Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från Cruising World

WHEN Kirsten Neuschäfer decided to compete in the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race, she searched for a fast, safe and stable boat. She studied designs with a good ballast-to-weight ratio, and sought out a hull and rig that could withstand a hard beat to windward. She found Minnehaha in Newfoundland and knew that the tough, sturdy Cape George 36 was the one. The quick cutter with a generous sail plan met all of the official requirements—a production boat with a full keel, less than 36 feet long, designed before 1988—and a few requirements she had set for herself. “I wanted a super-secure boat for the Southern Ocean, which was fast as well,” Neuschäfer says. “Minnehaha suffers a little in light airs, but I knew I had a good chance of surviving.…

BOATHANDLING The most important word when jibing is control. The helmsperson, sail trimmers and entire crew need to be diligent. The mainsail boom will swing across the boat with great force if important steps are not taken. There are many cases of serious injuries to unsuspecting crew who were hit in the head by the boom, or who tumbled overboard with the rapid change of course. By contrast, completing a successful jibe provides great satisfaction when executed with precision. The best time to jibe is when a boat is sailing at full speed. The force of the apparent wind on a sail is less when sailing swiftly, which makes steering easy. The reason to jibe is to head on a more direct course toward a desired destination, or to take…

At Gougeon Brothers, Inc. we are always measuring the ultimate strength of our epoxy products, their adhesive strength, and the strength of the resulting composite laminates (The values measured are often impressive, and the numbers for real-world applications may seem unbelievable). For example, the tensile strength on our Technical Datasheet (TDS) for 105 Epoxy Resin® and 205 Fast Hardener® is 7,900 psi. This means I could easily hang my Chevrolet® Silverado with a full payload using a 1" x 1" casting of epoxy! This is true in a perfect application, but our common sense tells us that it is risky. That common sense may be because we understand the need for a safety factor (Sf) in our calculations. A safety factor is the ratio of the strength of the material…

As a beginner to intermediate epoxy user, we focus a lot of effort on learning techniques for mixing and applying epoxy. While these skills are important, there are other aspects to epoxy success that most of us only learn through experience. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you want to look at it, I’ve learned a lot about what not to do from working on my own projects. Through my experiences, and hours hanging around our GBI Technical Advisors and their projects, I’ve learned a few approaches to help make things go smoother. Hopefully, some of the knowledge I’ve gained can help you on your next project. Have a Well Developed Plan It’s easy to think to yourself, “This will be easy. I’ll just slap a little fiberglass on here,…

Because the Bahamas island chain is shallow, the water it occupies in the Atlantic Ocean is that much lighter and, frankly, more beautiful than the Caribbean Sea. You can sail for miles in 10 to 15 feet of the lightest hues of blues and turquoise, suddenly plunge into thousands of feet of dark-blue ocean, and return to shallow turquoise toward the edge of the next island. The shelf acts and feels like a large V. Story on page 24…

In the maritime world, an enduring bond is forged between boaters and their trusted vessels, steeped in shared stories and cherished memories. Yet, amid this reverence for tradition, the arrival of new-boat models ignites an undeniable thrill. While older boats embody history, new builds bring the allure of innovation, cutting-edge technology and visionary design, beckoning enthusiasts to dream anew. The following pages offer a preview of significant launches you’re likely to stumble across on the docks this fall and in the coming year. Several of these vessels are scheduled to be included in the judging for Cruising World’s 2024 Boat of the Year. You can follow the URLs for a deeper dive into boats that pique your interest, and inspect them in person at a show near you or at…

57°38’07.3”n, 18°16’41.9”e PORT OF VISBY, GOTLAND, SWEDEN SEPTEMBER 2022 Sidse Birk Johannsen had just settled into an 18-hour journey across the Baltic Sea when her sailboat’s autopilot malfunctioned. Her sails were flapping. The waves were choppy. It was the middle of the night, and, to put it mildly, she was very cold and very alone. By all accounts, Johannsen’s first solo sea crossing had gone awry. With a sleepless night ahead, a pot of coffee was in order. If you’re looking for an activity where everything sticks to the plan, stop now and cross sailing off your list. Sails tangle. Water leaks where it shouldn’t. Storms appear out of nowhere. Generators break. Engines fritz. Things go wrong. A lot. “Sometimes there’s a huge potential in being naive and not knowing…

SAILING south from Lefkas in the Greek Ionian Sea, I found a calm anchorage in a deserted cove on the east side of the hilly, wooded island of Ithaca. This was the home of Homer’s hero Odysseus, who was seeking to return home to his wife, Penelope. I, on the other hand, was seeking to get away from home and find a secure anchorage for the night. In deference to Odysseus, I kept the sails up in a desultory 10-knot breeze. I was always a sucker for the appearance of inauthentic antiquity. My Hanse 415 Adagio’s refrigeration, however, remained on with the Greek beer chilled. Odysseus would have been thrilled; the god Poseidon, probably not. The next morning, I sat down in the cockpit to enjoy a freshly brewed cup…

MONTHLY MAINTENANCE I’ve learned during my 35-year marine career that it’s easy to break the ice with boat owners by bringing up one of two subjects: anchor selection or fuel filtration. Here, I’ll discuss the latter. Diesel engines require only a few elements to start and operate reliably: air, cooling water, compression and clean fuel. Air is rarely a problem. Air filters, if they’re present on marine diesels, rarely clog because there’s little dust at sea. Cooling water can be problematic, strainers might clog, and impellers do fail—but all of those are easily serviced. Compression can be controlled, to some degree, by ensuring that valve adjustments occur at scheduled intervals, to check piston-ring condition and wear. Fuel cleanliness, on the other hand, is almost entirely within the boat owner’s control,…

