September 2014
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TM The sailing magazine for the rest of us! www.goodoldboat.com Issue 98 September/October 2014 10 00 00 $8 (Canada $8 CDN) 10 0 62825 97035 7 TM SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 CONTENTS ISSUE 98 58 38 14 For the love of sailboats Speaking seriously Review boat Sailboats 101 10 Pearson 27 14 Paper Charts 101 A sweet sailer with an innovative interior Some sailors still value the printed world Dinghies and tenders BY TOM WELLS BY DON LAUNER 38 The cruising-capable dinghy It’s everything from taxi to truck 58 Nimble Arctic 25 Electronic wizardry BY JAN IRONS It’s neither mediocre nor boring 16 Lightning protection? BY ALLEN PENTICOFF Mitigating mayhem might be your best hope Trailer-sailing BY DAVID LYNN 50 Trailer revival Refit boat New life for a good old boat’s wheels 46 A fresh bout of old-boatitis . Exterior improvements BY ROCCO DRYFKA . and an International Folkboat 21 A leak-proof deck gland feels the love It lets wires in and keeps water out BY KEN JACOBSEN BY ROBERT NEEFUS Seamanship skills Spotlight on . 24 In search of solitude The rich rewards of sailing solo Making your own BY KAREN SULLIVAN 32 Ten-minute tethers 32 Wire leashes tame hardware wanderlust 26 One brain, six hands BY PAUL ESTERLE A solo sailor is active in mind and body BY KAREN SULLIVAN 35 A crane for tight places Extracting an engine with grace and ease BY BRIAN BUCK www.audioseastories.com September/October 2014 Good Old Boat 1 29 56 TM CONTENTS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 ISSUE 98 What’s more 5 Web sightings Quick and easy Annapolis 2014, classic classifieds, and books 65 Delrin deck pads for summer listening Clean new bases for turning blocks BY JIM CRAIGHEAD Just for fun The view from here 7 Learning the ropes 2.0 66 A turnbuckle cover that breathes Cruising memories Sailing a new boat is a mega adjustment Defy both chafe and corrosion 29 Generation to generation BY KAREN LARSON BY GREGG NESTOR Grandchildren keep the wind in the family’s sails Mail buoy 67 Product launchings BY BRIAN BUCK 8 Seakindliness, a mini dinghy, Wind app, charts on demand, and a and marauding midges virtual logbook Our readers’ boats 44 Pages from our “family album” Simple solutions 70 Good old classifieds 64 Windlass pendant switch Sailing life Plumbing parts ensure it’s waterproof Reflections 56 New Age of Sail BY NORM JOHNSON 77 Journeys with no end A museum examines Canada’s modern Every step is an accomplishment in itself boatbuilding history BY CONRAD COOPER BY MARK PESNER On the cover . Del Viento with the Robertson crew aboard sure gets around. Here she sits in a sunny nook near Riggs Glacier (in 67 Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park) wait- ing for the fog in the outside channel to burn off. Michael took this photo in July 2013. He and Windy and their two daughters have 64 since sailed south to Mexico and are ex- ploring the northern Sea of Cortez. www.audioseastories.com September/October 2014 Good Old Boat 3 Seamanship skills One brain, six hands A solo sailor is active in mind and body BY KAREN SULLIVAN n 1974, I owned a varnished wooden visualize how the boat might respond. autopilot or windvane to allow the boat Folkboat in Branford, Connecticut. Think about what could go wrong. to stay on course when you need to I On my first try at sailing solo I was Visualizing banishes most (but not all) work elsewhere. wracked with anxiety, not so much of the unexpected and is initially the about the sailing (the day was calm) hardest part of solo sailing. Be organized, be prepared but about the docking afterward. It’s also important to take your time Go over your boat’s rig looking for As I motored out past neighbors that and never rush. There’s no backup chafe, bad leads, and other problems included a globe-girdling William Atkin when you’re by yourself. A trip and fall and make repairs and improvements. ketch, a Dutch sloop that had just could be far more serious alone. Wear Do halyards, sheets, furling lines, or crossed the Atlantic, and an offshore your PFD or safety harness on deck other items get thrown in tangled piles yawl whose lines made me sigh, and have a system for moving about the in the cockpit or on deck? Is a jibsheet I wondered where this first tentative boat securely. On small boats, chest- likely to snag when you come about? step might lead. I remember every detail high