Practical Boat Gear Guides
Peter Robinson 
Introduction A torn sail, split canvas cover or damaged piece of boat fabric rarely happens at a convenient time. You may be offshore with a small tear in a Dacron sail, alongside with a damaged sail cover, or halfway through a trip when a Sunbrella panel starts to split. The obvious temptation is to reach … Read more
Understanding WOBBLE and building a departure routine. WOBBLE is one of the best-known memory aids for boat pre-departure checks. Traditionally the letters stand for Water, Oil, Belts, Bilges (or Batteries), Levels and Exhaust (or Electrics), although you’ll often come across slightly different versions. None of those versions is wrong. They all remind you to check … Read more
Introduction The best boating books use boats to tell stories about people. The boats may be the setting, but they’re rarely the point. These six books have survived for well over a century because each offers something different. Together they range from solo circumnavigation and Pacific cruising to espionage, scientific discovery and life beside the … Read more
Introduction You ask another boat owner on the pontoon how to deal with a maintenance job on your boat. They smile and say, “Just put some grease on it.” Simple enough. Then you walk into the chandlery. Instead of finding a single tube labelled grease, you’re faced with shelves of marine grease, PTFE grease, silicone … Read more
You’ll get the most from this article if… Why bother looking in the battery compartment? Lift the lid on your battery compartment and you might see one battery or several. Thick cables disappear in every direction. There may be a large red switch, a heavy fuse, rows of terminals or one or two mysterious black … Read more
Introduction Spend enough time around boat owners and you’ll soon notice a pattern. Someone asks how to rewire an ageing yacht, restore a tired GRP cruiser or choose their first boat, and before long the same names come up. “You should get Calder.” “Buy Casey before you start.” “I wish I’d read that before I … Read more
You’re sitting on board when the fresh water pump runs for a couple of seconds. Nobody has opened a tap. A little later it happens again. Or perhaps you’ve noticed something different. The water pressure doesn’t seem quite as good as it used to be. The pump runs for longer than normal. Maybe you’ve found … Read more
Introduction You didn’t buy your boat because you wanted another thing to clean. You bought it because you wanted to spend time on the water. Perhaps that means sailing along the coast, exploring a new stretch of river, pottering through the canals, dropping a line over the side or simply sitting in the cockpit with … Read more
Why Doesn’t This Wire Go To The Battery? The 12-volt electrical system is usually one of the first systems a boat owner becomes familiar with. The battery, its isolator, the main fuse, switch panels, lights and pumps no longer feel like a collection of random wires running through lockers and behind panels. You can trace … Read more
Introduction Cockpit drains tend to attract very little attention until water stops leaving the boat as quickly as it should. The symptoms are usually obvious enough. Puddles begin lingering after rain. Washdown water takes longer to disappear. Damp leaves and debris start collecting in corners. In more serious cases, water may begin backing up through … Read more