I spent some time last year installing new "disc springs" on the two Andersen primary winches in Lunacy's cockpit. At that time I knew I should have also taken the trouble to clean and grease those winches, but I have exceptional procrastination skills and so managed to talk myself out of it. This season, however,...

I spent Monday out on Lunacy again and revisited Wills Gut, or McMansion Cove, as I've come to think of it, for the first time in three years. Before the sun went down I installed the new "disc springs" on my Andersen winches, a seemingly easy job that turned out to be not so easy...

Last Wednesday, after sailing out on my own from Portland, I spent the night aboard Lunacy on a mooring at Cliff Island. I awoke the next morning to fog, thin tendrils that first filtered in from the east with the spreading sunlight then thickened and obliterated everything. Later, after it cleared off, I motored just...

Lunacy's new nose is now firmly attached to her face. I went up to Maine Yacht Center a while back to see the surgeon (i.e., the welder) at work and came back feeling a bit worried that maybe all this was an awful mistake. Not that the sprit wouldn't be functional; just that it would...

I started hearing rumors about a year ago that Selden Mast was going to start making winches, which in itself would not be a surprising development. Selden, which traditionally limited itself to spars and furlers, has been steadily creeping into deck hardware over the past few years, offering bits like blocks, cleats, swivels, etc. It...

  One of the things I did before sailing Lunacy down to the W'Indies for the winter was service all the winches onboard. I had been putting this off for years, but when the primaries in the cockpit started screaming at me whenever I trimmed the jib late last summer, I figured the time had...