the car,” I said. § I was lying. For the previous two months, I had been admiring this boat online, asking the broker for more pictures, and digesting anything that had information about the Monsun. Even before seeing the boat in person, I had dreams of following along the tracks that John Neal wrote about having sailed in his Monsun, which he owned for 11 years and sailed 44,000 miles before selling it…

Our Contessa 25, Skyebird, lay at its mooring in Sydney Harbour, looking forlorn after my year trapped overseas amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally back in the Land of Oz, I rowed out to her, my mind filled with thoughts of sailing. It was January—midsummer in our Southern Hemisphere—and my wife, Carole, and I had just enough time to prepare for a voyage north to escape the Australian winter. Skyebird is a former racer-cruiser that knew Australia’s waters well in its racing heyday. Australia’s east coast is the country’s most popular sailing area—and the most populated part—so there is access to services along the way. Stretching from the edge of the Southern Ocean to the Torres Strait, along an island larger than Europe, the cruising region is one that I have…

WEATHER Studying weather forecasts is so much a part of the morning ritual on our boat that we automatically associate the smell of coffee with weather bulletins and surface-analysis charts. It doesn’t matter where we are—near a city with speedy Wi-Fi and downloads, anchored in a remote corner of the globe with text bulletins, or underway with the Pactor modem screeching and rumbling for half an hour to get a GRIB file—weather and morning coffee just go together. As sailors, we live much closer to the elements than most people. Keeping an eye on forecasts is imperative for the safety of the boat and the well-being of the crew. It’s also a fun and interesting pastime. Get your bearings. When you start exploring a cruising area, the local weather might…

Summer 1997: I was a college kid with a summer gig at the Norwalk Yacht Club in Connecticut. One of my first jobs involved helping varnish the cap rail on the club’s front deck. A friend warned me that this was the boss’s litmus test. I kept my job, but I can still hear my boss warning our crew to mind our “runs and holidays.” Flash-forward 25 years, and I’ve learned that the chiseled foam brushes my boss favored weren’t exactly standard (see sidebar). Even so, I can only imagine that the Norwalk Yacht Club produced several generations of employees who are fairly deft at foamy-brush brightwork. While it’s tough to pinpoint when mariners first started employing varnish, likely to keep spars from absorbing water (read: weight aloft), odds are…

On the truck to Seattle, BO-PEEP II’s tender had suffered split planks in both bilge turns. The planks were also checked and had long gaps, rendering the tender unseaworthy. I made a uniform cut in each long split to clean out the damaged wood and inserted double overlapping graving pieces (sometimes called a Dutchman) with WEST SYSTEM 105 Resin®/205 Fast Hardener® thickened with 404 High-Density Filler. The original iron bolt in the oak stem had corroded and rotted the wood causing more small checks in the area. I carefully cut out the bad wood with a drill and chisel. Only a small amount of good wood remained, leaving the mortise in an irregular in shape. I used several small blocks of wood like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle to fill this…

I frequently use WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy to make exterior repairs on our very old house, which is part stone and part wood. The stone sections date from 1842 and the “newer” wooden parts from 1908. The fir thresholds at the south and east entrances to the elevated kitchen were easily damaged and heavily worn. One day, I had the bright idea to apply a lick of WEST SYSTEM Epoxy to seal the kitchen thresholds and protect them from further wear. I also put a thick coat of pigmented epoxy on the front door threshold when we installed a replica period door. The front door threshold, made of tougher wood and, with its epoxy coat, endures the passage of bicycles several times a day, as well as occasional suitcases, clumsy and/or…

The start of a new cruising season is a time often filled with thoughts about the exciting new adventures ahead. As it should be. But it’s also a time to ponder how we, as individual sailors, can help make sailing a greener, more sustainable activity. While what follows is a far cry from mastering carbon sequestration or cold fusion, here are some simple ways we can all reduce our environmental wakes. Chandlery choices. It’s incredibly hard to eliminate all single-use plastics, but numerous manufacturers are working to reduce our dependence on these materials. Companies including B&G, Harken and Yamaha have pledged to reduce their dependence on unsustainable packaging, and green-minded customers are encouraged to support businesses that share these ethics. DC alternatives. Few sailors enjoy listening to marine engines rumble…

