Reading David Nghiem’s Ode to the Boat Trailer felt like a prescient warning of coming disasters. My boat trailer is also older than I am, a 1976 Calkins box tube trailer for my Ranger 20 sailboat. I’ve owned it for 15 years and all I’ve done is pack the bearings and add a spare tire. Saltwater dips and light wiring hadn’t been very…

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Last October I introduced my current project—turning a 1983 Herreshoff America catboat into a pocket motor cruiser. The demolition was done at that point—sailing gear removed, centerboard and case cut out, and a hole chopped in the transom for an outboard motor well. It was time to start building the boat up into the classic looking motorboat I had in mind.

Progress has been painfully slow. There’s simply been more fussy details to work through than I estimated. The first step was to turn the hole I sawed in the cockpit sole and transom into a watertight and sturdy motor well. The well is built with 3/4-inch Okoume plywood screwed, epoxied and glassed to wood stringers cut from 5/4 mahogany, all of it well bonded to the hull. Yes, it’s seriously overbuilt for the 10-horse Honda it will carry. But the scantlings aren’t for strength, they are for quiet.

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Rabbitholing is a trait shared by many in the small boat community. We’re optimizers. We want to learn, understand, and then take that understanding and do something useful with it—either on the water or in the boatshop, or both. A recent blog post by François Chevalier et Jacques Taglang reminded me that there has always been an asterisk on my understanding of small boat foils. So, I decided to go down the hole to at long last address that asterisk for myself, and share what I learned along the way down and back up the hole for others.

To be clear, I’m specifically not referring to the foils of the flying monohulls from the blog post. Although everyone should give it a read—it’s fascinating and educational. I’m not referring to what most think of when they hear “foil” in the context of sailing boats: SailGP, Moth dinghies, America’s Cup, IMOCA 60’s, all that jazz…

No, I’m referring to the garden variety, straight-down-the-fairway foils that go by many names: centerboards, daggerboards, rudders, offcenterboards, leeboards, bilge boards and the lot. AKA “those big flat things we put in our foil bags” for most small sailboats owners.

So, what’s the asterisk? Why would such a well-understood topic even need a rabbit hole? How hard can it be? In caveman voice: “Board go in water. Board make hard for boat go sideways. Boat give up. Boat go forward.” It’s The Watermelon Seed Analogy —even sailing camp kids understand how these things work. Case closed, no rabbit hole needed…right?

Here’s the asterisk: as a 15-year-old first learning to sail, I was also working on my pilot’s license, and was taught how foils work to produce lift. Sailing books—and older, more experienced sailors around me—would refer to a boat’s “foils” and even sometimes talk about “lift”—which was super confusing to me.

Why was it confusing? Well, it came from me trying to apply what they taught me about airplane wings—airfoils—to these new “boat” foils. Not just the ones in the water, but the sail was also taught as a foil. Quick refresher:

• Angle of Attack generates lift by exerting a force on the air as it flows past. According to Newton’s third law, the air must exert an equal and opposite (upward) force on the airfoil, which is lift. This is the old ‘hand in the wind out the car window’ trick, where the lift is being caused not by an airfoil shape - hands are not shaped like airfoils—but by a more crude application of Newton’s Laws

• Airfoil Shape produces lift by exploiting Bernoulli’s Principle (BP): an increase in the speed of a fluid (air/water) occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure. We all did the “blow across the tip of a straw” experiment in school to learn about this. Airplane wings take advantage of BP by having a curved upper surface, and a straight lower surface. This causes the air flowing over the top face to travel faster to reach the trailing edge (equal transit time), and the resultant decrease in pressure vs. the bottom results in lift. This explanation is also often used to teach how sails use wind to produce lift.

• The airfoil shape and angle of attack work together so that the airfoil exerts a force on the air as it flows past. According to Newton’s third law, the air must then exert an equal and opposite (upward) force on the airfoil, which is the lift.

Enter the confusion: when I looked along the edge of a sailboat “foil” I did not see a wing shape—I saw symmetry. No curved vs. flat side to exploit BP and create a pressure differential: just two flat sides. Sure, the leading edge was rounded smooth —duh, flat things cause drag. And the thing had half an airfoil shape…but both halves had the same shape? The water would take the same time to travel from the tip to the trailing edge, and not produce lift. So my 15 year old mind asked: why is it even called a foil? Who’s making this stuff up? Do these sailing people even know what a foil is? So, not only can we not sail directly into the wind, but the sailing things are named wrong? Sailing is stupid…

So what did I do? Well, I just wanted to sail. So, I did what any kid would do: kept my mouth shut and just kept putting my boat foils in my foil bag, and kept sailing. For almost 40 years across dozens of sailboats big and small, never fully understanding my sailboat foils beyond the crude caveman voice/watermelon seed analogy. I continued to nod along, and call them “foils,” when—in my mind—they didn’t even qualify as such. Even as I’m now building and modifying boats from kits, and beginning to sketch out my own designs—the asterisk on “foil” remained for me.

And, I know there are others out there bearing “the burden of the foil asterisk.” While I’m sure there are many for whom this concept is elementary, I’m equally sure there are many for whom it is freakin’ not. So here we go—let’s get rid of the asterisk for everyone who has it, including me.

Before we do though, let’s take a little sidetrip and visit something that almost everyone reading this will find both surprising and educational, at least I sure did. And that is:

The “equal transit time” explanation for lift generated by foil shape is, uh…wrong. Wrong for airplane wings, and wrong for sailboat sails. And, if you were taught the “Obstruction of Airflow” example—that’s wrong too.

Yep, those are indeed periods, not question marks at the end of those statements. It’s a fact: when we were all taught about how wings and sails produce lift because the flow over the curved surface being faster than the flow over the flat surface because they had to meet at the trailing edge—cover more distance in the same time - that was all wrong.

See? Just because a topic is widely understood, doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be learned down its well-understood rabbit hole! Here’s a cited excerpt from the wikipedia article for lift:

While it is true that the flow speeds up, a serious flaw in this explanation is that it does not correctly explain what causes the flow to speed up. The longer-path-length explanation is incorrect. No difference in path length is needed, and even when there is a difference, it is typically much too small to explain the observed speed difference. This is because the assumption of equal transit time is wrong when applied to a body generating lift. There is no physical principle that requires equal transit time in all situations and experimental results confirm that for a body generating lift the transit times are not equal. In fact, the air moving past the top of an airfoil generating lift moves much faster than equal transit time predicts!. The much higher flow speed over the upper surface can be clearly seen in this animated flow visualization.

