It's time to continue our Creative Cruising Solutions series with more solutions to the everyday situations and/or problems that are specific to cruising about on a sailboat. Some of these answers address safety concerns, while others pertain to areas of vessel maintenance, personal comfort, or everyday convenience. Most of the ideas present a common sense, practical type of solution that can be done by you for very little cash.
Icebox Organization
Problem: Top loading iceboxes are highly efficient but very difficult and frustrating to use. We all cram too much stuff into this small space, and then often have to remove half the contents from the box just to locate the single item you're looking for.
Solution: Plastic-coated wire storage racks designed to be installed on the back side of a door (like behind a kitchen cabinet door) are available at almost all hardware stores and work great to organize, compartmentalize, and secure the contents of a sailboat icebox. Line the sidewalls of your icebox with these coated wire racks. A customized arrangement of these shelves on three of the four walls in your box will allow you to store alike items together and keep them separated from other icebox contents even when heeling. You'll always be able to retrieve the desired item with a minimal amount of effort and even in the dark if you know where it's stored. Unlike a solid shelf, these racks will allow the cool air to circulate efficiently and evenly through out the box.
On Serengeti, we keep all the dairy products together, all the vegetables together, the canned drinks, etc. The middle area of our icebox is reserved for tall milk and wine bottles, etc.
The racks come with their own mounting hardware. Make sure that you throw away the zinc-coated screws and replace them with stainless steel screws so that they don't rust. To install the racks, position the mounting clips and drill an appropriate sized hole for each screw. Make sure you bed all the screws in sealant to maintain the integrity of the box. If the depth of your icebox allows it, start the first row of shelves a few inches above the bottom of the box so that seldom used items can be tucked away under the shelves yet easily retrieved by moving only the center items.
Cockpit Bracing Bar
Problem: On a cruising sailboat the cockpit is your window to the world and the location where you'll find yourself 90 percent of the time. This makes a large one desirable, particularly at anchor. When underway, however, a large cockpit can become a detriment if you are unable to brace yourself comfortably as the boat heels over. In small cockpits the leeward seat can serve as a foot brace, but in larger boats the leeward seat is often too far away to serve this purpose.
Solution: Add a foot brace to the center of your cockpit. In the large cockpit on Serengeti, we added a foot brace that runs fore and aft from the steering pedestal to the forward-most part of the cockpit. With the addition of this bracing bar, we can now stay comfortably seated on the windward side of the cockpit even when sailing at great angles of heel. We have wonderful visibility sitting on the high side, and can use the cockpit coaming as a backrest. We discovered that our cockpit bar is also comfortable as a footrest at anchor and even when sitting on the leeward side while underway. We like our bracing bar so much that even though we made it to be removable, it has never been stowed since the day we installed it.
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We fabricated our foot brace using a length of three-inch diameter fiberglass tubing (as is sometimes used in marine exhaust systems or shaft logs). The ends were filled with a plug of wood epoxied in place and fitted with a stainless steel table bracket that allows us to snap it in and out of place. A decorative rope pattern was tied around the bar to provide traction and good looks. This same foot brace could be made out of any number of materials such as wood, aluminum or stainless steel. Just make sure it's strong enough to take the full weight of a heavy person.
Ultimate Boat Tool
Problem: A cruising boat is a complex entity with systems and hardware all working in an environment that's really tough on it. The result is that no matter how prepared you think you are, things are still always breaking and often far from any outside help. You must be able to repair and fabricate parts yourself.
Solution: Include a Dremel multi-speed rotary tool on your ship's tool list. In addition to an extensive inventory of spare parts and equipment, to be truly independent and self-sufficient when out cruising, you must have the ability to fabricate custom parts and work on a multitude of different areas on your boat and with many different materials. We have found our Dremel tool to be of more value to us in this area than any other individual item on board.
With the literally hundreds of different bits, disks, and end fittings available for this tool, you will soon find that you are able to cut chain, make a two-inch machine screw out of a four-inch one, grind away fiberglass, sand wood, engrave metal and other surfaces, and basically customize anything you want. The amazingly small size of a Dremel tool allows you to get into all kinds of small spaces, yet it's powerful enough to cut even stainless steel.
And when it's time to just kick back and relax, no more work jobs to do on the boat, the Dremel can even help you here. Next time you are beachcombing and see a small piece of driftwood, carry it back to the boat, pull out your Dremel and give your hand a try at carving out a decorative fish, bird, or turtle.
Vacuum Sealer
Problem: Keeping things fresh, dry, and bug-free on board your sailboat.
Solution: Add a small portable vacuum sealer to your boats standard equipment. A vacuum sealer is a small appliance that allows you to suck all the air out of a special heavy-duty plastic bag before permanently heat-sealing it closed. Items that have been vacuum-sealed remain fresh and dry until the day they're opened. Living on a boat, you're presented with an almost never-ending list of items that can benefit from being stored in this manner.
Originally we justified buying a vacuum sealer to take care of food concerns like keeping flour, sugar, pasta, and other items both fresh and free from bugs. We soon found though, that it was great for many non-food items as well. We now seal extra batteries, medicine in our medical kit, clothing not being used regularly, and even many of the contents in our abandon-ship bag. It's nice to know that moisture will not ruin or shorten the life of any of these items. Our vacuum sealer is a Tilia FoodSaver. Yes, that's the one you sometimes see on the infomercials on television. You'll also find them available at Wal-Mart. The price is around a 100 dollars.
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