Recent content by Wooden Boat Fittings

Boat soup.

Nice photos, Dylan. Thanks for posting them. I had a mate John up there somewhere (Sunny Corner?), and whose wife did lovely paintings of the area. Auld lang syne now, though. Mike

The block has a strop around both it and the small circular thimble (and the strop should be a grommet formed from one piece of line, as PRR says), with a seizing then placed between the block and thimble to tighten the strop on the block. As far as the service itself is concerned, there is a...

Not to diminsh from the sadness of this event, but it does point up the potential uselessness of guidelines. And it also points up the absolute necessity for clipping on. As mentioned on another thread, a central jackstay, used, is much safer than relying on lifelines. Mike

Exactly. If a broker's listed a boat for sale, he wants a commission if he sells it. He doesn't want someone going behind his back after seeing his advertisement, and then cutting him out. My sellers don't get any say in the matter. Where the vessel is listed by name rather than type, then I...

Spot-on. Good idea if you can.

Left- and right-handed fairleads are available (with or without rolled edges -- rolled edges are best). Or you can get lock-down types -- And you can even get timber ones if you want -- You shouldn't have any difficulty finding something that suits. Mike

If I were having lifelines at all I'd use pelican hooks on them at both ends. But in fact on my pocket cruiser Sanderling I did away with lifelines altogether. I came to the conculsion that they just encourage a false sense of security. Moreover, on many boats I've seen the lifelines have been...

So -- there's hope for that poor boat yet?

Sounds like a practicable solution, with the punched 'plugs' glued to the screw-heads. (This is not what you'd normally do with a boat, and assumes you'll not ever want to withdraw the screws.) If the screws are below the bottom surface of the veneer, then you could build up the punched plugs in...

Well Lyndsey, I'm not going to argue with your so-firmly-entrenched views. However, I note in passing that the weather shrouds and backstay(s) are taking tensile strain, that the mast in it partners and step is taking compressive and bending strain, that the mast is not being overly forced down...

Thanks for posting that -- most entertaining. I was interested in seeing the confirmation (at about 1m 15s) of how slack the lee rigging on a gaffer can get. I've always advocated having shrouds just tight enough that the lee ones can be pulled sideays a bit by hand, but these ones are simply...

With respect to veneer, I suspect it would be too thin to plug satisfactorily. Once you've drilled out the stained screw-hole(s), what then? A plug needs to be at least 1/8" finished thickness in order to hold, in my view. This makes them dowels, not plugs. Dowels are almost always a no-no, as...

While early antihistamines produced drowsiness, modern ones have been developed that have done away with that side-effect. They still may or may not work for any particular person, of course. I don't do much sailing now, but in the days when I did I'd almost always get sick. Antihistamines...

In regards to Chico, that was pretty high-handed action on the part of the local coastguard. The ship wasn't in any trouble, and she certainly wasn't a navigation hazard as she'd been safely beached. If everyone had kept their noses out of what wasn't their business, Chico could have been...