Flow around an airfoil: the dots move with the flow. The black dots are on time slices, which split into two – an upper and lower part – at the leading edge. A marked speed difference between the upper-and lower-surface streamlines is shown most clearly in the image animation, with the upper markers arriving at the trailing edge long before the lower ones. Colors of the dots indicate streamlines. Note how dots from the same time slice do not arrive at the trailing edge at the same time.

Check out the wikipedia article linked above to learn more about this, as well as the flaws in the “Obstruction of the airflow” example, and the flaws shared by both commonly cited explanations.

To be clear, just because the commonly taught explanations are flawed, doesn’t mean that the phenomenon being explained isn’t happening. It just means our shared understanding of why it was happening is wrong. The air on the curved side of a foil is definitely moving faster than on the flat side—just not for the reasons most of us were taught.

The truth is that The Full Story of Lift™ isn’t as simple as just “Angle of attack deflection” (Newton) or “pressure differences” (Bernoulli). Either of these, by itself, correctly identifies some aspects of the lift, but leaves other important aspects unexplained. A complete and accurate explanation involves both deflection and pressure differences—including changes in flow speed associated with the pressure differences, and requires looking at the flow in more detail—but I’m a sailor, not a physicist.

So, now that we’re all feeling thoroughly betrayed by our middle school science teachers and sailing camp counselors, let’s get back to the main topic: the foil asterisk. And, let’s do so by giving our asterisk a clearly defined problem statement:

If lift is the result of a pressure difference, caused by fluid speed differences on either side of a foil, then how can symmetrical boat foils produce lift?

Where do the speed differences—and by extension, pressure difference—even come from? Why are small-boat foil profiles so commonly specified by the NACA airfoil numbering system, where the designated profile is symmetrical? Fifteen-year-old me would like to point out: NACA stands for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Aero means flying, flying means lift, so I expect to see some cambered sides and some flat sides to produce lift, not symmetry. I want to see an airplane wing. I want to see a sailboat sail, viewed from above in a cross section. Without these, I just see a chunk of wood with an aerodynamic shape—of course a rounded leading edge and tapered sides will produce less drag. Less drag doesn’t mean “more lift.” Without the asymmetry—it’s just a board with fancy edges, right? It’s just a wet version of the hand out the car window trick. Show me the lift, or don’t call it a foil!

Well, not all rabbit holes have to take the long, hard road. I have a shortcut—a cheat code if you will. Enter Dad, a former pilot retired from both the National Guard and commercial airlines. He also has two degrees in things like, I dunno…aerospace engineering and statistical analysis. Time to press the Easy Button!

Turns out, the answer is really simple: boat foils don’t work like airplane wings (or sails)—so don’t conflate the two.

All chickens have feathers, but not all feathered things are chickens. All wings are asymmetrical, but not all foils are wings. A wing is a specialized airfoil that is optimized to produce lift in one direction only, and that is “up” in relation to the aircraft. A sailboat sail is also this type of airfoil: a giant wing turned on its side, producing lift in one direction only: generally, on some vector to leeward.

Wings, and sails are asymmetrical foils with one cambered face and one flat face, that produce lift in one direction, and do it via three buckets of things working together:

1. Angle of Attack (AoA), causing deflection, resulting in Newton to contributing his part

2. Foil shape, causing a difference in air speed around the faces, which introduces pressure differential (root cause NOT equal transit time or obstruction of air flow!), resulting in Bernoulli contributing his part

3. A host of other factors, contributing their part

It’s important to note: Cambered airfoils can generate lift at zero angle of attack. This means that at lower speeds, like takeoff and landing, a wing relies more on AoA/deflection to produce lift, and less on foil shape/Bernoulli. As the plane approaches cruising speed, the wing approaches (or even reaches) zero angle of attack, at which point most of the lift is produced by foil shape, and not deflection/AoA. This property is what makes wings and sails different from centerboards, et al. This is, in effect, “the answer” to the asterisk that tormented me since I was a kid.

Pop quiz: what can this tell us about light wind (or downwind) sail trim vs. heavy (or upwind) sail trim? Does this ‘slow air = lift mostly from deflection/AoA , fast air = lift mostly from sail shape’ align with anything we’ve been taught since kids regarding sail trim in different conditions, and/or on different points of sail?

On the other hand, boat foils like center/dagger boards and rudders are symmetrical foils, with two identical cambered faces. And, while they look symmetrical on paper or in your hand, NACA shaped foils are not symmetric when viewed from the point of view of the water. As we know, a boat going upwind slides a bit to leeward, which causes the water to flow asymmetrically around the foil. So, where does the “lift” come from? It comes mostly from boundary separation. And, because the flow is asymmetric the forces are also asymmetric and the resultant vector is net lift to windward.

So, symmetrical foils only use buckets 1 and 3 above. They do not use foil shape to generate additional lift, only to reduce drag —the reduction of which has the net effect of allowing fluid to flow with less turbulence in places on the foil that don’t contribute to lift. They also use bucket 2, but the difference in water speed on either side is caused by different reasons than the asymmetrical shaped foil. A symmetrical airfoil generates zero lift at zero angle of attack, as the angle of attack increases, the air is deflected through a larger angle and the vertical (or leeward) component of the airstream velocity increases, resulting in more lift. For small angles, a symmetrical airfoil generates a lift force roughly proportional to the angle of attack.

Goodbye, asterisk. I now understand that my assumptions about foils and lift were incomplete. Thank you Newton, Bernoulli…and Dad.

The Future of Small Boat Foils?

I hope at least some of this is educational for others who, like me, were never crystal clear on how symmetrical foils generate lift.. At the very least, I hope the flaws found in the common explanations we use to teach kids how wings and sails work are as interesting to others as they were to me.

