Tabla de contenidos para April 2023 en Cruising World

After 45 years of running into each other at boat shows but uttering no more than a brief hello, Doris Colgate and Lin Pardey sit side by side in Newport, Rhode Island. They’re talking, laughing, giggling, smiling. And reminiscing about sailing and their lives. They’re about to join an exclusive club of nautical notables that’s 114 members strong, all inductees into the National Sailing Hall of Fame, an honor that Doris’ husband, Steve, received in 2015. The Colgates are responsible for teaching 160,000 people how to sail and explore the world. Doris also founded an organization dedicated to furthering women’s participation in the sport and lifestyle: the National Women’s Sailing Association. Lin and her husband, Larry, who died in 2020, are known for two leisurely circumnavigations aboard engineless, self-built wooden…

Over the years, I’ve heard marketing folks offer some pretty ambitious descriptions of a given vessel’s aims and capabilities. A couple of years ago, a sales rep said that I could take his company’s new 40-something-footer and “do a Bermuda Race on it, or live aboard, or sail around the world.” Except the deck layout was horrible for racing, the galley and storage were too tight for long-term habitation, and there wasn’t nearly enough tankage for crossing oceans. In reality, it was a pretty fair coastal cruiser. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t win any prizes. In sharp contrast to that experience, it was refreshing to step aboard the Voyage 590. The marketing was actually the straightforward skinny: This 59-foot cat, built in South Africa, is a high-end charter boat with a half-dozen…

I used to get stressed out about docking, especially when a crowd was judging every step of my technique. But, after countless rounds of practicing the art of parking on water, I’ve realized that I am much more anxious about disembarking than docking. It’s the going from a dead stop that flusters my feathers, especially if there is a lot of traffic. At least when I am approaching a dock, my boat has some way, meaning I have steerage and control. Today, I have the most manageable docking situation one could dream of. My slip is deep in California’s Marina del Rey basin. It points west into the prevailing wind and is shrouded by a row of tall buildings. Disembarking is an easy affair because the water is almost always…

I don’t want to give away anything, but I started bareboat chartering long before multihulls populated the charter fleets. In the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, bareboats were often tubby monohulls, either power or sail, and usually with single engines. Luckily, I had a head start on my first multihull charter because I’d been racing beach catamarans like Hobies, and these provided me with valuable insights into the two-hulled world. While the catamaran has gained in popularity by leaps and bounds over the past couple of decades, the design dates back centuries. At a time when much of the “civilized” world was still gazing at the sea with fear, the Polynesians were making incredible voyages over thousands of miles of open ocean aboard large, double-hulled voyaging canoes. If you’re…

After a long time in the planning stage, my son Adam and I began work on a tiny house in 2022. While it was possible to purchase small, modular shower pans and enclosures, small soaking tubs were virtually impossible to find. I’ve built several small boats using wood and WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy, so it occurred to me that building a small tub might be possible. On YouTube® I found videos of several do-it-yourself hot tubs made from 2x4 cedar strakes. Because these were made for mounting outside on a deck, there was no need for adhesives. They relied on steel bands, and the natural swelling of the cedar, to enable the tubs to hold water. Since our tub was going to be inside a tiny home, it needed to be…

The day after Thanksgiving 2020, we adopted a 60 lb. dog from a shelter in Danbury, CT. She came with a plastic bag of turkey scraps and not a lot of info. I thought we might have accidentally got a Leonberger pup, but a DNA test showed we had a mutt with no dominant breed. My wife and I named her Babka because of her heavy double coat of black and brown. In hindsight, we were lucky. Babka is relaxed, rambunctious and playful. She is good with children. Perhaps she had come from a family. Oddly, the shelter had given us strict warnings against leaving Babka outside in the cold. This was a conundrum, as Babka seemed quite comfortable napping in snowdrifts, delicately slurping flakes off the seat of our…

