The Cape Dory Board

What kind of bottom paint: ablative or hard? If ablative then it should come off with a good scrubbing using a Scotchbrite pad. If hard you may have to resort to more aggressive measures. What kind of bootstripe: paint or gelcoat? If paint, aggressive measures won't matter much because you can alway...

The only change that might affect the boat's sailing performance was the bowsprit. On early boats, the sprit rested on a sort of gusset which puts a vertical load on the end of the sprit. On later boats the sprit used a bobstay arrangement which only puts a compressive load on the sprit. The J dimen...

Surprised nobody else mentioned this but in my opinion running the mainsail halyard aft only makes sense if you install one of the external track and slide systems ($$$). They are so smooth you do not even need a downhaul. Otherwise, your sail slugs will just get jammed in the track and you'll be up...

I think the CF 500 is the best small boat furler and I have one on my Montgomery 17. It is a little under-sized for a CD 25D. In your case, the foil clearly is too short for the sail in its present configuration. One thing that might shorten the sail enough to get by is deleting the tack and head ri...

But it then also travels about 8 inches upward to a small circular housing, about 3 inches in diameter with a removable plate, which is on the back of the engine and looks like it could house an impeller? The metal pipe continues out the circular housing and into some darker region of the engine. O...

Have you looked at Petit's barrier coat product? It only requires 3 coats to reach the recommended thickness, compared to 5 or 6 for the Interlux products. I used it when I did the bottom on my M17 two years ago and so far so good.

The Mercury is a rebadged Tohatsu. The high thrust prop from the Sailpro can be used on any Tohatsu, Mercury or Nissan in the 4 - 6 hp range.

Steve is right, that is a fin whale, although around Cape Cod Bay they are usually called fin-back whales. They are huge, but all you ever see are the back and the fin. They do not jump or tail slap like the smaller but more entertaining hump-backs. The third kind of large whale found in Cape Cod Ba...

Mine's in decent shape but doesn't quite run. I wouldn't spend a nickle on a 40 year old gas inboard. That said, Vires only have 3 moving parts. If the engine turns over smoothly, the problem pretty much has to be the carburetor. A can of carb cleaner, a rebuild kit, a clean sparkplug, some fresh p...

Hard to say without a photo. Color could be a clue. Typically, silver=Yanmar, yellow=Faryman, red=Bukh, blue=Sabb, green=Volvo. If you want to keep that African Queen sound, I think the only 1 cylinder brands currently supported in the US are Yanmar and Faryman. Is the outboard lazarette mount still...

You should not add water to a battery in subfreezing conditions unless you then proceed to charge it. With no charge, the water sits on top of the electrolyte and freezes, which can damage the battery. I do not know if that is why your battery won't take a full charge, but it is something to consider.

Converting mph to knots, you're getting over 4.5 knots out of a Ty in about 7.5 knots of wind. I think that's pretty good and an indication you're not doing anything fundamentally wrong. Tightening the forestay will flatten the sail, which gives a finer entry, which is better for pointing, but it wi...

I do not know the boat or the seller but at $4,800 it might be worth a look.

http://capecod.craigslist.org/boa/4971619901.html

I don't know that it explains everything but some of it could be due to reversed polarity at the yard's AC outlet.

The thing that jumps out for me is that, apparently, they only had racing sails. Can you even imagine heading out into the North Atlantic in February without a storm jib and a trysail? Just astonishing.