Seamanship & Maintenance

The wider craft — knots, checklists, sail trim, lay-up and what a boat costs.

10 articles

How to Winterize an Outboard Motor: the Two Things That Actually Kill It

An outboard is not a small inboard. Almost all winter damage comes from two things — water that cannot drain out, and fuel that degrades where it sits. The order the jobs go in and why it matters, the storage rule that cracks castings when people get it wrong, what the gear oil is telling you (and the fishing line behind the propeller that usually caused it), and where two-stroke and four-stroke part company.

August 20, 2026

Maintenance14 min read

How to Winterize a Boat: the Checklist, and Why Warm Climates Need It Too

Almost everything written about winterizing is written for a boat that will freeze — which is why owners in the Med skim it and decide it doesn't apply. It mostly does. Winterizing is about water that has nowhere to go, and only one of the three ways water wrecks a laid-up boat involves frost. The list split by climate, why the oil change goes before storage rather than after, the fuel step people miss, and the ventilation mistake that grows mould under a perfect cover.

August 11, 2026

Seamanship12 min read

Points of Sail Explained: the Angles, the Diagram and the One Rule of Trim

The points of sail aren't eight names to memorise — they're one continuous variable, the angle between your bow and the wind, and everything else on the boat is a function of it. A diagram with the angles marked, what each point feels like and how it goes wrong, the single trim rule that replaces memorising sail positions, and the diagnosis that tells you whether the problem is the angle or the sheet.

August 8, 2026

Cruising Life13 min read

The Cost of Living on a Sailboat: The Three Budgets Nobody Separates

Every answer to this question is a monthly figure, and the monthly figure is the wrong number — it averages a year in which nothing big broke. The three buckets a liveaboard budget actually has, the 10% rule that dominates all of them, why where you sleep swings the annual total by a factor of two or three, and an indexed comparison of marina, mixed and anchor-out living.

August 6, 2026

Seamanship13 min read

Essential Sailing Knots: The Six That Matter — and the Knots for Anchoring

Every knot in the book holds — that isn't the hard part. On a boat the question is whether you can get it off again after twelve hours of load, in the dark, one-handed. The working set organised by job, the full anchoring set from anchor bend to bitter end, what a knot costs you in line strength, and the five ways knots actually fail. With a save-and-pin reference card.

August 3, 2026

Reference18 min read

Sailing Terms Glossary: 199 Nautical Words Explained (A–Z)

Every sailing and boating term you are likely to meet on a charter, in a pilot book or in a forecast — defined in one or two sentences, A to Z. Plus the table that matters most: the dozen near-identical pairs sailors mix up, from port and windward to rope, line, rode and warp, and why each distinction changes what you actually do.

July 27, 2026

Seamanship9 min read

What Is a Float Plan? What to Include, and Who to Leave It With

A float plan is a one-page record of your boat, crew, route and a raise-the-alarm time — left with a trusted person ashore, not filed with the Coast Guard. The one thing everyone gets wrong, exactly what goes on it, who to give it to, and why closing it out matters as much as leaving it — with a save-and-pin checklist card.

July 25, 2026

Seamanship9 min read

Boat Pre-Departure Checklist: The 5-Minute Check Before You Leave the Dock

A pre-departure checklist you can run in five minutes before every trip — boat and systems, safety and crew, then the plan and the weather — plus the distinction that makes it useful: it checks the state of the boat right now, not the seasonal maintenance, the gear inventory or the float plan. The four lists people confuse, side by side.

July 24, 2026

Maintenance13 min read

Boat Maintenance Checklist: A Schedule by Interval and System

A boat maintenance checklist that works like a schedule, not a wish list — what to check before every trip, monthly, at the annual haul-out and every few years, organised by system — plus the piece most lists miss: three separate clocks (the calendar, the engine hours and plain condition) that decide when each job is actually due, and why a dated log matters more than doing the jobs.

July 23, 2026

Safety12 min read

Boat Safety Equipment Checklist: What the Coast Guard Requires by Boat Length

The full federal requirement table by boat length — life jackets, throwable, fire extinguishers, distress signals, sound device, engine cut-off switch and placards — plus the two extinguisher rules that fail more safety checks than anything else (the 2018 labelling change and the 12-year date stamp), and the gear the law forgets: an anchor, and an alarm for the hours you're asleep on it.

July 21, 2026