Sail and Boat Repair and Maintenance

Sharing ideas and questions concerning boat and sail repair and maintenance.

Haulout & Bottom Paint

At the last Sailor's talk we had a short discussion about spring haulout.  Is anyone interested in hauling out as a group and doing a production line bottom cleaning and painting?  I'm thinking that if we can get 3 or 4 boats all hauled out at the same time, the combined crews can probably do a better and faster job than if we haulout separately.  Any comments/ideas?

Craig

Electronics

 

Hi everyone,

I am finally able to turn my attention to electronics and am interested in advice about basic combos of depth sounder and gps/charting systems  I have a functional depth sounder though it needs to be better enclosed/set and at the boat show Garmin was proposing their in-hull chirp sounder that ties to their gps as an alternative.  

As I have heard of people obtaining good GPS units for hundreds of dollars I was a bit shocked by the 2-3 thousand dollar price tags of most of what was on display at the show. 

Thanks for any advice.

Threading new main halyard in mast

I have had the mast down on my boat and am installing new standing and running rigging. Runnig inside the mast are the main halyard and the wires for the anchor light (new), new cable for the new VHF antenna, and the wires for the steaming light. The existing main halyard entered the mast from the rear, but higher up in the mast went around a bolt to run on the other side (or perhaps more centered in the middle) and then to the sheave at  the top and exited the back.

New Headsail Advice Needed

The 150% kevlar/mylar genoa on Asterix is now over 15 years old, and the luff is ripping out in several places, along with several spots inboard of the luff where the mylar is disintegrating, so it appears to be sail-shopping time (just in time for the PFD).  I've asked for general replacement quotes from a number of sailmakers, and the quotes have ranged from $900 to $4,500, using everything from cheap Dacron to materials suitable for space travel. 

Question for the group:  Any recommendations for both sailcloth and/or sailmakers?

Craig

UAS Diesel Engine Course

Hi All,

Thought I'd note that UAS is offering its Diesel Engines Simplified course that is theoretically oriented toward helping boat owners with diesel engines understand their engines and learn basic maintenance. It isn't always offered but is on the schedule for this fall, running Monday and Wednesday evenings from August 31 through October 19.

Class can take 18, 7 signed up so far (I think they need 8 to actually hold the class, but am not sure about that).

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