1. Take down all canvas. Reduce windage and potential damage. This includes biminis and dodgers. Take down roller furled jibs, take down the main sail. Yes it’s a lot of work, but those with canvas up fared far worse than those without. 2. FENDERS, FENDERS, FENDERS Put out all the fenders you’ve got, and then …
The name of the game around here is freedom. To add to ours, Tom decided we had to have the ability to work on the bottom of the boat in a way that left us free of the expense of hauling her every time we needed to paint, repair, remove or install something that lives …
Sooner or later, every boat needs to have its stuffing box repacked or replaced. For those who’ve never heard of a stuffing box – a group to which I belonged when we first bought Sunshine – a stuffing box, also called a shaft seal, is a device that surrounds the propeller shaft and the part …
The need to replace Sunshine’s stuffing box (the seal between the propeller shaft and the hull), coupled with our reluctance to give away money and Tom’s guiding principle: Become Utterly Independent, resulted in our pulling off a maneuver that was dubbed “cooler than ice cream.” This article is part of a three part series: Intentional …
Intentional Grounding: Grounding a Sailboat for Repairs Read More »