lifelines can be easier to use and Are all your rigging leads fair and do of that day. By the time I returned, I felt safer than jacklines on the deck. they run smoothly? Bad leads chafe line I’d flown and landed a Boeing 727 all by It’s a good idea to have a boarding and will wear you out with unnecessary myself. Sometimes the smallest steps ladder or other arrangement that can effort. Can you prevent accidental jibes? are the biggest. be deployed from the water and will Notice what is inconvenient or enable you to climb back aboard. This unsafe on your boat and upgrade it. Plan every action can be as simple as a footrope in a bag For example, having certain lines The fundamental rule for going solo is with a release line. within reach from a secure position is to plan ahead. Before you dock, anchor, Can you leave the helm for more a safety issue. If reefing is inconvenient or make a sail change, think through than a few seconds? You need a way or difficult, you might be tempted to every move you’ll need to make and to either lash the helm or engage an delay it. Chest-high lifelines (actually waist-high at the cockpit) act like railings and can be clipped onto with a safety harness, top left. A D-ring seized to the shroud acts as a guide. The aft end of the chest-high lifeline has a pelican hook that clips into a ring attached to the stern pulpit with Spectra loops, top center. A piece of Rescue Tape rolled into a rubbery band is rolled over the opening part of the pelican hook for safety. The main halyard (red), topping lift (blue), and boom vang control (middle) are led back to the cockpit, top right. The staysail sheet is to the far left. Tails of lines that are not being used are stowed in a small canvas bag lashed to the dodger strut. 26 Good Old Boat September/October 2014 www.goodoldboat.com I used the airplane pilot’s golden rule: always scan for an alternate landing place. Organize the cockpit so charts, note any danger points. Don’t use your Be extra alert for changes in the binoculars, water bottles, or other items chart plotter as a reference map only. weather. Anytime you’re faced with you need are within easy reach. Small Plotting your course on it gives you the unfamiliar waters or challenging custom-made (or homemade) canvas comfort of a line to follow and allows weather, the extra work you did will pockets will repay you handsomely. you to see how far you’ve gone and pay dividends in confidence and safety. Talk to other solo sailors; most are how far you have to go. It also pinpoints Being methodical can also mean glad to share ideas. your position relative to your course. preparing your lunch and a thermos of As I sailed Alaska’s Inside Passage coffee before getting under way in the Be methodical alone, it was a lot of work plotting morning. You might not have the luxury Plot your courses on a paper chart as each day’s course on paper charts as of time away from the helm when you backup in case your electronic chart well as creating waypoints on my GPS. get hungry later. plotter fails. If you’re ever forced to But doing this visually fixed the day’s wing it, it will be easy to grab the run with its courses, distances, danger Keep a good lookout paper chart, and the discipline you’ve points, and potential bailout anchor- Solo or not, the need to keep a constant practiced will go a long way toward ages in my mind. I used the airplane and good lookout never changes. Radar, reducing anxiety when you have to pilot’s golden rule: always scan for an radar alarms, and AIS (automatic make decisions in difficult conditions. alternate landing place, in case some identification system) are excellent In unfamiliar waters, use more than one emergency forces you to seek shelter. aids, but are no substitute for a pair source of information, such as charts, Just to be sure, before I went into any of eyes. In 15 minutes, a large ship cruising guides, electronic aids, and new harbor I took a long look at the that’s a distant hull-down shape on local knowledge when you can get it. chart to memorize the main characteris- your horizon can materialize into a Read the guidebook in advance and tics of its entrance. close-quarters encounter. Near the coast, a small wind shift could cause your boat to change course and sail into danger. A visual 360-degree sweep of the horizon every 10 minutes in clear weather (more often in fog) is more than some are willing to do, but that’s what I choose.