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Bottom jobs for both my boats (33' power and 36' full keel sail) came to about $400. Each boat takes a bit over an hour. It is not hard or even messy work. Cost is for three gallons of Sea Hark Monterrey ablative water based bottom paint, two roller covers and masking tape. Haul and pressure...

I don't think that diesel fuel is the issue in decreasing interest in trawler boating. Locally young people are not going into boating because they can't afford it. The only local younger people (under 40) that I know who are on the water are commercial fishers (lobsters) and there are not...

Fuel burn depends on three things: speed, displacement and hull design. Displacement and speed are the most important. Fuel burn is more or less proportional to displacement and increases exponentially up to planing speed. My 32'8" boat has a pure displacement hull (no planing) and displaces...

I live on the Maine coast. While we do have some humid days they fall into two groups. Hot humid days and cool humid days. Hot on the Maine coast is 80 degrees. This summer we had a long hot spell that was also humid. During that week we had two days when it hit 80 and the maximum...

I was in Bar Harbor today and saw THREE cars with out of state plates. Normally this time of year it would be the other way around. There is zero lodging open here on MDI and we are a bit far from the border for a day trip. Hancock county which includes Acadia National Park still has had only...

There are signs at the border stating the quarantine requirement. In addition, all lodging (what little is open now) is by reservation only and the rules prohibit making reservations for out of state people. Starting June 1, out of state people can make reservations IF they have met the...

That is strongly dependent on the mooring. You wouldn't even budge my 5,000 lb granite mooring block with a 1,000 lb load. Why would I want to do that? I do not want transients to use my mooring.

As I understand it local harbormasters (they are law enforcement officers) will enforce it. People notice boats with out of state hails. Marinas will also enforce it since they can lose their ability to stay open if they let people from out of state boats come ashore in less than 14 days...

The Covid-19 epidemic had put some limitations on coming to Maine by boat (or any other means) this Summer. As of today (May 24), the state has a 14 day quarantine requirement for all people except essential workers coming to Maine from out of state. The current end date of the quarantine...

In Maine moorings are licensed by the local towns. The bulk of moorings are owned by individual people. There are two types of harbors when it comes to moorings. If a harbor has been maintained by the Corps of Engineers (dredged) then commercial use of mooring is illegal (no rental allowed)...

I run Open CPN on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. It will run everything just fine and the all up system cost was about $150 including a 7" touch screen. For $200 I could have gone with a 15" screen. There is an AIS add on for the Pi for about $60 and you can also add radar. I do find that the Pi has...

I have lived a pretty mundane life. The only improbable thing I have done was to teach at CalTech. I was a visiting professor there.

Free parking at our marina. No limitations on how many cars or how long. They don't issue permits of any kind either. It does get crowded some holiday weekend days, which means you might have to walk 75 yards. The marina does like you to leave your keys in the car if you park on the dock...

A whip antenna is the easiest antenna to implement. Alternatively you could run a wire from bow to a high point then down to the stern. That would give your tuner a bit more of a workout though. As others have said, the ground plane will be the biggest issue. What I would suggest is that...

Most of the drop in lithium iron phosphate batteries I have seen are limited to a 100 amp discharge by their battery management system (BMS), so cranking a big diesel would require 4+ 100 Ah batteries in parallel. Some of those drop in replacement batteries limit how many you can put in...

Charge loss of idle lead acid batteries is temperature dependent. The higher the temperature that faster they lose charge. My batteries sit idle for six months each year, but only lose 20-25% of charge during that time because they are cold (currently about 20F).

Submerged floats mostly happen in high current areas. You can usually avoid them by staying out of those areas when the tide is running hard. I say usually because I have snagged two trap lines in 25 years. Both were submerged by current. It also helps if you understand how the lobster...

Perhaps I should have put it this way. Pay attention to the water. If in Maine don't run on autopilot or at night and you won't have many problems. Lobster and crab traps are few and far between south of Cape Cod, particularly compared to Maine.

I use a laptop with a $45 GPS puck. I have Open CPN and Seaclear on the laptop. Both are freeware and use NOAA charts downloaded free. The 19" display is nice.

25 years boating in Maine without any type of line cutter and I have never had to go over the side. I have snagged two lines. Both floats were pulled under by current. A little work with the boat hook freed me up. The trick is not to run over lobster gear.

In my experience with gel coating an existing surface, the gelcoat will have to be sanded fair then buffed back to a gloss finish. That takes a LOT of hours. Also gelcoat is quite thick and is very difficult to spray evenly. To get it to lie down flat you need to thin it a lot ideally with...

I just finished building a battery box for eight group 31 batteries. I made it from 1/2" exterior plywood that I nailed together. Once the box was together I put fillets of thickened epoxy on all the inside seams and then epoxied two layers of 1708 biaxial fiberglass to the inside of the box...

I have a few comments about the "repair" suggestions you and others have made. 1) Any hull repair other than simply replacing planks with new wood must be preceded by replacing ALL rotted/soft wood with new. So why not just do the repairs and leave it at that. 2) Glassing a wooden hull will...

The only good way to restore a wooden hull is to repair the existing hull with new wood. All I can say is go over every inch of the boat inside and out to assess its condition. ALL soft/rotted wood you find will have to be replaced. Planking stock should ideally be clear vertical grain wood...

You do need to sand, fair and then prime before putting a high gloss top coat on. If you don't you will end up with the crazing showing in the paint unless you prime it very heavily (several times). I would suggest looking into Alexseal paint instead of Awlgrip. Alexseal is east to roll and...