My Boat Works

Here are stories of anchoring well and poorly, with discussion of what worked and failed. I hope they’re both entertaining and instructive.

Here’s a little tip I’m constantly giving: How to fold a sail cover. I got this technique from folding saddle blankets and it gives a small, easily managed package that’s straightforward to put on and take off. Enjoy the video!

If you can’t retrieve your anchor, here are some ways you can coax it up anyway. More importantly, I’ll also show you how to avoid getting your anchor stuck or lost almost all the time.

Here’s how to do anchor well with other boats in an anchorage and happily for all.

Once anchored, here’s how to tell if you’re dug-in safely or if you’re slowly dragging. If the weather’s rough, it’s a great comfort to be able to check your position and know you’re safe or that you need to re-anchor before you are in trouble.

Here are techniques I use to stabilize boats at anchor, as well as a framework for understanding why and how boats rock and roll at anchor. Yawing and sailing at anchor are dealt with in the Rough Weather Anchoring article.

Here are methods I’ve used for years that work great for finding that sweet patch of calm water to keep your boat steady and quietly at anchor – Often when boats around are rocking and swinging wildly.

How to quickly and literally get a lay of the land under water, in your anchorage.

Why friction on woodworking surfaces is not only a drag but dangerous, as well as how to prevent working surface friction, increase your confidence in your woodworking safety and bring a ton of fun back to your woodworking.

Alcohol!?!?! Eek! Run away! Run away! Here are my reasons for not having an alcohol stove:
1) The pressured alcohol WILL leak at some point.
2) Flames are invisible, so firefighting is dangerous and uncertain, at best.
3) Wood alcohol fumes are highly toxic.
4) Alcohol burns at a low temperature, making all cooking much longer and many tasks very, very difficult.
5) Why oh why would anyone want to add yet another highly flammable liquid on board? Keep it simple: If you have propane, use it for stove, heater and BBQ. ibid, diesel, though I’ve yet to see a diesel BBQ.
6) Alcohol pumps and seals are notorious for their high maintenance.

For those who have never had to use alcohol, particularly at sea, count your blessings. It’s a dangerous, wimpy fuel and the inherent leakiness of fittings makes puddles that catch on fire and then slosh about invisibly,catching clothes, wood and you name it on fire without your being able to tell what’s ablaze apart from feeling the flames! The fumes are highly toxic. The two selling points are that they’re cheap and the regular fires can be put out with water… Is that second selling point really a big red flag?

On a related note, I’m a big fan of Princess stoves – They’re a wonderful family owned and operated company (Seaward Products www.seawardproducts.com ) and have some terrific innovations, as well as quality that’s unmatched and competitive prices. They make stoves, instrument panels, water heaters and useful odds & ends.

Here’s where I’ll muse about my life afloat. It’s personal and philosophical and I welcome discussion, silliness and comments.

Here are two video excerpts from a dock safety video I am filming and will have for sale in December, showing some of the common problems in tying boats in their slips.

I will post more dock-related videos soon. Hope you enjoy them! If you’re using my stepping technique for hardening docklines, remember to hold onto the boat and keep your weight over the dock and not over the foot that is over the water – That way, if you slip, you won’t fall in. If you’re nervous, don’t try it: This is a technique for the agile and fairly strong. This gets into another subject: You ought to have a proven method to easily get out of the water by yourself, at anchor or at the dock. Yes, that’s another post coming up!

Hey Jerr!
We have recently built a new galley in our 1971 catalina 27. We bought a used stainless steel sink and had a carpenter build out a tabletop, drawers, etc … We were wondering where the waste water from the sink goes to? We have a fresh water holding tank but no waste tank for sink. Oh, and we have manual pump for water… many thanks !

Here’s a place to introduce ourselves and show off our boats. We have some fascinating members as well as beautiful boats and projects here and I’m sure everyone would love to see them. Links and pictures are welcome! If you post your comment in your Dashboard page, you can link to your pics and sites, too.

This is how to replace corroded standing rigging deck fittings – Other deck fittings are easier, so they are covered as well.

I am running this blog on my website with WordPress and there are a couple steps that are needed to register but after that, just login and post! Here are the steps and I hope this makes things clear.

Here’s how to post in my blog (here):
(1) Go to http://www.my-boat-works.com/blog.
(2) At the right side, under login, register. That should give you an email with a temporary password. Sadly, this is necessary to prevent hackers taking over my site.
(3) Login with the username you have chosen and the password emailed to you.
(4) Change the password to something easy to remember by clicking “Admin” and then on the left in the Dashboard page, Users. You can edit any of your information here – Just remember to save it!
(5) Go to a topic and comment or start a new topic!

If there are any questions, please send me an email at info@my-boat-works.com and I’ll be happy to sort things out.

This article gives an introduction into what anchoring technique to use where:

What’s the most ridiculous anchoring experience you’ve ever had? Here’s one of mine:

Ah yes, that magic sound “zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ-TING!” of the halyard running up the mast and stopping at the masthead. What’s worse is when you tie your halyard and the halyard doesn’t stop at the top but goes right through and back down to the deck! Here’s how to fix that:

Here is a quick overview of an efficient, modern boat charging and battery system, with a few tips on how to wire things so you’ll know what they are and be able to work on them later.

Here is the strongest, most permanently waterproof way to make a hole for strong attachment, for use with stanchions, stringers, etc.:

Who has the most expensive engine per horsepower? I bet it’s me!

