How-to

Siwash at Cueva Valdez Once she held the Around Catalina record, now she’s 100 years old and it’s time to party. So if you hear a bit of shouting this Saturday, coming from the direction of Howland’s Landing, Catalina, the action is probably on the deck of the redoubtable Siwash, a piece of floating history. Is there [...] …Read More

The Molokai Strait   75 luxury bluewater expedition yacht Hercules is an examples of top-of-the-line everything. For the ocean adventurer, the Molokai Strait yachts are built with steel hulls and aluminum topsides, lots of displacement and fuel. I first saw the 75′ Hercules at the Newport, Rhode Island, boat show in the fall of 2008 and [...] …Read More

This past weekend I had the honor of being one of the judges for the annual Mystic Seaport Classic Yacht rendezvous. This is an event I always look forward to because I get a chance to see some really beautiful boats. Beyond that I also get a chance t... …Read More

Every now and then you hear a story about someone who's autopilot does some strange things when someone else on board uses the head and hits the macerator button or the vacu-flush. Or maybe they are down below washing the dishes and using the pressure ... …Read More

Bailing mahi mahi at the lobster pots along the edge of the Continental Shelf is one heck of a fun way to fish; there’s a ton of action, the fish jump and fight like crazy, and they taste darn good, too. Yesterday a weather-window opened up wide, so we launched the WriteAway and headed out [...] …Read More

From Noah to the sinking of the whaleship Essex to The Perfect Storm, maritime disaster stories have kept audiences riveted in accounts recorded on the written page. But in the Youtube and reality TV era, and particularly with the immense popularity of Deadliest Catch, the written word has some stiff competition. It is against these [...] …Read More

Adding a high accuracy fuel flow meter onto your boat is a much easier installation then most people would assume, and it gives you some important advantages. Let’s face facts: just about anyone who’s run a boat for years on end has either run the fuel tanks dry, or come close enough that they’ve stressed [...] …Read More

Do you need to troubleshoot your Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, Evinrude, or Mercury outboard? Even though most of today’s outboard engines require a full-blown laptop scan to diagnose, some common problems can be addressed rather easily… if, that is, you know what to look for. Electrical issues and the number one problem, when your outboard won’t start. To [...] …Read More

Whale jumps, lands on sailboat. …Read More

Does using ethanol blended fuel make you feel green? Or, do you worry about the fuel's impact on your engine or boat's fuel tank? Every boater has read one article or another about the horrors of alcohol in their fuel and its impact on such things as ... …Read More