But here’s one last related comment on the subject that will be super interesting to those who are reading about it for the first time. Boat designer, long distance sailor, and small-boat legend Matt Layden shares a design concept called chine runners. It’s possible that Matt’s chine runners deserve more attention and experimentation in the world of amateur small boat designers and builders. I look forward to the day that I understand their design parameters well enough, so that I can incorporate and experiment with them on my own boats. I envision making faired foam-and-glass runners that can be temporarily ‘tacked” non-destructively to arbitrary hulls using strong rare earth magnets— pinned by mutual attraction only—on either side of the hull. Then we go sailing, leaving the centerboard on the dock, to learn what happens. The interest here is mostly around adding sails to existing small boat hulls (surfskis, canoes, rowboats, etc.) that were not originally designed to be sailing vessels. The conventional solution here is a leeboard: which adds draft and introduces some inefficiencies as a foil that breaks the water surface. And, they are somewhat ugly and cumbersome. I want to know: can chine runners, or something like them developed iteratively, replace leeboards when modifying small non-sail hulls for sail power? Can center/dagger boards more commonly be replaced with runners when designing other small boats? Eliminating a board trunk saves a lot of weight, moving parts, and solves a lot of layout problems.

To see what Matt’s chine runners can do upwind, check out this YouTube video. To see a boat perform like that upwind without a centerboard or keel is pretty impressive. To be fair, the deep hard-chined hull is contributing a lot of lateral resistance here…but many a Paradox owner, and Matt himself, are happy to sing praises to the surprising upwind performance achieved using chine runners. It is known that chine runners work best with both some heeling (makes sense) and speed to achieve the full upwind performance potential.

Those who are interested in Matt’s own thoughts on chine runners, need not look any further than the SCA interview from 2022. •SCA•

Caution, this article is to keep you from spending your money on a 300ah Lithium battery for camping overnight in your 9-foot sailboat and instead spending it on some other stuff.

This all started when my buddy, Roger, got a 50-year-old Great Pelican. After he made some obvious repairs that could be seen on the trailer, we set sail in her. I soon found I was invited not as First Mate, but as Chief Bailer. She didn’t take on more than 10 Gal/hr, but my arm was getting sore. Good news is the leaking slowed as the wood in her swelled, or I just got less enthusiastic about buckets and water and that’s what I told Roger. One gets seasick spending too much time in the bilge. Roger returned home and found more leaks by filling the boat with a mix of water and pool leak dye. Clever, but I still was not convinced he found all of them.

Captain Pauley had recommended building a “Pumpstick”, and after this adventure and some nausea I was enlightened to why it is a good idea. This is where I humbly suggest an addition on the Pumpstick for smaller boats. I built Roger a low-cost water-resistant battery power box that uses his favorite cordless tool battery. This way he didn’t have to buy any new expensive batteries and he always has a couple of charged batteries on the ready, I think.

On our next adventure the Pumpstick/battery box system became useful. Roger’s boat did still leak, and in addition, our other friend Gary accidentally turtled his SCAMP. He did it at the Alamitos Bay Inlet where locals know Rán lurks and knocks down small sailboats. He jibed at the wrong time with a couple of hatches left open right above Rán’s favorite spot. The open compartments quickly swamped and she went belly up. I know Rán is always looking for sailors to join her party with her lure of free beer for eternity, but next time Gary needs to ask to see the beer first before he lets his boat get dumped. Yeah, he never saw the beer.

The good news is we got her upright and were able to tow her to a dock, slowly with the boat weaving wildly back and forth. Did I mention we also broke the rudder? We’re always having fun times—no wonder Ran wants us.

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An Interview with Riley Kenji McMath Retail Manger at Edensaw Woods

What are the primary differences between your Hydrotek, Okoume, and Sande marine plywoods, and why might a boat builder choose one over the other? 

It really comes down to the species used in the veneer core. I will often recommend Hydrotek for structure in static pieces. Think of bulkheads, bilge soles and blocking, but could serve well as hull or deck members. While I find Okoume has the best balance of attractiveness and strength, most of the skiffs I build are of our Sande ply, for its better price.

Are their any other less-expensive or fringe plywood options—maybe something with only an exterior grade—that you sell to small-boat builders looking for the cheapest possible solution?  For boatbuilding, I never recommend any sheet goods other than marine ply. It’s important to select the correct materials for your use, to protect your labor and other costs. It's not exactly a bargain to have to replace something you’ve just built!

What specific features provide a plywood the “marine” designation? And how important is the BS-1088 standard? 

Marine plywood is constructed from waterproof glues paired with marine appropriate species for the veneers. They should be void free and feature virtually no defects. The 1088 British Standard is a certification that should bring you a certainty that your marine ply is in fact graded and appropriate for boatbuilding. The BS-1088 includes tolerances for veneer quality, glue quality and should be as square a piece of ply as you can buy.

Do you sell any marine plywoods in longer than 8-foot lengths?
Our marine ply is sold in 4x8’ sheets but our wood-stretching department (CNC) is well practiced at milling puzzle joints and such to achieve the lengths needed for our customer’s builds.

Suppose some boat plans call for “oak or mahogany”  for structural members, are there some potential relatively analogous woods you carry that are popular with builders? And how do costs compare? True mahogany has many competitors, such as khaya, sapele or meranti. Oak can be replaced with ash if left out of a bilge. And while iroko is sometimes referred to as “poor man’s teak,” it is in fact harder than teak and carries a high oil content. It even silvers the same!

What’s a wood you’re selling that maybe isn’t real common, but is becoming popular with boat builders for its appearance or virtues? Afromosa. It’s a dense equatorial hardwood from Africa and is a lovely red brown. When quartersawn its long straight grain is really shown off. It would look phenomenal varnished.

Older builders often lament the declining quality of boatbuilding woods. Do you see a decline? I often hear this as well, but I do not see a marked or recent decline in lumber quality. However, availability is something to pay attention to, as over the years we have done quite the number on the Earth’s forests. Market demand is high for the classics like teak, mahogany, and domestic conifers, which can be a factor in their cost, but not necessarily quality. Boatbuilders have long turned their noses up at certain woods such as plantation teak or second growth fir, but the fact of the matter is these materials are still viable and will likely last longer than the builder, when used properly.

Which of the popular boat building woods is looking least sustainable or hardest to get? Given certain geopolitics and steady demand, teak remains the trade’s drama queen. Some mills have stopped producing large heart free amaranth, which I personally struggled sourcing only a couple hundred miles from where it grows. The bright side is if anyone can get it, it’s Edensaw.

