This is about the time of year I perk up and pay attention to the various and sundry pre-boatshow press releases as there are usually some interesting bits of information on where boat design is going. Take this new boat from Dufour… It’s the smallest boat in the Dufour line which in itself is interesting …
The idea of self-steering is, for all practical purposes, a pretty simple concept and most all self-steering systems reflect that. Or at least the good ones do. The problem with the idea of home building a self-steering gear, for most people at least, is that they tend to have a certain amount of mechanical parts …
A quick update on the self-steering project. I now have all the various bits on island with the excepting of the needful wood which is just a dinghy row away. So, hopefully, in the next few days I’ll be getting the wood for the project along with a few sheets of plywood for a new …
So, yeah, about that new self-steering gear… Right now I’m in the process of getting all the bits together to assemble a kit to build the it and the various pieces not readily available on a tropical island paradise are, mostly, currently winging their way to my PO box. Putting together a “kit” before starting …
Getting ready to build a new self-steering gear… Read More »
There’s a cooking channel that I really enjoy by Joshua Weissman and one his features are recipes where he does some established dish adding “But Better” or “But Cheaper” to the mix. It’s entertaining and I’ve yet to come across an episode of his that did not have me wanting to get in the kitchen …
I read recently how Keith Leitzke has returned from another cruise to nowhere in particular and it got me thinking about a few things… The first being how that Bill Lapworth’s CAL 20 is still a great minimal cruising design in spite of the fact that it was never really designed to be one. While …
regarding a very long voyage in a pretty small boat… Read More »
A YouTube channel I have a love/hate relationship with has a Bluetooth enabled toilet and I just can’t quite get my head around why one might actually need such a thing. As it happens, I do have some Bluetooth headphones which I purchased because I wanted to be able to listen to music while working …
The other day a reader dropped me a line where the subject of DIY came up and he pointed out that, unlike me, he could afford to hire folks to do work for him and if you had to DIY you might want to consider something other than yachting as a lifestyle decision… Not the …
A Freedom cat ketch adapted to junk rig I wrote this back in 2008 on Boat Bits but it seems to have held up for the most part… I suppose the minute you say lug rig that everyone assumes you are talking about the “Junk” rig which is certainly a type of lug rig but …
There are a lot of fans of the junk rig who, being fans and all are true believers when it comes to their preference of rigs. The junk rig is superior to all other rigs or in common parlance the junk rig is “the shit”. Me? Well I certainly think that the junk rig is …
