My Boat Works

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: