Recent content by oldmansailingdotcom

Don't really need down function but since I have it, would be nice if it worked. Does now - commutator seems to need cleaning every year. Big anchor: I went to order a 15kg but they were out of stock and the cunning salesman said: "But I have a 20kg..." I must say I sleep very well knowing it's...

Does anyone have a mooring at Waldringfield on the River Deben I could use occasionally over the winter? LOA 9.7m, draft 1.5m.

In a flat calm on an ocean passage, the sails do seem to dampen the rolling - and in fact they may even propel the boat a little. The trouble is that all that banging and slatting makes me wonder about the wear on the gear and the sails themselves. Should I stow them and just hang on 'til it's...

I tried the funnel and lost it, gloves, slowing down etc. The answer came by accident. I wanted to use it in shallow water and the makers suggest a 30m line - which means it will drag on the bottom every time you go about , so I tried 15m and it worked perfectly well - also (!!) it didn't get...

While on the subject of Aries, I had a new lift-up gear back in the 1980's. I have now bought a boat which has the same gear (a little more modern, I think but still very well used). This one clonks as the gear moves a millimetre or two on its mountings. Obviously it's going to move a bit but I...

I used to write the Dogwatch column in Yachting World and after a 20-year gap, I am back in a boat (Rival 32 just like the one I had in the 80's). However journalism isn't what it was and the future seems to belong to the video bloggers - particularly if they are young, attractive and don't seem...

I bought a boat with a Lofrans Cayman last summer. The windlass had an infuriating habit of sometimes not working. There was no pattern to it - sometimes all you would get was a loud click. Nobody seemed to know what to do about this (the UK distributor suggested hitting it with a winch handle...