Which is most sustainable with the best long-term projection?

For maximum sustainability you would have to consider plantation wood, such as teak. Old growth timber won’t be replaced anytime soon so a good marine tolerant species that is planted and grown for the purpose of harvest is our best bet.

Does Edensaw ship all over the country if readers in other regions want to order lumber from you? Yes! Our trucks leave Port Townsend, WA every morning to deliver around the Puget Sound. For those customers that are farther away, we will work hard to get you the best price on freight. •SCA•

Visit Edensaw website here

While sandwiches and cold cuts will suffice for a while, sooner or later you’ll want some heat, for your morning coffee, a tasty entrée or a warming soup on a cold afternoon. That will require some sort of stove, of which you have several choices. Let’s look at some of the more popular ones and their pros and cons.

Stoves commonly used aboard boats can be divided into six categories based on the energy source:

• Propane

• Butane

• Alcohol

• Kerosene

• Solid Fuel

• Combination Stoves

Each of these fuel types have different BTU content. A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree (F). While hard to visualize, it is a handy means of comparing fuels and stove outputs. The following table shows the approximate BTU content, per gallon, of common stove fuels:

• Propane 91,000 BTU/Gal.

• Butane 102,000 BTU/Gal.

• Kerosene 129,000 BTU/Gal.

• Alcohol 65,000 BTU/Gal.

Solid fuels are weighed by pound or volume and electricity is measured in kilowatt hours, making it difficult to compare with liquid fuels

While important, the fuel type isn’t the only criteria for choosing a stove for your boat. Fuel cost and availability, fuel safety factors, stove cost and ease of use all figure into your choice. Other factors are also important: many people don’t like the smell of kerosene, might be afraid of propane or don’t want to deal with the ash from a solid fuel stove. Often the choice is made for you when the stove comes with the boat. As long as the stove is safe, give it a try and see how you like it before deciding to switch styles.

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A young boy’s creed, “Unbreakable toys can always be used to break other toys.”

I have been sailing with a windex (or wind vane, I’ll keep using both terms) on the bow of my boat for a long time. Doug Korlann, my cohort for this article, and Roger Nelson, good sailing buddy and unwitting test subject for my riskier ideas, decided to also give it a try. Doug on his SCAMP, Barnacle, and Roger on his lug-rigged Houdini, Magic. Both liked it but immediately complained that the yards of their balanced lugs smashed their expensive wind indicators to bits when the sail is dropped.

In the past there was a wind vane mounted on a stainless-steel spring would survive a lot of abuse if knocked with a boom. For the life of me I can no longer find these for sale.

Okay, so I was now tasked to come up with an indestructible wind vane, or I was going to quickly lose my alternate-mounting-location converts. I’m also becoming aware my disciples might be clumsy. And of course, any design had to follow the Small Boat Sailors Religious Code, from page 231, section 20, sub-section 135, paragraph 10, verse 5, sentence 12— “It has to be cheap.”

Roger was the first to try my new idea and let me tie a piece of yarn to what was left of his existing windex. This would occasionally start to wrap itself around its post, but as Roger, always the optimist, said, “It still works.” Doug was soon to verify this on Barnacle, but noted his functioned best with about a 12” length as the 6” didn’t work. He also tried some other materials, but found yarn seemed to be the best as it is light.

In the meantime, Roger was still damaging or bending what was left of his windex stem with his yard.

Hmm, more design changes.

Inspiration came to me when I had a flashback to my teenage years driving through Connecticut and having to replace my car antenna after a tree branch ripped it off. To thwart the demonic anti-radio trees of CT, I was forced say some exorcistic words (it was the 70s) and installed a flexible antenna

Could I just attach a piece of yarn to the top of one of these $9.00 flexible antennas for use on the boat?

Doug was the next one to give this idea a try, but he found it still wrapped around the antenna; at least it didn’t break.

Now I needed to make the yarn swivel, but come on Doug, use one of the smooth sided antennas. Besides, they’re cheaper than the one you used which cost $10.50. Stick with the Code!

At this point if you think you are smarter than us, don’t worry about it too much, you are, as we continued to try other ideas that didn’t work so well either.

Doug and Roger are also fussy, saying I needed to add those angled whiskers thingies (directionals?). So, I added two zip ties to the antenna just below the yarn. Now because of science stuff like wind vectors, slip streams and gravity, we found the yarn would tangle instantly around the whiskers. Too bad, it was easy and cheap to make them out of zip ties and attach them to the antenna’s body. But good news, you get extra points if you figured out you can use a green tie for starboard, and a red one for port. We didn’t. A non-boater pointed it out to us.

The final working design was to modify a 6 x 66mm (or about 2.5”) hat or bouquet pin and shove it down the top of the antenna.

Shrink tube should added and cover the top (head) of the pin and about 3/8” down the shaft. Don’t use electrical tape, the whiskers will just swivel around the pin. After that a plastic bead is slid on, followed by a #9 or #10 fishing barrel swivel, and then a second plastic bead. The two whiskers are attached to the shrink tube above the first bead. Then this assembly is pushed down into the top of the antenna leaving enough room so the barrel swivel rotates freely around the mast. The string is tied onto the other end of the barrel swivel.

Caution when pushing the hat pin in as the antenna has metal coiled in it. This can cause the pin to move off center, poke out to the side, sticking you in the hand (several times in my case).

There are some choices for mounting the flexible antenna. It has a threaded hole in the bottom with a M6-1.0 thread. A M6-1.0 x 12mm bolt works best to mount the antenna to most things.

It also has the following adapters to help with mounting choices:

· M6-1.0 to M4-0.7 stud

· M6-1.0 to M5-.08 stud

· M6-1.0 to M6-1.0 This is just a stud that some believe performs a questionable procedure of turning a female into a male. Since not all folks understand sailboat hardware, it’s best not to mention using this method at social gatherings.

Pro tip: Yarn can be kinky so it helps to wet the yarn and hang it with a weight on the end until dry. Nylon air-flow tell tails can also be used instead of yarn, but they are code breakers at $25 a set!

Roger tested his newly built wind vane on Magic and proceeded to break the vane’s mounting bracket with his yard. But the wind vane survived, so he declared that the design is good!

