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Having just spent 9 weeks onboard with the induction stove top, I learned a few things. Right now I have it set up so that a dedicated 120A LiFePO4 battery runs the PSW inverter that runs the stove. I only had a little 10A LiFePO4 charger onboard, so it was really slow to recharge the battery...

You can also watch the area on Windy. Outside is sustained 60 knot northerlies, but inside passages are a calm 20-30 kt and a balmy 50 degrees. The weather reminds me of Dutch Harbor: a destination you'd only go to if you stand to make a lot of money (or are following orders). I'm not sure...

Navimag is the freighter. Skorpios is more a tour boat. We are booked on Navimag with another leg on the Ventus Australis, a cruise boat that leaves from Ushuaia, Argentina and goes to Cape Horn. It is possible (for $50) to get the whole area on Navionics for an armchair pre-cruise.

I replaced my screws with thumbscrews. They were a little hard to locate the right size and I bought a package. Extras are duct taped to the bulkhead near the pump. That way, if I drop a screw I can look for it later. I used an old paper gasket as a template to make extra gaskets. I cut...

My Lehman has a custom SS exhaust. Lehman originally offered two different cast iron manifold take-offs, the "elbow" shown above by Max1 (with the raw water injection point being very close to the manifold), and a straight fitting that was threaded to fit pipe. I don't think the second version...

I installed one earlier this summer. I'm pretty sure that the old one went out because the sounder was turned on while the boat was hauled. Cost to haul again and have the transducer replaced was about $2k and 6 days time (when the yard could fit me in). P79 was $130 and I installed in one...

True Lime worked great for ceviche. What was missing was fresh tortillas. Turns out that I could make them on my induction stove top. Also, another hit for long term storage and ease of preparation was dehydrated frijoles. These have a little salt in them so just had hot water.

I chose not to sew one of my projects. The PO had Sunbrella and clear plastic windows for the cockpit enclosure. They were in bad shape as the thread fails, the zippers fail, and the Sunbrella gets moldy (first picture). I chose not to sew (although my machine will go through clear vinyl)...

We have just been looking at Chile, not to cruise to, but to find a boat available for charter. While there seem to be day charters, pay per person cruises, fishing and sightseeing guides, we haven't found anything like Moorings that will actually rent a bare boat for a week. Research continues.

I just spent a few months cruising with our electric dinghy motor. It's a Newport 36 trolling motor ($140). Battery is 12V 100 amp. lithium ($250). Doesn't plane, of course, but we were pleasantly surprised at how long the battery lasted. Several hours and +4 miles was 30% drained. For us...

My prior owner trolled with an 80hp Lehman with two modifications. It has the optional 200lb heavy flywheel usually on the 120hp. It is shown in the Lehman owner's manual, but you can tell if you have it by the rear casing on the engine being about 3 inches long. He also had a hot water...

If you're near saltwater (and probably even if you aren't), forget about snaps and go with Dot Twist-Lock fasteners. If your material of choice might stretch or shrink over the years, a few appropriately placed mushroom shock chord fasteners keeps things tight.

Check what your battery manufacturer recommends. My Xantrex says monthly. My manufacturer says no. I haven't done it in three years and all is good (so far).

It proves that intelligence is finite. As the population increases, there is less to go around.

Our visit to Ocean Falls this August. A damp 66F.

If (when) you get AIS, your name will go out to other vessels. I don't know if all receivers display the same number of letters, but many names are too long to show up completely on our MFD and radio. This summer, my wife saw an AIS target approaching from the opposite direction in a narrow...

Thanks. That toolbox (now downloaded) should be very helpful. It showed me that I may have been looking for the wrong tool. I thought a recording inclinometer would be helpful to show angle of roll over time (and allow examination of roll period). I would simply put my phone next to me at...

That's the situation I hope to avoid. Two tanks connected by a tube, especially if there is some type of mechanical valve system, creates something different than a free-surface ART. Mine (in a bag) isn't quite free-surface, but more so than having a connecting tube. Until one watches the...

Be sure to Google "cookie cutter shark" to understand what happened. That will keep you awake at night.

That could have been Dr. Bass. He is now a retired professor of mathematics from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He wrote one of the most thorough studies where he got 3 "identical" fishing boats to use different stabilization systems. In a follow-up article I read that the captain on...

Sorry about the hair-on-fire comment. I was referring to threads I had read on other sites. Blues now brings up one of my favorites ("the boat will turn over"). I don't know the condition of all of the boats TF, so maybe 200# would collapse some of their flying bridges. My comment was just...

I'm not taking things personally, I'm only relating my personal experience. I haven't seen any reason to be scared of water moving in a bag or a properly designed tank. I was just pointing out that we already have liquid tanks on our boats. And we have all had more than 200# moving around on...

Then don't think about the water that is always smashing (and unsmashing) into the front of your boat. It will keep you awake at night. Always maintain your speed under 2 knots to ensure impact loading is at a minimum. Or, maybe it is easy to build a hull (or a tank) that can handle a few...

Cleanest boat cover I've ever seen had a small dog sleeping on it. We watched it for a long time from our slip. Wierd. Had to walk over to that pier. Turns out it was a very realistic stuffed toy with a monofiliment "leash." I haven't priced them, but it sure does work.

I have also found that if I switch from chart to sounder on the Garmin that often picks up the bottom. If I go to a split screen chart/sounder it doesn't seem to help. Have to go full sounder, then back to chart. I'll have to look further into what my options are. I put my new transducer...