For some voyaging sailors, a night at sea in gale conditions is a piece of cake next to the challenge of maneuvering a single-screw, no-bow thruster voyaging sailboat in the tight confines of a crowded harbor with a crosswind and a current running. Voyagers who are skittish about their vessel handling skills can take some solace in the fact that even the pros make mistakes — sometimes big ones. A case in point is the March 23, 2021, accident that left the 1,312-foot, 20,124-TEU container ship Ever Given, owned by Evergreen Marine and one of the world’s largest commercial vessels,…
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When sails fail due to sunlight damage, what parts of sails are most likely to fail? We asked a sailmaker, Mike Bartles of M&H Bartles Sailmakers in Boothbay, Maine, this question. According to Bartles, it usually isn’t the cloth but the stitching. The most common damage to modern sails happens silently and invisibly: the steady beating of the sun. Sunlight contains ultraviolet (UV) light, which is more energetic than the wavelengths of visible light. This UV light has enough energy to slowly break down the fibers in nylon and polyester. The stitching holding the panels together is what breaks down…
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Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from J.R. Williams’ upcoming book on his sailing adventures, Tales of A Blue Water Cruiser. In the first few days of January 1999, I was busy getting my 59-foot steel ketch Havaiki ready for my first passage from Honolulu to Papeete in Tahiti. I discovered that the boat was close to being dismasted as it sat at the dock! We found one of the drawbacks of wooden masts. Even after fixing that issue, we still almost lost the mast while en route to Tahiti. Both times I was lucky indeed. The Good Lord…
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Earlier this year, I finally upgraded from lead acid batteries to lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) batteries on my Valiant 40, Brick House. I’d researched for at least a year and South Africa, with its great tech base and good exchange rate, was the place to do it. [gtx_gallery] Lithium batteries favor the inclusion of a battery management system (BMS) in most applications on boats. The BMS ensures that the battery is not over or undercharged, and that it doesn’t overheat, freeze, or have to deal with oversized currents. Most people understand that a lithium battery BMS is the brains of…
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