Here are some more pricey options that aren’t indestructible but are fairly robust. Both were mounted by drilling a hole down the center of the antenna the same size as the shaft they came with and sticking the shaft in with some glue.

Since I’m trying to convert folks to lowering their wind vanes to deck level, I need to do some witnessing on having a windex on the bow. A wind indicator serves one main purpose, to let you know when you can turn up into the wind to make it around a point or adjust the main sheet if you are maintaining course in a race, but need maximum speed. Your sail will luff/backwind and let you know if you need to pull the sail in, fall off, or possibly tack to take advantage of the wind change that suddenly favors the other side of your sail. But it is hard to tell, from your sail, if the wind has changed in your favor to let you point higher. The wind indicator, on the bow, is very sensitive to the direction change, and I can see it happen before I can feel it in the sail. This gives me nice real-time effect of seeing a wind change and correcting the helm when I'm trying to round a point. It lets me take advantage of every small opportunity. My friend, Gary, just thinks my SCAMP points better than his Montgomery 15, so much so that he sold his M15 and bought a SCAMP. I feel bad I didn’t tell him I was just taking advantage of the fluky winds in our area in real time. Gary if you don’t mind, please skip reading this article.

Enjoy!

Paul Stovner; Marginal Inventor

Doug Korlann; Artist Extraordinaire

Roger Nelson; Optimistic Adventurer

There are several options for keeping flying pests out of your boat. When we purchased our AS-29 she had screen material with Velcro around the edges that attached to the Velcro on the inside of the companionway. For us, this was not an acceptable option. Every time we went in or out of the companionway we had to unfasten the screen. And if when we went outside there was no one left inside to reattach the Velcro, we had no screen.

While the boat was on the hard for other repairs, my husband, Dave, and I had some time to design and build a better screen. Since Dave’s woodworking tools were all out anyway, we took some measurements, sketched a plan, and gathered materials. When measuring the companionway, we were careful to measure to inside the board slots, since this was the outside dimension of the screen frame. We noted the thickness of these slots, as well. We then measured the opening itself. With all these measurements recorded on our sketch, we went to the workbench.

We scrounged some teak that was thick enough for Dave to join with a half-lap. After marking the ends of each board, he used a Japanese pull saw to cut the half-lap. Before assembling the four pieces, he cut a groove in the inside of each piece using a few passes on a table saw. This groove was just a bit smaller than the diameter of the line that was to secure the screen material to the frame. He also used two passes (one in either direction) on a table saw on the outside of three pieces to form the narrower strip that would fit in the board slots in the companionway.

We assembled the teak strips with Gorilla Glue. Once the glue had cured, we cut screen material a good bit larger than the hole it was to cover. (It is easier to trim the edges later than it is to wrestle with a piece that is too small.) We used small diameter old line that we had onboard, which we also cut too long. Keeping the screen aligned, we pushed the line into the slot with the screen between the frame and the line. We pulled the screen taut for aesthetics. When we were pleased with the screens position in the frame, we trimmed the excess line and the edges of the screen material.

In a few hours, using mostly recycled materials, we built an attractive, functional barrier between us and flying critters. We can step over it to get in and out, so the bugs can only gain access during the few seconds the companionway slider is open. In the small creeks where we take our sharpie, a convenient, easy to use screen is a must. •SCA•

Connie McBride and her husband Dave raised three sons on their 34’ Creekmore while sailing the Caribbean. She has written about their lifestyle in two books: Simply Sailing and My Boat Lists. She recently released a children’s book: Boat Monkeys. All three are available through Amazon.

First appeared in issue #90

Carrying your sailboat around is your trailer’s main job, but there’s one more thing it can help you with—raising the mast.

My friends Pam and Dana have a Montgomery 17. They were not able to lift the mast easily by themselves, so we sketched up a design for the welder. The result is illustrated at right. Now they use this “easy mast lift system” regularly. In fact I made a similar system for my Compac 19 and trailer.

I bought an eight-foot length of aluminum two-inch-square tubing and took it to the welding shop. The shop found a piece of steel tubing six feet long, that just slid over the aluminum tubing. They welded a steel plate to the bottom of the outside for attaching it to the trailer tongue with galvanized bolts. (Steel could be used for both tubes, but aluminum is much lighter, so easier to lift.) I drilled a hole through both the aluminum and steel tubing so that the aluminum inner tube could be lifted and pinned in place with a 3.5" bolt. A halyard, cleated at one end on the mast, is led forward over the roller on top of the aluminum tube, then down to the attached winch on the steel tubing below. Crank to begin raising mast.

*As with any mast-raising system, beware of overhead power lines or obstructions and consider whether any side-to-side support will be required to steady mast.

The roller will also support the mast when trailering, with the tube in the lowered position.

This simple mast-raising system works very well for my Compac 19, raising and lowering the mast with ease. •SCA•

First appeared in issue #118

I recently received a call from a friend, the owner of a Cape Dory 25. He wanted to discuss two related problems and was looking for some possible solutions. Both involved the 31-foot mast on his boat.

The first problem was that he had an antenna cable rigged from the masthead with the coax cable running internally down the mast. With any degree of rolling, the loose wire would slap against the inside of the mast. A seemingly small problem, but one that was driving him (and his marina neighbors) nuts.

The second problem was that he wanted to add a masthead anchor light. One thing bothered me about our conversation on this issue. He stated that his boat was small enough not to require such a light but he felt safer with it. In actuality, his boat, being over 7 meters (23' 9") in length, was required to display an anchor light (anchor light: 360 degree all around view, visibility 2 nautical miles).

The basic wording of the regulation is: “Vessels less than 7 meters are not required to display anchor lights unless anchored in or near a narrow channel, fairway or anchorage or where other vessels normally navigate.”

That’s a pretty loose description of where an anchor light is required so I’d rather be safe, with an anchor light, than sorry without one.

Another often misunderstood ruling is the perception that anchor lights are not required in a designated anchorage. What many people don’t realize is that “Designated Special Anchorage Areas” are so designated by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Just because the chart states that it is an anchorage area doesn’t mean it is a designated anchorage even if designated by city or state governments. You can find these areas in The Code of Federal Regulations, Title 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters, Part 110, Anchorage Regulations. There in Subpart A, Special Anchorage Areas, are 96 listed locations and their very specific boundaries.

