As racing sailors, we’re striving to “become one with the wind,” instinctively making use of every little change. If you didn’t grow up sailing, you probably need visual cues to help sharpen those instincts. This article responds to a reader…
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Broadblue catamarans, Pixii aluminium jet drive hulls, RS Electric boats, Plymouth ferry e-Voyager and more will grace the inaugural Green Tech Boat Show this weekend
The Pixii SP800 will be making its public debut at the MDL Green Tech Boat ShowIt’s a truly electric line up of boats at MDL’s Green Tech Boat Show, which opens its doors for the first time this weekend (19-20 June), at Queen Anne’s Battery marina, Plymouth.
Catamaran builder Broadblue launched its first electric drive model, the Broadblue 345, in 2009. On display at...
When you are on the sea, in any kind of boat, it’s worth knowing a little about the tides for two reasons, writes champion kayaker Andrew Morton
Andrew Morton is a world champion kayaker who explores Scotland with his Finnmaster 76CA motorboat – here he is racing on the River DeeMarine surveyor Ben-Sutcliffe Davies finds corrosion in the Volvo saildrive engine onboard PBO Project Boat Maximus
The Volvo Penta 2020d engine onboard Maximus, a Maxi 84Checking the diesel engine after a long lay-up is an essential task before launching any boat, says marine surveyor Ben Sutcliffe-Davies.
“The last thing you want to be doing is putting the boat straight in the water,” warns Ben. “You need to be really religious with fuel management. Empty the fuel tank, flush it, change the fuel lines, fuel...
At their simplest, tides come in and out twice a day, regressing about 50 minutes each day. In other words, if high tide is at noon one day, the next day it will be high tide around 1250.
Tidal race off Rathlin islandIf you’re good at maths, you’ll see that in 14 days’ time, you will be more or less back to where you started from. So, if it’s high tide at noon on a Monday, two weeks later it will be high tide close to noon again on a Monday.
When...
Jeremy paused, “Six pulls, right?” I glanced back at the small print on the paint can, “Right. And then three of the reactor. That’ll give us just about the perfect amount.” He nodded, dropped the syringe into the can of base, and pulled the plunger. It was finally time to paint the bowsprit and boomkin […]
The post Injecting Precision – Using Syringes on a Sailboat appeared first on Good Old Boat.
When Tim Severin died at 80 in December 2020, I thought, “I know that name. He wrote stories about the sea.” The particular book that came to mind was this one, The Brendan Voyage, which recounts an Atlantic crossing he made to prove that Saint Brendan, born in Ireland’s County Kerry in the late 5th […]
The post Book Review: The Brendan Voyage appeared first on Good Old Boat.
This classic nautical book is aimed squarely at Good Old Boat readers, despite being written decades before Good Old Boat magazine came to be. The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float is not so much a tale of man and boat against the sea, but rather a tale of man against his own boat. Throughout the book […]
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For over 100 years most rechargeable batteries used lead and sulphuric acid, first invented in 1859 by Gaston Plante. Then in 1970 along came lithium batteries which are 50% lighter, with no memory effect, up to ten times the cycle life, and able to give nearly all their rated capacity at even the highest discharge rates.
But lithium batteries do have downsides, writes Emrhys Barrell . The first is cost, at up to four times the price of an equivalent output lead acid battery, and the second is safety. Lithium is a highly reactive metal...
Emrhys Barrell tests a dozen 12V lithium batteries (60-120Ah) with integral charge monitoring and the results are surprising
Boat owners have long relied upon the lead-acid battery to start their engines, run electric lights and, these days, to power inverters to run household items such as kettles, microwaves and more. Yet lithium batteries offer much better performance and lifespan, but at a much higher up-front price. So is it...