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Articles for Boat Owners

Inhaulers An inhauler, sometimes called a Barberhauler, is used to pull the jib sheets inboard from their normal position. You can do that to decrease the sheeting angle or to keep the sheeting angle the same as you let the sheets out to add fullness.	Calibrating your Knot Meter In many area calibrating a Knot Meter is a simple matter of setting it to read what the GPS reads. But if your boat is in areas where there are tides, local current can make this method inaccurate.	Printing your own NOAA Charts Using free software and you can download edit and print free NOAA charts just like the paper ones are are all familiar with. I wish I had know about this before I did it by scanning a paper chart!
Repowering your Sailboat If your present engine is always hard to start, has constantly smoky exhaust, burns or leaks a lot of oil, is low on power, has coolant or water in the oil, or parts are difficult or expensive to acquire, repowering solves ALL these problems.	Amsteel to StaSet Splice Splice of 1/8 inch Amsteel-Blue to 1/4 inch Sta-Set is shown. This is ideal for the halyard of a small boat and is also a scale model for a 3/16 Amsteel to 3/8 Sta-Set splice, which would be good for a 36 foot boat. I have tested this splice to the breaking strength of the StaSet and the splice holds fine.	Jib Twing A Jibsheet Twing is sometimes called a Jib Sheet Downhaul. It is used instead of moving the jib car when you sail off the wind. At least that is what I do and it is so much easier than trying to move the car even if you have lines to move the car. This article also discusses sail trim for off the wind and how a twing can help get good trim.
Bonding your boat The topic of bonding on boats has more myth and misinformation than most any other topic. This article tries to present the reasons to and not to bond so you can decide what to do.	Lightning on a Sailboat As part of a project on bonding on boats, I have put together this reference to various articles on lightning.	Humidity Below Deck Follow this blog of my struggles with mold and humidity or jump to the end where the data is in. The conclusion is keep all the compartments open an inch, use a StorDry to provide low level heat that promotes air circulation and get lots of air moving through. A couple of nice humidity calculators are included.
Low cost High Tech Halyard For about $75 I have a 100 ft long light weight easy on the hands halyard to replace the wire main halyard. The trick is the choice of cover material and the splice while keeping the strength thought the entire length.	Mainsheet Systems Papoose has a Double Ended 5:1 Mainsheet System. I explain it as well as show most other popular mainsheet systems in this mainsheet systems page.	Rig Tuning I have not tried this but it looks like it would be a very accurate way to measure rig tension.

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