Can't have enough tell tales. Google Arvel Gentry and read any of his papers about using telltales and "gentry tufts". I put a window in the jib and 3 pairs of telltales in the window. Sailing upwind means keeping all of those telltales streaming. I also have telltales along the luff of th...

I have just sold my :macm: . The treasurer quietly said that one boat is enough to have at any moment in time. When I was packing it up with the new owners, I decided to take off the rudders and store them in the cockpit rather than put the second bolt through. When they were off I noticed that the ...

Took my BIL out for a sail. 7 knots downwind with wave assist. He's now buying a 42 foot catamaran. Hooked!

But do you tighten it with a left handed wrench?

Heeling mostly happens when you'r sailing upwind. If the wind is coming at the boat from 40-70 degress fron the centreline, you need to flatten the mainsail by degrees and flatten the jib by putting the jibsheet fairlead to the back of the runner and pulling the sheet tight. You are progressively de...

They are all good. I wish I could find a tablet PC that allows me to run Open CPN and is rugged enough to withstand the conditions at the helm. Make sure that you check out the cost of charts. Some can be very expensive. It's great to have the information, but all I use it for is to see how fast I'm...

We were out today on my :macm: in Gulf St Vincent. wind ahead of the beam. Put in a mainsail reef at 17 knots and rolled the jib at 19 knots. Sailed beautifully with an easily controlled heel of 20 degrees and average speed of 5 1/2 knots without forcing it. We start moving the traveller away from t...

Do not put the hound at the top of the mast of a 26M! I put one there once for a small spinnaker and watched the mast bend 3-4 inches port to starboard in 5 knots of wind. I now have a new hound 15 inches above the forestay hound (rolling furler), beautiful.

Check my offer on How Many Of Us Are One boat Owners?

Happy to do a boat swap with the too

Stay at my place for a month and use the while I'm at your place using yours, or some other convenient arrangement.

I've also got a Jeanneau Espace 1100 in Europe for sailing on the Med in the Aussie winter. You can read about our adventures for this year at http://annieart.wordpress.com/ If you want a sail on the Med next year, we leave Marseilles about 25 May, turn left and then right at Monaco. We hope to end ...

I have an old garmin chartplotter. It's good but I mounted the depth sounder to the port side of the water ballast gate valve in the stern. Now if I'm on a port tack and up over 20 degrees, my depth reads zero. This can be a bit scarey when on a close reach heading towards shore. I think that depth ...

A quote from A boat design forum about the ideal cruiser, As Jacques Mertens says: “The seaworthiness may come as a surprise to beginners or to those who have never sailed a shallow draft boat but experienced seamen know that the shallow draft boat is more seaworthy than a hull with a deep keel. Unl...

I bought the 26M to learn how to sail and it was a great teacher. We were inspired and so we went out and bought this; http://sailboatdata.com/imagehelper.asp?FILE_id=7929 It's a 1988 Jeanneau Espace 1100. Old, safe and big. It's in the Med and we sail 3 months each year there. Of course this buy wa...

Smallest Transatlatic sailboat 27 feet!!! Try 15 feet (or even shorter I think)or better still Monsieur Bombard did it in an inflatable liferaft beating off sword fish and biting sharks with a paddle and living off caught fish and rainwater

One reason for a backstay is to induce mast bend; that's why your pro friends criticise the Mac. Perhaps you could point out to them that the mast on an :macm: rotates and so bend might be a bit of a problem. I bet they also criticise all those cruising boats that have in-mast furling or any other n...