HORIZONTAL!” I shout to my daughter. She’s standing on the stern of the 54-foot W.I. Crealock design The Dove, anchored in Five Islands Bay off Antigua. She’s about to photograph the sunset—holding her iPhone10 vertically. “The world is horizontal!” I yell from the cockpit, my evening’s rum and tonic at hand. “It’s vertical in my world!” she yells back. “Instagram doesn’t accept landscape mode!” What do I know? I can’t teach these two kids of mine anything these days. They’re at that age, early 20s, and Dad, well, he’s just too old to understand. Maybe I am, but I’ve made my living as a photojournalist who tells stories with pictures and words. Photography has been a part of my career since high school and into the US Navy, with a…

First impressions count, and mine were definitely favorable as I approached the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 380 with CW’s Boat of the Year judges during October’s United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland. Something about the way the reverse bow’s knuckle hovered just above the water caught my eye. Toss in pronounced hull chines carried aft from amidships, a low-slung coachroof and a high-aspect rig, and this boat hinted at the potential for some serious giddyap-and-go. And it did, as we found out a few days later, when we went for a sail on a delightfully sunny morning on Chesapeake Bay. The breeze was decent, about 15 knots. Sailing hard on the wind, we saw 7 knots and change on the GPS; we pushed it past 8 knots when we cracked…

WAYPOINTS ACQUIRES CYOA On the heels of Waypoints Yacht Charters’ November 2021 opening of its BVI base in Nanny Cay, Tortola, the company announced the acquisition of CYOAYacht Charters, and will take over the CYOA base in Frenchtown, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The St. Thomas base is accessible via direct flights from many US cities, and serves as a central location for chartering throughout the US, British and Spanish Virgin Islands. “The convenience of the St. Thomas base makes it a perfect location for the unique charter experience that Waypoints offers. We’re excited to expand our exceptional charters and the finest fleet in the Caribbean to a wider market,” says Kirstie Palmer, Waypoints Yacht Charters president. The BVI and USVI locations join Waypoints’ bases in St. Petersburg, Florida, and…

When you need to repair your fiberglass boat’s balsa core but don’t have any replacement core material on hand, what can you use as an alternative? I tested some different replacement core options to see how they’d perform in flexibility and strength alongside original balsa core in a fiberglass laminate. One popular core material is vertical grain balsa but, if it stays wet for too long, it can start to rot. This may make a soft or spongy spot you can feel if you step on it. If the softened balsa core is near or under a winch, stopper, cleat, or stantion base, you may not notice a problem until the object shifts position when it is under a load. It can be scary to see movement in a part…

Fiberglass Tub and Shower Repair Retired Technical Advisor Tom Pawlak explains how to use WEST SYSTEM Epoxy to repair a fiberglass tub or shower. He offers two repair approaches, one for when the backside of the tub or shower is available and the other for when it is not. Tom also explains how to determine laminate thickness with different weights of fiberglass cloth and provides examples of options for finishing your fiberglass tub or shower repair. SCAN FOR MORE INFO epoxyworks.com A Quick Architectural Fix Repairing rotted wood trim with WEST SYSTEM Epoxy is pretty simple when you follow the steps Mike Barker lays out. Step-by-step photos with detailed descriptions reveal the quickest, easiest way to fix rotting wood trim. SCAN FOR MORE INFO epoxyworks.com Epoxied Porch, Columns, and Railings If something…

I received a call from a friend of mine who owns a 2004 Farrier F33RX folding trimaran, the 33' Nelda Ray. This sailboat is a frequent competitor in regattas on the Great Lakes. The aluminum mast step was compressing the deck and causing laminate failure. I told my friend I’d figure out what went wrong and then fix it so it would never happen again. I’ll outline the process I used to make this successful repair. Before I started the repair, I covered the boat inside and out with a layer of 5-mil plastic sheeting in order to keep things clean. I left exposed only the areas that needed surface preparation. I used painter’s tape to seal the plastic film along the edges. Working as neatly and cleanly as possible…