Knowing how much epoxy you will need for a project, before you start, will save time, money, and frustration. Luckily, it is fairly simple to get a ballpark idea of how much epoxy your project will require before you start mixing. Calculating the Amount of Mixed Resin and Hardener The first thing we need to do is calculate the volume of your project that needs epoxy. The formula to calculate cubic inch is length x width x depth. It’s pretty straightforward, but let’s use it in an example. Say you want to coat a bar top with a ¼" deep coating of WEST SYSTEM® 105 Epoxy Resin® and 207 Special Clear Hardener™. The bar top is 6' long (72") and 2 ½' wide (30"). To calculate the volume of the…

Located on the banks of the picturesque Huon River at Franklin, Tasmania, The Wooden Boat Centre is Australia’s only wooden boat building school, creating original masterpieces and restoring heritage vessels while mentoring students from all walks of life. For the past 30 years, the Wooden Boat Centre has been dedicated to keeping the tradition of hand-made boats alive. Their one year shipwright course, and a variety of shorter courses, give students hands-on experience in both traditional and modern boat building techniques. Locals and visitors are always welcome to visit for a guided tour to explore the age-old craft of wooden boat building. “The appeal of the wooden boat is universal,” explains Cody Horgan, head shipwright and manager of the Wooden Boat Centre. “They are functional, beautiful and represent the pinnacle…

Maurice Godin built this standup paddleboard and paddle a few years ago. The paddle and the exterior of the board are made of local eastern white cedar. The interior frame is marine plywood. The finish is fiberglass and WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. “Thanks to the pre-cut interior frame, and excellent tutorials at WEST SYSTEM and Sliver Paddle Boards, it turned out great. This was my first time working with fiberglass and epoxy. I was pleased with how easy it was to work with and the excellent results obtained.” Micheal Stendzis built this Camilla C, a 14' Seneca Pacific Power Dory from plans. The boat is a plywood on frame design, wrapped in fiberglass/epoxy and paint. Michael Stendzis confessed to using “copious amounts of WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy.” As his largest woodworking project to date,…

As the sun drops below the horizon on a tranquil evening in Puerto Rico, a catamaran rests on the hook while another world begins to come alive. Watching the sky squeeze the last few drops out of the juicy Caribbean sunset, lucky guests aboard find themselves with front-row seats to the best show in town emanating from ashore—the hypnotic symphony of the coquí, a tiny tree frog native to Puerto Rico that gets its common name from the chirpy sound it makes. Beneath the boat’s waterline, an entirely different scene is unfolding: survival of the fittest, the height of natural modern warfare. If not for the frenzied swirls and climactic pops echoing along the water’s surface from every direction, one might harbor an innocent but false sense that they are…

This February, I was on a powerboat off Anse Marcel on the French side of the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin when a fleet of fast performance-cruising multihulls set sail into the windy Anguilla Channel for the rally portion of the annual Caribbean Multihull Challenge. A pair of Balance 442 cats named Sage and Umoya, with reefed mains and drawing spinnakers, were blasting their way into the channel’s whitecapped waters, roiled by the 20-plus-knot easterly trade winds. Though they were practically the smallest cats in the fray, the 442s were more than holding their own against the bigger craft, which included a quartet of Balance 482s (including company president and founder Phil Berman’s In Balance). Five months earlier, during our annual Boat of the Year contest, I’d sailed the very same…

Arain-disrupted two-day safari in the usually arid plains and mountains north of Cape Town, cruising across windy Table Bay to view Robben Island from a power cat, and wild World Cup soccer fans filling the streets nightly each provided entertaining sideshows to the main event on a recent trip to South Africa: a media tour of the Robertson and Caine boatbuilding shops, where Leopard catamarans are built. It was an adventure that the builder arranged to coincide with the launch of its newly designed 40-foot power cat, to be marketed as the Leopard 40PC and the Moorings 403PC. R&C operates six manufacturing facilities in Cape Town, where it builds models that include 42-, 45- and 50-foot sailing catamarans, and 40-, 46- and 53-foot power cats. All models are available to…