Back to my friend’s problem. He first talked about running the anchor light wiring externally, possibly down a shroud to the deck level. I don’t like the idea of such wiring exposed to chafe, snagging and other damage and recommended that it be run inside the mast. He was going to have to lower the mast in any case, to add the anchor light fixture, so we could address both issues at once.

The first problem was to get the wiring through the mast. I’ve heard of all sorts of solutions for this problem, often requiring dropping a weighted line down the mast to use to pull the wires through with. This only works if the mast is vertical and then you have to go up the mast to accomplish the job. With the mast down, even if inclined, you’re not going the get that weighted line through.

The solution to this problem is something called an electrician’s fish tape. Fish tapes are used to fish electrical wiring through houses, from room to room or floor to floor. They are usually flat metal or plastic tapes about an eighth of an inch wide and about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Common lengths are 50' and 100' more than long enough for our 31' mast. They cost under twenty bucks at a home improvement store but I’d recommend trying to borrow or rent one for the day.

With the mast lying horizontal on sawhorses, the fish tape is stiff enough to be pushed through the mast, Once the fish tape is through, you can use it to either pull the wire through or pull a stronger messenger line through.

The next step will both pull the new wire through the mast and solve the antenna slapping problem. You will need to locate a supply of soft, flexible foam. One source would be from electronics packaging, the black foam that many components are shipped in. Another source would be upholstery foam. You are looking for soft, flexible foam, not hard, rigid foam.

Cut the foam into strips. Depending on the dimensions of the inside of the mast, in the range of 3" wide and 6-8" long. Fasten these foam piece to the new wiring about every two feet or so with plastic wire ties. They do need to be well enough fastened so that they don’t slip when pulled through the mast. The size of the foam pieces should be so that as the foam is pulled into the mast they fold in half and fill the interior of the mast but not so much that the pulling is difficult.

Once all the foam is attached to the new wiring, you can proceed with the pulling. This will require one person at each end of the mast. One will be pulling the fish tape or messenger line, while the other guides the wire and foam into the mast opening. The foam will prevent the new wire from slapping against the mast and will also trap the existing antenna cable and keep it from slapping.

Once the wire is through the mast, you can proceed with installing the new anchor light. Here you will have some choices. Typically, the anchor light has an incandescent light bulb. Recently, several manufacturers have developed LED lights that meet the Coast Guard requirements. An individual LED bulb doesn’t have the light output of an incandescent bulb, so LED lights are usually an assembly of multiple individual LED bulbs. LED’s will use from about a half to a tenth of the power of an incandescent bulb and has a much longer life span, an important consideration when changing a bulb means climbing the mast or lowering it. On the downside, LED’s have a higher initial purchase price.

A quick glance in a popular marine catalog pointed out just how big a difference in price there is. The cheapest LED anchor light assembly I could find was about $215. On the other hand, a typical incandescent bulb style masthead assembly was around $70, quite a disparity.

In terms of power consumption, looking at the catalog specs, the incandescent bulb draws .42 amps while the LED draws .2 amps. Over a 12-hour spell, the old style bulb would consume 5.04 amp hours while the LED will only use 2.4 amp hours. That equates to being able to run your LED anchor light more than twice as long as the incandescent type.

By way of illustration, a group 24 marine battery has about 65 amp hours of capacity, full charge to full discharge. However, flooded cell batteries should not be discharged below 50%, leaving about 33 amp hours. But flooded cell batteries are seldom fully charged, usually remaining about 85% charge, resulting in about 23 useable amp hours of power. So you could run your LED anchor light for about nine days compared to the four days for the incandescent style.

One thing I need to mention is the type of wire to use. It should be marine grade tinned wire. I would suggest using duplex wire, i.e. two insulated conductors inside an insulated sheath, much easier than trying to pull two separate conductors through the mast. Most marine catalogs and web sites will have tables that help you in determining the correct wire size for the length of wire needed. Don’t try to use smaller than recommended wire as it will drain the battery even faster.

For example, calculating the length of wire at 32' for the mast and another 8 feet for connection inside the boat gives a length of 40 feet. However, the length is to the light and back, giving a total length of 80'.

Looking at the 3% voltage drop table in the West Marine catalog, I find that #10 wire should be used. Two conductor 10 gauge duplex safety wire is listed at $1.63/ft. for a total cost of around $65. Not exactly cheap but it is a job you only want to do once.

The other requirement will be some means of getting the wiring from the bottom of the mast to the inside of the boat. Here I suggest the use of a Blue Seas System CableClam. This unit will provide an easily installed, waterproof through-deck fitting.

One additional safety thought. When I had Ternabout on a lake in Tennessee, I always hung an additional light from the boom. The lake I was on was a very popular fishing lake and we always heard bass boats out after dark. I was never convinced that the guy screaming down the lake at 2 a.m. in his 115 hp, 16' bass boat would ever be looking up for anchor lights, hence the cockpit light. It worked for all those years. •SCA•

First appeared in issue #76

Did you know—you may already have an emergency satellite messenger for your boat adventures, and not even know it? No, I’m not talking about the fancy InReach or SPOT devices that cost hundreds of dollars and run on proprietary satellite networks for a monthly fee. I’m talking about a device you already have—in fact, you might actually be reading this article on the very same device.

Yep, I’m talking about your cell phone.

For me, the cell phone is already a kind-of-a-big-deal piece of navigation and safety gear. It’s become indispensable for all kinds of boat trips, from bareboating a 46’ catamaran with the family in the Exumas, to minimalist solo dinghy adventures around the islands of western Lake Erie. It provides invaluable navigation tools like the workhorse Navionics, and safety tools like my anchor drag alarm app, that allows me to define a radius from my anchor drop point, and get an alarm if the boat should drift outside that radius. And, provided I’m within range of a cell tower on land, I can get up-to-the minute wind data using the Windy app, and weather however you please - even download GRIB files if I’m feeling particular about finely slicing and dicing weather data.

But, it's that ‘within range of a cell tower’ bit where the cell phone starts to lose its utility. Sure, maps can be downloaded for offline use, and GPS does not require a data signal to work - so we can still get some use out of the thing. But the ability to communicate and get updated weather data is a critical need, even without cell service - and especially in the event of an emergency. So, this is the hole that has typically been filled by the many dedicated Personal Locator Beacon/Satellite Messenger products, as well as sat phones, satellite hotspots like StarLink, and even the ‘Digital Selective Calling’ (DSC) emergency feature of my handheld VHF radio.