REFIT It was an uncharacteristically hot June day for the Pacific Northwest when Duracell was lifted from the yard outside Seattle. It had been sitting there for the previous 25 years, and it was time for the boat to move to our yard on the Olympic Peninsula. Even at 6 a.m., a small crew of family and friends gathered to watch Duracell get lifted off its mossy stands. Among them was the man who had given us the boat two years after my husband, Matt Steverson, stumbled upon his sailing-forum post: “Mike Plant’s Open 60 Duracell—What Next?” The three guys who moved Duracell seemed unfazed about transporting a 15,000-pound vessel (no mast, thankfully) some 100 miles. Associated Boat Transport moves about 600 boats a year in the Pacific Northwest. After…

PROJECTS As I detailed in my recent article on replacing the lifelines on my 45-foot schooner (see “The Lifeline Quandary,” January/February), I learned much about Dyneema rope in the course of that project. Dyneema is considerably stronger, sizefor-size, than double-braided rope, and stronger than stainless wire of the same thickness. For example, ¼-inch 12-strand single-braid Dyneema has an amazing tensile strength of between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds. By comparison, 7-by-7 3/16-inch wire has a working load of 3,700 pounds. Note: There are variations of Dyneema, and these figures vary from one maker to another. Still, the potential of substituting Dyneema for many lines on asailboat has become a reality. I discovered another significant benefit in using Dyneema: the ease with which an eye splice can be formed, unlike the complicated…

For the past several years, practically all of the design surprises that have caught my eye on new sailboats have been abaft the mast. In no particular order, these innovative features include hull chines, twin rudders, pop-up TVs, house-style refrigerators, galleys forward in the saloon, sinks and grills on the stern, sun beds between a monohull’s twin wheels, and lounges on the coachroof to either side of the companionway. Some of these make the boat sail better, while others make it a more comfortable place to enjoy life on the water. But this past fall, it was the pointy end—or, should I say, the not-so-pointy end—of the Bavaria C38 that stood out. It made an impression from above, as I looked across the broad foredeck, and down below, where the…

The motor yacht Bo-Peep II is a 55' bridge deck cruiser designed by Hacker-Fermann Navel Architects Co. of Detroit, Michigan. In 2001, BO-PEEP underwent a major refit with extensive use of WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. Two decades later, the benefits of this approach are apparent in hull longevity and strength; dry bottom blanks, frames, and keel; a dry bilge; dry bronze thruhull fittings, hardware fasteners staying put; shorter shipyard haul-outs; and the propeller shaft remaining properly aligned. We no longer have rotted planks or loosened fasteners to replace, seams to caulk, or corrosions headaches. Built by Defoe Boat and Motor Works in Bay City, Michigan in 1926, Bo-Peep II has been in my wife Gene’s family since 1951. This mahogany boat was the second of four 55' motor yachts Defoe built…

My friend Chris bought a 33' fiberglass sailboat, a Cal 33, to use as his family cruiser. Because it was an older boat, he knew he had a few projects ahead—including drying out the rudder. Here in Michigan, we haul our boats out of the water for the winter and it gives us a chance to do repairs and inspect under the waterline. After hauling out the boat and storing it in the barn for the winter, Chris asked me to advise him on repairing the rudder. We found two smaller delaminated spots on one side of the rudder and a sizeable one on the other, along with a 6" crack near the rudder shaft. After drilling a few 3/8" drainage holes through the fiberglass skin and into the foam…

Every year we get questions regarding how to spray WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. Some people want to know how to thin epoxy so it comes out of a spray gun better while others want to know what Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is required for spraying epoxy safely. We give them all the same answer: Don’t do it! In short, epoxy is extremely hazardous when sprayed. Why You Shouldn’t Spray Epoxy To spray epoxy it must be atomized. This means the tiny epoxy molecules will be airborne. You might be saying to yourself, “Of course the particles of epoxy have to be small enough to be airborne Rachael, that’s the definition of spraying it.” Consider other materials you are used to spraying: hairspray, sunscreen, bug spray, just to name a few. Yet,…