Here are six boats handpicked by The Multihull Company’s president and CEO, Capt. Will Miller, as excellent choices for brokerage-catamaran seekers. He says that these are all worth a look, whether you’re a first-time buyer or an experienced monohull sailor. Fountaine Pajot Lipari 41 Looking for an affordable liveaboard cruiser? The Lipari 41’s deck layout is ergonomically designed for convenient sailhandling and alfresco entertaining, making for an enjoyable sailing experience all around. The Maestro version offers an owner’s suite full of cabinets and lockers complemented by a large master bath. There’s also abundant stowage in the forepeaks and anchor locker on deck for all of the cruising essentials. Whether you’re a seasonal cruiser or fulltime liveaboard, the Lipari 41 checks all the boxes at a friendly price point. Lagoon 42…

Afracture in the pressurized shore-water line in my 50-foot schooner, Britannia, caused major flooding. It would have sunk her had I not managed to pump out the water quickly. I subsequently stripped and thoroughly cleaned five electric pumps, which worked again flawlessly. I also drained the engine oil and transmission oil and replaced them. Then, remarkably, the engine fired up immediately, as though nothing had happened. Because the engine continued to start every time, I assumed that the starter motor was fine. During the hot summer months in Florida, we hardly visited the boat anyway, and rarely started the engine. This was a mistake. Over time, the starter began to turn the engine slower and slower, as though the dedicated battery was at the end of its five-year life. I…

“Cocoon” – 2017 Beneteau Oceanis 38 The Oceanis 38.1 cleverly combines practical features, performance, and elegance on a boat size where function generally outweighs personalization. The vessel offers a performance to habitability ratio second to none on this size of cruising yacht. Length and beam on the waterline have been extended to the limit to make her quick to cut through the water, while increasing stability. “Cocoon” is one of few let of this model in the fleet and is due to be released April 30th 2023, in BVI. She’s very spacious and airy with good headroom both above and below decks’. Has an arch with mainsheet mounted and makes for a solid sprayhood construction and hand holds. She is a 2 cabin 2 head layout, with separate shower and…

Have you ever wondered how laminate thickness can be determined without breaking out the epoxy and reinforcement fabric? The answer is simple—use math. While some of you may have just lost interest because you think math is too difficult, I can assure you that this math requires nothing more than some basic multiplication, addition, and division. Let’s get to it. Here is the equation we’ll use to calculate the average thickness for a single layer of laminate: In this equation: • tL represents the total composite laminate thickness.• WF represents the aerial weight of the woven or knit reinforcement fabric you are using in your composite laminate.• PF represents the density of the reinforcement fibers.• PR represents the density of the resin system you are using. In this instance, the…

What do you do with 154 sample size specimens of wood? I decided to craft a decorative charcuterie board for my kitchen. While doing a large shop cleanup here at GBI, we rediscovered a set of 154 samples of wood species from all around the globe. They had previously been used for an Epoxyworks article on adhesion testing. Having served their purpose, they were now sitting around the shop collecting dust. Since the samples were still in good shape, I wanted to turn them into some sort of decorative project. A light bulb went off in my head. I should make a decorative piece for my kitchen inspired by a charcuterie board. (Note: WEST SYSTEM® Epoxies are not certified as food safe.) Selecting my Woods The first thing that I did…

When we purchased our 2006 Winnebago® RV, we knew we would need to complete some repairs. We never imagined the back wall would need to be removed and rebuilt from the ground up. One of the edges of the back wall was compromised which allowed water to penetrate the wall and eventually saturate a majority of the plywood within. After determining that the damage was too great to spot treat/repair, we began the process of removing the wall. After studying the engineering diagram from Winnebago, we learned that the wall was a sandwich construction. The wall had a fiberglass exterior, plywood and polystyrene foam core, and a wallpapered lauan plywood on the interior. If we were going to go through the work to rebuild the wall we wanted to insure…

cruisingworld.com/offwind-sails-for-cats Bonus Features The Noob Files: Zen and the Art of Teak Toe-Rail Maintenance Our resident “noob” cruiser, David Blake Fischer, is at it again, this time conducting a postmortem of a recent maintenance job gone horribly right. cruisingworld.com/thenoobfiles Sailing Totem: Is Starlink Ready for Bluewater Cruising? Starlink’s Dishy McFlatface is popping up in a lot of anchorages in the cruising community. While Starlink isn’t everywhere, the speed of growth is impressive. If there is coverage in your planned route, it’s an easy answer for onboard internet for most budgets. So what are the pros and cons? Find out here. cruisingworld.com/sailing-totem-starlink Video: 5 Easy Lighting Upgrades for Your Sailboat In this free webinar, you’ll learn from an Imtra expert about simple lighting upgrades that make a big impact on your…

