Practical Sailors 2009 Rope Clutch Review
Testers put six rope clutches through their paces on a test jig that measured line tension, line slippage, and the clutches holding ability over...
Practical Sailor Tests the Alado Jib Furler
Practical Sailor finds the Alado Nautica headsail furler to be easy to install and a worthwhile sail-handling tool. One feature that sets the Alado...
Heavy Weather Sailing Gear
From sea anchors, drogues, and trysails to forereaching and heaving to, tactics and gear for surviving a storm at sea vary greatly. During a...
Farewell to Skip Allans S/V Wildflower
Anyone who has ever run before a gale knows how exhilarating it can be. On the right boat, in the right conditions, the adrenaline...
Farewell to Skip Allans S/V Wildflower
Anyone who has ever run before a gale knows how exhilarating it can be. On the right boat, in the right conditions, the adrenaline...
Snatch Block Test Update
Although it has a comparatively small sheave diameter (1.75 inches), the RF-6831 can handle loads up to 3,310 pounds, which is on par with...
A Tale of Two Trysails
A storm trysail rarely gets the close look it deserves. Designed to replace the mainsail in a severe storm, it spends most of its...
Extending the Bow: Are Add-on Sprit Kits Worth It?
Already de rigueur with many performance-oriented sailors, easy-to-handle lightweight sails are gaining popularity with cruisers. And setting a gennaker, asymmetric spinnaker, or a new...
New Twist on Furlers: New Generation of Roller-Furling Systems For Light-Air-Sails Skip the Fixed...
Roller furling makes headsail handling a whole lot easier, but it also results in a significant loss in light-air efficiency. This stems from the...
Taming the Main: Sail-Handling Systems for Bigger Mainsails
The mainsail continues to be both the heart of most sailplans, and the bane of many short-handed cruising sailors. In its modern bigger-than-ever context,...