The Cape Dory Board

We just replaced our manual anchor windlass with an electric one. Age is creeping up on us. Thanks to Paul Danicic for his very useful advice. Of course, like any boat project, it is more complicated than anticipated. We have 100’ of chain spliced to 200’ of three strand nylon rode. The nylon is old...

It was many years ago, but we got some Nicro-Fico traveler parts from an outfit called Rig-Rite. You might see if they are still around.

I think Semcoe would work well if your boat is used seasonally. Our boat is in the water 12 months, and we found it was difficult to keep it looking good through the winter. When new it was very nice, but it became blotchy with time. We’re now leaving it gray.

My old bookmark still takes me to the dead forum. I got to the new functioning one from a link on Facebook. Perhaps a lot of old users are unaware that it is back up because their old bookmarks don’t work.

When we bought Rover in 2002, there was no-one who provided more long distance support (both advice and boat parts) than Larry DeMers. In our experience, he was the definitive voice of Cape Dory boats. This boat will be a bargain for the lucky new owner, as I can’t imagine that it is anything but to...

Trying to back a Cape Dory into a confined slip is a fool’s errand. Go in bow first and back out. How you back out will change with the wind, the current, and the geometry of your slip. Your best assumption is that the bow will blow off downwind, and your job is to figure how to deal with that, and ...

The green color is normal weathering of bronze. Many of us prefer this color, and wouldn’t dream of trying to polish them.

A properly adjusted stuffing box should slowly drip, and this water will unavoidably end up under the engine. It is a pain to remove this water, and as mentioned, if it overflows into the main bilge it will carry with it any oil as well. It is pretty difficult to avoid getting oil down there on occa...

The only use we have found is hauling one of us up the mast. We run the main halyard through a block on the foredeck and back through a block on that track to the genoa winch. Otherwise we remove the block so we don’t trip over it.

We treat our water system with a heavy dose of bleach every spring, and then leave it alone. We reason that we are filling the clean tanks with potable water from a municipal system, so it shouldn’t need anything else. The spring treatment is 1/2 cup bleach in a 20 gallon tank, fill with water and s...

Steve you nailed it with the senior moment suggestion. I went back over the log and realized that I had forgotten that our engine hour meter was inoperative for much of our Feb 2020 cruise. I had forgotten that. So the missing fuel is more like 3 gallons, and I can believe that 3 summers of evaporat...

Jean broke her leg in 2019, and, due to COVID closures, our boat was stuck in Canada for 2020 and 2021. So this weekend was our first cruise in a long while. Just after motoring through Dodd Narrows at slack water, while passing a huge log boom with three tugs, we ran out of fuel. There was enough w...

When we bought Rover 20 years ago, it was our first boat with an engine. We had it in the boatyard, where we were living on it, replacing the engine mounts, cutless bearing and prop. We read up on removing props, and learned that we should put a prop puller on it, and if necessary heat it and hit it...

We carry one on board. Have never had to use it, and it seems to hold its charge a long time. The idea that you’ve never made a mistake or had a problem with your batteries, so you don’t need a backup is not a good approach in my opinion. We have never had a problem ourselves, but we have used our b...

We use a portable Engel on Rover, and it works extremely well for us. It lives securely in the quarterberth. The routine when cruising is to buy our meat/poultry/seafood, vacuum seal it, and put it in the Engel overnight to freeze. Then we turn up the thermostat to frig temperature, and put in milk,...