But, just about 2 years ago, that ‘within range of a cell tower’ limitation was removed on many new models of phones - both iPhone and Android. Now, many newer models of cell phones come with emergency satellite connectivity as a standard feature. Here’s a quick breakdown of how it works:

• The feature works anywhere in the U.S., and iPhone users may have access in a few other countries.

• Requires an unobstructed view of the sky

• It is can only be used as a backup communication method when a normal cell signal is unavailable

• Messaging is limited to text only—just like most of the PLB/Sat Messaging devices

• The feature is only available on newer phones that are equipped with satellite radios. Currently, this is: Apple (iPhone 14 and later) Google (Pixel 9 series), and the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

• Both Apple and Google are leveraging the Skylo satellite network directly

• Samsung is partnering with Verizon (who has in turn partnered with Skylo) to provide Emergency SOS to Galaxy S25 series owners

And, here’s how to use it:

iPhone Users

• Ensure you have a supported phone running iOS 18 or later

• You can text SOS emergency services whenever cell and wifi are unavailable (911 in the U.S. for example). Your GPS location, medical ID information, and emergency contacts will automatically be included in the SOS call.

• You can share your location via satellite using Find My Device

• You can use iMessage/SMS to send text messages to contact without a cell signal.

• You can test satellite messaging on your own device by going to Settings > Emergency SOS and selecting "Try Demo."

Android Users

• Ensure you have a supported phone and Android OS

• The Pixel phones allow you to contact emergency services via when a cell signal is unavailable.

• Like Apple, Google will include your GPS location and emergency contacts

• To use satellite messaging on Pixel phones, enable Google Messages as your default messaging app

• To make an emergency call with no cell service, you dial (not text) 911, then choose the Satellite SOS option that appears.

• You can test it out by going to Settings > Safety & emergency > Satellite SOS and following the prompts.

Also, if you are a T-Mobile user…
T-Mobile is partnering with Starlink to enter the satellite enabled phone arena. This is particularly interesting, because the integration is planned to introduce emergency satellite features on existing hardware. According to the vendor, T-Mobile's Starlink service does not require you to buy a new phone; most modern smartphones are compatible with the service and can utilize Starlink connectivity without needing a special device, allowing you to use your existing phone to access satellite internet through T-Mobile.

They’ve also opened up the beta test to customers currently using Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile is giving those customers the opportunity to try out T-Mobile Starlink satellite service on their existing phones. According to the website, during the beta period, Verizon and AT&T customers can experience T-Mobile Starlink text messaging for free, and once the service launches in July, it will be available for $20/month per line.

With safety being an ever-present first principle in the small boat community, it’s really great to see emergency satellite communications becoming available as a standard service, available on ubiquitous hardware. The additional piece of mind and ability to communicate in an emergency is well worth investing the time to learn about the capabilities of your current phone and provider. And, it's something to keep in mind for small craft skippers when upgrading phones or plans—to consider getting a new phone (or plan) that supports these new emergency satellite communication features. •SCA•

For five hundred years the old galleons, windjammers and smaller fishing vessels were rigged with rope-strapped wooden blocks fitted with wooden sheaves. The blocks were very attractive and functional yet simply made.

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One of our faves is a mod to a sprit-boomed leg-o-mutton mizzen (aka driver... the kind at the extreme aft end as found in yawl rigs).

These sails mostly induce weather helm while sailing and are often left standing at anchor as a riding sail. Being small, they’re seldom reefed (although they can be brailed to the mast). There are times to strike and furl them, though.

Our mod is to skip the halyard in favor of permanent luff mounts (usually lacing). Instead, we attach a furling line of 1/4in nylon (stretchy) to the masthead that leads down to a cleat low on or near the mast, with extra tail (about 1/2 of luff height).

To furl:

1. Undo the snotter and stand the boom vertically against the mast, aft end up.
   

2. Roll the resulting bunt of sail vertically alongside mast and boom.
   

3. Spiral wrap the furling line around bunt and boom tightly to the mast (whip the first wrap as high as possible).
   

4. Make fast the furling line.

It’s quick, neat and resists very high winds. As a bonus, it reduces the halyard windage by half, eliminates a block and takes less line. We have our arms around the mast for most of the operation for a very secure feel. •SCA•

My random-orbit sander sees a lot of use. But I always found it annoying that I couldn't just set it down on the bench after turning it off. I would end up wasting time holding the sander while the pad stopped spinning. Finally, I decided to take the bull by the horns and find a solution.

As you can see from the drawing, what I came up with is pretty simple but also pretty effective. It's just a stand made from scraps of plywood that I can "drop" the sander into once I turn it off.

The key to the stand is the top plate with its two "fingers" that wrap around the sander to suspend it above the base. You'll need to “custom-size” this piece to fit your particular sander. And then just make sure that the stand is tall enough to hold the sander above the base.

Now when you have your sander in hand, you'll be getting the job done, not cooling your heels. •SCA•

I have owned several Sunfish. They’re easy to rig and fun to sail, and when you own more than one you can stack them like firewood. I ruined this cool stacking feature by adding a swivel camcleat. When I did, I found I couldn’t stack the ones I owned behind my garage and hide them from the wife!

To remedy this, I took the original tensioning relief hook and added two camcleats on the left and right sides. They needed to be the ones without the fairlead/strap, and be positioned just below the tension hook to work correctly. I mounted all three to a piece of plywood and then affixed using the original tensioning hook holes with longer bolts. When I tack, I switch the mainsheet to the other camcleat after completing the tack. A nice side-effect is that it will release (pop out) is the sail is flailing around.

There was enough extra room on the plywood to add a couple of more things. I added a stainless-steel eye to the back side, and a theird kayak-type clamcleat on one edge. I used the eye to clip-on a waterproof container for my keys and wallet.

I also Drilled an 1/8” hole through the plywood, between the two camcleats. I ran a piece of 1/8” Shock Cord through it with a stopper knot at the end. I could then wrap the shock cord around a 2.5-foot paddle secured to with the side clamcleat. This kept my paddle off the floor, secure so it would not drift away in a knock down, and it can be quickly be removed when needed.