When someone says “fiberglass”, people may envision a shiny boat hull or even pink insulation, but a composite repair professional pictures a pure white fabric that could be woven in multiple ways and is available in multiple thicknesses. Specifically, fiberglass is the reinforcing fiber used in most marine composites. When epoxy encapsulates fiberglass, it becomes a Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) material. Since you are reading this article in Epoxyworks—and are hopefully enjoying it—let's assume that the plastic component of FRP materials will be WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. This article will focus on the different fiberglass fabrics we offer to use with WEST SYSTEM Epoxy. The fabrics we offer are similar in strength (per unit thickness), but their differences are important to understand so that you can select the most appropriate fabric.…

Eibbor and Knarf’s parents were kidnapped by Frost Giants. The boys desperately needed help. Scooter Squirrel raced to Winston Woodchuck, who dived into his burrow, frantically digging until he reached the tunnels of the Dwarves. They summoned Frey, who came with his longship, Skidbladnir, and took the boys to Asgard to plead their case to Odin. Skidbladnir was enchanted so that, among other magical traits, it always had fair winds and got where it needed to go. Such were the bedtime stories Dad told my brother, Frank, and me more than 60 years ago in the wild hills of West Bolton, Vermont, overlooking Lake Champlain. Despite the US Navy being born on Lake Champlain and the famous Capt. Phillips living a few miles from our house, Vermont is the only…

Aboard our 31-foot Hunter, Ragtime, our dinghy was the unsung hero of our cruising escapades. It was always the first thing we deployed upon arrival to a destination, and it was the last thing we packed away before we departed. It was our family Ford, our Honda for the harbor, our Miata of the marina (I’ll see myself out…). To the untrained eye, a din ghy might appear to be no more than a floating dock cart to tote provisions, pets and people. But as cruisers well know, it’s so much more. A dinghy is an all-access pass to exploring new coves and reaching short-water fishing spots. It’s a recon vessel for scouting surrounding depth, seafloor terrain and on-shore amenities. And, of course, it’s an escape pod should all hell…

In the early days, when I thought about what it might be like cruising and home-schooling, the vision went something like this: Warm, dappled morning light streaming in through the open companionway, my daughters working on journal entries. Me making coffee while gathering items for our morning science lesson, which would, of course, tie into that day’s reading assignment. My husband, Green, working on route-planning and navigation exercises over breakfast. After a snorkeling break (with fish and coral identification, naturally), the girls would do math without complaining, and then we’d hunt for shells, which we would somehow turn into an art project. Visits to town would be prefaced by a study of the area’s history. There would be lesson plans. We would be organized. Our curriculum would be exciting and…

ON-DECK SYSTEMS A self-tailing electric winch makes it nice and easy to wind the winch on a sailboat. There was a time when electric winches imposed high electrical surges on batteries and quickly drained them, but this is less of an issue now, with high-capacity batteries, powerful alternators, and portable generators to replace any loss. However, the major obstacle remains: the high cost of electric winches. I have six Lewmar manual two-speed self-tailing winches in the cockpit of my schooner, Britannia. To replace them with electric versions, the cost would be $3,000 to $3,500 each. Even converting them to electric would be about $2,500 each, depending on the suppliers. Instead, with a cordless, battery-powered winch-winding machine, I made all the winches on my boat “electrified.” I made a simple winch-winder…

Greece’s Cyclades and Ionian island chains provide a treasure trove of memories for bareboat charterers. Navigate the crystalline waters, indulge in authentic Greek flavors, and immerse yourself in history on the mainland with day trips to famous archaeological sites such as Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, and the iconic Parthenon in Athens. Both chains enjoy a long sailing season stretching from April through October, with warm, sunshine-filled days pretty much guaranteed from May through September. July and August are the hottest and busiest months of the year, and also when the Meltemi winds affecting the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea are at their most powerful—less-experienced sailors take note. Calmer cruising can regularly be had in the Ionian Sea, where anchorage gems such as Paxos Island (pictured here) await. Days…

Taking the time to do quick, rough calculations at the beginning of a project can help you save on money and frustration in the long run. This can be especially helpful if you’re new to working with epoxy and haven’t quite developed the intuition yet for how far your epoxy will go. Here are some numbers we’ve collected over the years for estimating epoxy coverage when working with our WEST SYSTEM® Accessories. Spreading Epoxy with a 809 Notched Spreader The WEST SYSTEM 809 Notched Spreader is a great tool to know how thick you are applying epoxy. I use the 809 Notched Spreader for spreading neat epoxy on tabletops for an even film thickness or for spreading thickened epoxy when bonding and fairing. With neat (unthickened epoxy), the peaks will…

A couple of years ago, I noticed that the bottom member of the double-hung window in my office dormer had begun to rot. Knowing it would be difficult to buy a matching replacement, I decided to repair the window using WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy and fiberglass. I removed the sash from the frame and took it to my shop. The first step was to remove the rotted wood. It turned out the damage was extensive, affecting the wood all the way through the bottom member and into the vertical member. Although the outside surface of the bottom member was flat, the inside surface incorporated a groove about a half-inch wide. Using thin aluminum sheet metal, I fashioned a mold that duplicated the shape of the groove and the bottom surface of…