While I make no secret about what I think about consumerism-led boat projects, I will admit to having a wish list of things that I want to have on the Islander. For starters, there’s AIS. We already have an AIS receiver as it’s part of our Standard Horizon radio but it would be nice to …
Have you noticed that it’s almost impossible to find a new manual anchor windlass? Or, if you do it’s more expensive than a powered one? When you do find a good manual windlass the cost is often right at the cost of a brand spanking new electric windlass. Is that nuts or what? The Islander …
I’ve been mulling over various solutions to mount our chart-plotter in such a way that it could live in the boat but allow for it to hinge into the companionway to allow it to be seen from the cockpit. Hardly rocket science but it does exercise the mind into coming up with a workable solution. …
Since I’m currently sorting the re-rig of the Islander 36 I thought it might be a good idea to put up this old post… —————- I noticed the other day that a large “discount” chandler was offering 12-strand splicing at $22 a pop, $15 for a three-strand eye splice, $30 for a rope/chain splice, and …
Just after I got up this morning and cleaned off the reindeer turds from the coach-roof, I saw that Voile & Moteur had a write up for a design that resonated with me big time. Since buying a fixer-upper Islander 36, I’ve had this somewhat hazy idea of how I wanted to adapt the design …
I mentioned earlier that I’d found an inexpensive stove that I was going to try on the Islander and it arrived yesterday. The stove in question is this one… I’m actually pretty impressed. Inspecting the stove it appears that making it into a gimbaled stove will be non-problematic and at a cost of maybe ten …
Most of my time the last couple of days has been devoted to cleaning out the previous owner’s stuff, trying to grok his rather interesting thought processes, and making lists of things to do. The downside is I’m also having to make lists of stuff to buy, replace, and repair. Or in other words I …
I’m not a big fan of electronics in the cockpit as a wet and UV-rich environment is really not a great place to mount them. Sure they all say they’re designed for the wet and have covers to deal with the UV issue but, at least in my personal experience, the instruments start showing their …
So, here’s a question. How do we define the cost of a VolksCruiser? Since most people think of boats in terms of length, we might want to try using that. At first thought, this seems to make sense as longer boats tend to be more expensive than shorter boats. Simple, right? Then again, how do …
