I pulled my skiff out of Pamlico Sound last August and watched rust bloom across the axle within three weekends. That was the moment I stopped treating boat trailer maintenance like an afterthought and started treating it like part of owning the boat. If you're searching how to prevent rust on boat trailer parts, you've […]

After spending the last three summers detailing my own boats and helping friends haul out at our local marina, I've learned that knowing how to clean a boat hull properly is the single biggest upgrade any boat owner can make. A fouled bottom costs fuel, kills top speed, and quietly eats through gelcoat and antifouling […]

When I hauled my 28-foot sailboat out for the first spring paint job, I expected a quick weekend of rolling paint. Two days later I was covered in copper-loaded dust, holding a heat gun to a stubborn patch of old ablative paint, and wondering why no one had warned me about the masking tape budget. […]

Picking the right boat paint isn't like picking paint for a deck or a fence. Boats live in an environment that punishes coatings on every side: UV from above, saltwater or freshwater from below, abrasion from docks and trailers, and constant moisture that creeps under any film that isn't fully bonded. The wrong product fails […]

Last November, a friend of mine cracked the engine block on his pontoon boat because he forgot to drain the cooling system before the first hard freeze. That single mistake cost him more than four thousand dollars in repairs. I winterize my own pontoon every October, and the process takes me about four hours from […]

Choosing a marine toilet system is one of the most consequential comfort decisions a boat owner makes, and it sits at the intersection of regulation, plumbing, and power. After two seasons of helping cruisers swap out failed heads on everything from 22-foot sailboats to 50-foot trawlers, I have learned that the right answer depends far […]

Learning how to maintain a bilge pump is one of the most important jobs on any powered boat. I learned that the hard way when my old Rule pump got stuck "on" overnight and nearly killed my battery on a remote trip. After that scare, I built a full annual service into my pre-launch routine […]

To prevent sunburn while kayaking, you need to layer three defenses: UPF 50+ sun clothing covering your skin, broad-spectrum SPF 50+ mineral sunscreen on every exposed surface reapplied every 80 minutes, and portable shade for your cockpit or shore base. Water reflects 10 to 25 percent of UV radiation straight back at your face and […]

I learned this lesson the hard way on a five-day Grand Canyon trip in . I had packed a cotton t-shirt, sunscreen, and the optimistic belief that water and shade would keep me cool. By day two, my shoulders, the back of my neck, and the tops of my feet were an angry red, and […]

Last July I launched my sit-on-top at 11 a.m. into a Florida bay where the air was already 93 degrees and the water felt like bathwater. Two hours later I was shivering under a mangrove, peeling off my UPF shirt, and rethinking every decision that morning. I learned the hard way that knowing how to […]