Here’s how to properly use a cleat on a dock or onboard. It’s simple and one of the things hardly anyone does right, including racers.

In this article, I’ll show you how to set an anchor, then how to set the basic configurations of anchors and why you’ll use one anchoring technique or another.

For your amusement, I present this collection of odd bits and pieces of nautical lore, tradition and terminology.

There really is no need for shouting and there’s a pride in communicating well and anchoring well with this communication – Try it!

Here is how you can safely, effectively and as easily as possible handle line and chain while anchoring.

Gelcoat is marine exterior epoxy-based boat paint. Painting with gelcoat is straight-forward but there are lots of ways to make a mess of it. This is a very brief overview of the process.

When a line is bent sharply (For rope, generally less than its diameter and for wire rope less than six times its diameter), the strands on the outside of the bend take all the pull and additionally have the strands on the inside pushing against them, levering them into even greater stress. It’s like having only one or a few strands of your rope anchoring you. So these few strands break and the load is suddenly shifted to the next outside strands, which then break, etc. The strands in splices are fairly straight and don’t bend as sharply as in knots. They also hold over much longer lengths, distributing the load much more evenly. A short splice (strongest) has a maximum 85% strength of the line and a figure 8 (one of the strongest knots) has a maximum 60% strength of the line.

How to safely and easily move, organize and handle your anchors and rodes on deck.

Here’s how to clean rust from anchors, chain, etc. and maintain them.

Come Join The Marina del Rey Holiday Boat Parade!  It’s a great, social way to start off the holiday season and here’s a glimpse of what it is and how to prepare and participate.  It is on on Saturday, December 12, from 6-8pm, after the fireworks, in the main channel of Marina del Rey Harbor.  It’s scheduled to be in advance of the holidays, so it won’t interfere with your plans.  Traffic and parking are usually completely gridlocked by 4pm, so come early, tell your friends and plan ahead!

Nautical terms are explained here. Don’t know what something means? Ask and I’ll publish it here!

Thanks for the great lesson yesterday. How can you tell your sails are set correctly without looking at the tell-tails or mast head fly?

Scams and deceptions involved with selling anchors exposed and disproved

A common-sense, forthright, professional discussion of the primary four  legitimate ocean anchor types, with framework of understanding their purpose, benefits, problems.

Most marine industry sales people often don’t recommend the right size and types of anchoring equipment because it’s hard to sell to uneducated boaters.

Anchor chain transfers the boat’s pull to strictly horizontal force that allows the anchor to dig in. Line needs to be long and strong enough to pull from a low enough angle to not dislodge the anchor and not break under huge loads. Anchor rode is not the toy retailers try to sell.  Here is how anchor rode works.

How to set an anchor, what to feel when setting and why anchors, chain and line work the way they do; why anchor rode has to be so long and how to calculate it.

In a real blow, only commercial fishermen and highly experienced, well-equipped sailors stay put.  Why do so many – Perhaps 90% – Not know how to anchor safely?

In this series of brief articles, I’ll show you how anchors work, why it’s important to make good choices, how to select them and what nonsense to avoid.

How does prop walk effect the handling of my boat?

I really enjoyed your discussion at the (Marina Del Rey) Santa Monica-Windjammers Yacht Club! I am very new to boating/sailing but after your training I feel a little more savvy.  You are extremely knowledgeable, and you are a very clear and concise teacher.  Thanks again!

Registering contributors is necessary to help prevent spam, adolescent and insulting behavior in this blog.  I am putting quite a lot of effort into being available and helpful, as well as providing a friendly, open place for universally-available professional boating help.

I am a strong privacy advocate and will not give your information to anyone.  The only communication I will have through your email is letting you know about passwords, problems with posts and possibly a request to opt-in to an email newsletter.  When I change computers I smash my old drive with a sledge hammer to ensure no confidential information will be compromised.

What are the relationships I have with my vendors like?  Snippets of these relations are often quite telling of someone’s character.

What have I made and done for others, for a living and what was the experience like?

Good times with friends (At least in hindsight!), offering their views of me.

Took a friend (Alex) of my sailing buddy, John, out for an idyllic afternoon – The Gennaker set beautifully every time, the sea was flat to calm and we had a refreshing breeze – Genevieve swam powerfully, gracefully and we didn’t stop grinning ’till the BBQ at the dock with our neighbors ended. Genevieve likes her foredeck washed with spray and I spent some of those magical moments standing on the pulpit, leaning on the forestay, just feeling her smooth movement, the wind, the shafts of sunlight dancing deep in the water broken by our passage and the freedom of it all. I looked back to John and Alex’s silly grins and we just laughed with the joy of it all. Alex kept telling us how it couldn’t get any better than this and John and I didn’t have to respond – We all knew it to be so.

How to attach a Norseman fitting to standing rigging – Anyone can attach a fitting to wire rope and it’s a great alternative to roller swaging. Here’s a couple clips on attaching a Norseman fitting to standing rigging.

Are you unsure about how to navigate to the local island or really, truly, confidently anchor securely?  You’ve come to the right place!  Just sign up, log in, ask and I’ll happily walk you through the solution.  You’ll be surprised at how well it turns out and build a sense of understanding and confidence in your seafaring that’s deeply satisfying.  You can post pictures, too!