•SCA•

Notice: All requested changes to your boat must be submitted in triplicate to the designer. Initial submissions are to be made at headquarters in person for disapproval, and then, resubmitted in 60 days for final disapproval!

Some folks will disapprove of this because of its unnatural feel, but I prefer having the mainsheet aft on my boat. This allows me to sail with one hand on the tiller and mainsheet while the other is free to hold a sandwich or to hang on to the boat depending on if I’m scared or hungry.

To do this, on a smaller boat, you will have to add a swivel block. It needs to be below and off to one side of the tiller handle. This allows the tiller to move freely.

There are several options for mounting the swivel block. On the Gig Harbor SCAMPs, and many small boats, the top motor mount through-bolt is a great place to attach the block. It can be secured with a shackle and piece of angle metal (aluminum or stainless). Or it can be attached where needed with a padeye to the inside of the transom.

In my case I had added a 1" x 1/8" x 24" piece of stainless angle, with holes drilled along its length. I secured it to the upper gudgeon mounting bolts. This was more work, but I have found it useful to secure other items like a rigging knife, flashlight, electric flare, whistle, and of course my swivel block.

•SCA•

Regular contributor, Paul Stovner sent this one:

My Tiller extension if made of an aluminum hiking (Ski) pole. I cut off and discarded the 3^rd skinniest section (basket end) and inserted a slightly undersized wooden dowel covered with thickened epoxy. This strengthened the end up so I could drill through it and bolt it to a swivel made of this purpose (sold on Duckworks). The “free” end, with the handle, is then secured back on the tiller with a piece of Velcro when not in use. By using an old hiking pole, the extension can be varied in length as needed.

This worked great but there are times when I want to stand forward in the boat, while sailing—like when I am adjusting the sail, or I’ve been sailing for four hours and just need to stand for a while. I wanted a way to make the normal pivoting extension a fixed extension of the handle. This would allow me to steer with the tiller between my knees while standing forward, and working with my hands. I’m trying to convince you I can do two things at once—not well, but I can. To solve the problem I made a removable “slot” that can be clamped onto the end of the tiller handle.

My tiller handle is a squarish type making the mod easier. This could also be done with a round handle but might require more work. The “slot” is just two pieces of stiff material like hardwood, or, like mine, from old broken battens, (you did keep those in case you ever needed to use them?). I cut the batten to about 4-¼” long by 1-¼” wide to fit my tiller. A block of wood is cut/sanded down so it is about 1/32” wider than the tiller handle, (in my case about ¾”). The blocks other dimensions were ¾” tall by 1-¼” long. This is bolted or screwed at the bottom of the 2 pieces of batten. Next, I through drilled a ¼” hole, through both batten pieces, so that it is about 1” up from the top of the tiller handle when it is resting on the block. A ¼-20 bolt and corresponding wing nut is then placed through this hole and used as a tensioner to clamp the “slot” to the handle. About 1-¼“of batten material should now remain above the tensioning bolt.

When in use the tiller extension rests in the “slot” between the two pieces of batten, and gravity holds it there. If I need to make a sudden sharp turn, I can raise the extension out of the slot and use it as normal, as long as I hold it up at a bit of an angle. When I’m done having to stand and steer the “slot” is removed and stored.

Designer Dudley Dix writes:

The simplest tiller extension is what I have on both my boats. A length of bamboo from any garden supplier, with a short length of flexible plastic tube with one end fitted over the bamboo and held with a small screw, the other end drilled for a bolt through the tiller. The attached photo shows my dual extensions from the Paper Jet, the two extensions on a single plastic tube and bolt. The plastic tube is flexible enough for the lazy tiller to trail unaffected by the active extension.

•SCA•

Article by Diane Salguero

It was meant to be the eighth and final coat on the house sides of a Thunderbird. The next morning, there—proud and firm—were three anonymous fingerprints placed in the most visible spot in the varnish. I have experienced this many times in over 20 years as an independent marine finisher. For some unexplained reason it is part of human character to ask “Is it wet?” while the hand is already in motion. People like to see and touch brightly finished wood and freshly painted hulls and wonder at the artistic magic it takes to achieve it.

Having trained a crew of high school teens to work with me I can say it really isn’t that difficult. Whether you are finishing a classic yacht or a more recreationally used runabout, the methods and elements are pretty much the same and you will have as many opinions as people you ask. I explain in my classes, to my apprentices and to my customers, we have several skilled finishers in our port and they all have their methods and tricks but “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” It all begins with the finish product you choose.

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Upgrades to your boat aren’t always massive projects. Sometimes the simplest things can add comfort and convenience all out of proportion to their cost in time, effort and cash. Cases in point are gear holders.

Most of us have things like binoculars, air horns and the like that are stored somewhere around the cabin or cockpit. Many times, they aren’t stowed properly or available when needed. However, a look through your marine store will provide a great many options to the organizationally impaired.

One has a choice of materials when considering gear holders. At the time I was looking, the two most popular choices were teak and molded PVC. A third option, holders made from StarBoard (R) polymer lumber, has since become very popular.

You can buy teak or StarBoard (R) stock and make your own holders, but the commercially available products make for a quicker job with less fuss and mess.

I ended up choosing both teak and PVC holders. I used the teak holders when they were mounted on the wood finish bulkheads and the molded PVC holders when they were mounted on the fiberglass surfaces.

Two of my favorite boating authors are Lin and Larry Pardey. One of their hints is to temporarily mount any new gadget or fixture to verify its location. I used this idea and initially mounted the holders with double backed tape. The tape allowed me to adjust the position until I was comfortable with the location.

I then fastened the holder in place. The PVC holders are flexible and cushion the item being held. The problem is that heavier items, like the binoculars, tend to make the PVC sag between fasteners. I added a piece of aluminum bar stock to help hold the PVC in place, eliminating the sagging.

I left all the teak racks natural, choosing not to varnish or oil them. Protected as they are below decks, they have stayed clean and bright as the day I bought them. The PVC holders have stayed flexible, too, because of being protected from the UV rays in sunlight.

The StarBoard (R) racks are the new kids on the block and more and more designs are available every year. These have the stiffness of a teak rack coupled with the smooth finish of the PVC. They also require no finishing of any kind. •SCA•

From Paul’s book Optimizing the Trailerable Sailboat