Once the Boat of the Year team was aboard the Neel 43 trimaran and we had the sails set, it didn’t take me long to find my sweet spot. You know, the place you want to sit and watch the miles fly by as the hulls slice through the waves. Nearly every boat I’ve sailed has one, though sometimes it’s hard to find. But not on the Neel. With my fellow judges at work at the raised helm station, I stepped from the wheel onto the wide starboard side deck, took a couple of steps down into the cockpit, and wandered into the brightly lit salon where the door to the owner’s cabin was open, as though beckoning in a visitor. Inside, I sat on the edge of the fore-and-aft…

One summer evening many years back, a friend invited me to sail on a new Leopard 47 off Newport, Rhode Island. Although daylight was slowly fading, there was still a tug of a breeze when we met on the dock. After 11 years of cruising on my 60-year-old, gaff-rigged double-ender Tosca, just the ease of boarding the Leopard with a simple, normal step onto a stable platform—with no life-threatening leaps, stern-boarding cardio or ultra-athletic bowsprit avoidance—impressed me. But as we slid out of the marina and hoisted the main, bluewater-voyaging PTSD washed over me, and I fought the need to madly stow charcuterie boards and wineglasses, my bags, their bags, pillows, plates, everything. When the captain suggested we set the jib, I braced myself in the cockpit, a reaction from…

EVER since we cruised from Acapulco, Mexico, to Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in 1988 on Freelance, our 28-foot Bristol Channel Cutter, my wife, Harriet, and I longed to return to the South Pacific. In spring 2021, while going through a closet full of stuff in our condo, out slid a box of old paper charts from our voyage. A large chart of Bora Bora unfolded in my hands. The perfect circle of reef, the lagoon of dazzling blue, clouds streaming like cotton from the island’s volcanic peaks—the South Pacific had enchanted us again. We sketched a plan: From our home port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, we’d head to Bermuda, then Puerto Rico, then the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Fiji.…

ADVICE Lithium Battery Bank Sizing Q: I’ve determined that running a dual 12-/24-volt system for my boat, a Kelly-Peterson 44, is the way to go. However, I am making some assumptions about the capabilities of lithium batteries that I’d like to verify first. My most critical assumption is about voltage drop (or sag) under load. My anticipated peak load would be 4 kW, and that would be for maybe one or two minutes at a time, with sustained loads of up to 3 kW for maybe 20 minutes at most. This would be provided at 240 volts AC by a decent-quality pure sine wave inverter, probably rated at 5 kW continuous and running from 24 volts. I would expect to use a battery bank of four 12-volt 100 Ah (nominal) lithium…

MONTHLY MAINTENANCE Hoses are like arteries and veins for your vessel. You can’t live without them, and the healthier they are, the better. They convey everything from seawater and exhaust gases to fuel, effluent and potable water. While virtually all hoses are critical, some are more important than others. If a blackwater hose fails, it can be inconvenient and unpleasant, and it might force you to head to a yard for assistance. But if a hose fails below the waterline and involves raw water or fuel, that can be catastrophic. While it might sound obvious, not all hose is created equal. Few hoses can do double duty. Most are specifically designed for one or, at most, two tasks. I frequently encounter unsuitable hose being used in below-the-waterline raw-water applications. Because…

Those new to the process of fairing a boat’s hull or deck are quick to mix up a batch of fairing compound, WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy with a low-density filler, and apply it to the surface, so they can start sanding right away. My experience in boat repair and construction has taught me the importance of making a fairing plan and selecting the correct materials before any epoxy is mixed. Understanding Fair and Smooth It is important to understand the difference between fair and smooth. Smoothness describes the texture and fairness describes the shape. If you run your hand on the surface, and you feel bumps and hollows (or highs and lows), the surface is not fair. Another way to see a fair surface is by using a wood or plastic…