Sails, Rigging & Deck Gear

Winch Handles

There are trimmers on the racing circuit who come aboard with their personal 8" winch handles. They claim short handles are faster. That's true, of...

Chandlery: 04/15/04

Suunto M9 Wristop ComputerIn the trend towards miniaturization in electronics, there's a fine line between true utility and whiz-bang cleverness for its own sake....

Windlass Test

Around here, one test often leads to another. Guess what came to mind as we broke our backs all day in a recent anchor...

PS Advisor: 02/01/04

Anchoring Hand SignalsYour recent article on anchoring prompted a discussion among friends. Is there an agreed-upon set of hand signals for anchoring, between...

Headsail Roller Furlers

Headsail furlers, once a novelty scorned by "real" sailors, are everywhere nowadays. The reasons for their widespread use boil down to two advantages: the...

Plea-Free Tacking

I wonder how many people have given up sailing because of the effort it takes to tack a genoa shorthanded. Aside from hitting hard...

Kellets On the Rode

The day after our anchor tests this year we took a couple of commercially made anchor rode sentinels (also called kellets) out into the...

Anchor Tests 2003: Soft Sand Over Hard Sand

The more we test anchors, the more we remind ourselves of the obvious: This is a topic fraught with variables. It's like the blind...

Sailmakers’ Advice and Prices

For this second article, we asked all our interview subjects to price out a suit of sails (mainsail and 150-percent furling headsail) for...

PS Advisor: 10/01/03

Riding Sails Ive read several articles about the benefits of riding sails while atanchor, on a mooring, even during hurricanes.What size is right so...

24 Knot Speed Trimaran – The Dragonfly 40 Ultimate

Most people who want to go cruising to tropical destinations on a sailboat buy a Beneteau or Dufour, but those who want an extremely...

Latest Sailboat Review

Catalina 42 Mk I and Mk II

Under the guidance of Frank Butler, who founded the company in 1969, Catalina Yachts’ philosophy is to offer “as much boat for the money...