Lunacy is again spending the winter inside at Maine Yacht Center, and though there are no ambitious modifications underway, like last year's bowsprit, I have been trying to address some smaller issues that have been bugging me. Number one on this list was the big Marelon seacock on the boat's one and only raw-water inlet,...
My last missive in this continuing series on plastic boat construction dealt with internal structures within a hull and how they help support and stiffen a boat. This time we'll look at how the two biggest pieces of a plastic boat, the hull and deck, are married to each other. Almost all builders these days...
Though I've participated in the ARC before, this was the first time I was able to attend the prizegiving. What a bash! The wind-up to the 2011 ARC this past Saturday was a celebration of epic proportions. After plying the assembled multitude of sailors with rum (clever tactic that), master of ceremonies Andrew Bishop (see...
One huge last-minute addition to Lunacy's pre-launch punch list this year has been replacing the headsail furler. Near the end of last season I noticed that her old Profurl unit, which probably dates back to the early 1990s, was getting increasingly difficult to use. When rotating the drum, the action was stiff and felt very...
It staggers me to think that in just a few short years my old fiberglass yawl Crazy Horse (built in 1964) will be half a century old. She's been fortunate in that she's had owners who have continually maintained and upgraded her. When I owned her, back when she was merely 30 years old, I...
It seems whenever I visit Bermuda I almost always run into people I know. One big surprise I had while passing thru last month was bumping into Brad Sellew, who sold me Crazy Horse (ex-Wanderlust), the Pearson Alberg 35 yawl I sailed to West Africa aboard back in the mid-1990s. Here you see her anchored...
