The Cape Dory Board

Raven had the original bow roller when I bought her. The thing was horrible. The rode was constantly slipping off of the roller when I was retrieving the anchor. I did some research and came up with two basic options for approximately, the same price. One was the beautiful bronze Spartan roller tha...

My CD28 had all 3/8” chain rode when I bought her but I’m getting too old to haul that without a windlass so I switched to a mixed rode setup with 1/4” chain. I typically use a “snubber” line with a rolling hitch on the nylon portion of the rode. My CD28 bowsprit looks like the attached pictures of ...

AnchorBail2.jpg My 1981 CD28 does not have an anchor bail on the bowsprit and I have had the anchor jump ship in robust conditions to the point where it is now lashed on with a nylon tie-down plus rusted buckle. If I need to anchor in a hurry I will need to use a knife! In the adjacent slip at the ...

I have never heard of such a device – a fuel whistle! I always refuel from a jerry jug via a Racor funnel. My guess is that the flow rate through the filter would be too slow to generate enough air passage for the whistle. Any thoughts on this? Great idea though – I could have used this when I ran a...

I have a CD28 and I have run out of fuel twice with the fuel gauge still reading 1/4 full. By “sounding” the tank with the butt of a screwdriver I had determined that the tank was obviously not full when refilled to the point that the gauge read “full”, thus I kept adding fuel to the port filler, in...

Hi Dennis,
After about 2 hours of vocalized obscenities (by me - not the winch) it just dropped into place. Got fed up torturing me I suppose.
Thank you,
Ed

I am servicing a 1980 vintage Lewmar 10 sheet winch on my CD28, single speed, non-tailing. I have serviced dozens of winches over the past couple of decades but this one has me puzzled. Everything was going as smooth as glass until I tried to reassemble. There are two set of pairs of pawls on this w...

Just a couple of ideas. First, it is much safer peeing into a Home Depot disposable plastic paint bucket than standing at the back rail. A 6 pack of 1qt. buckets costs $4. It is also a useful size for someone who gets sea-sick. I usually have a couple of these buckets in a cockpit side locker. They ...

Good point on the mast rake. I just had the fixed rigging replaced because although it was judged to be in very good condition, it was 38 years old. The roller furler was installed at the same time. I did eyeball the mast and it looked straight enough and not raked but I noticed that in a moderate c...

Thank you for the link to the “reducing weather helm” discussion as well as for the comments on tiller pilots. I left the Magnolia Glen on a mooring in Georgetown, Bahamas until next February and still have nearly a 1,000 miles of open ocean sailing to get her home. Will try to limit passages to for...

I purchased the Magnolia Glen, a Cape Dory 28 last September and sailed her from Stuart, Florida on 4th. November 2019, bound for Puerto Rico. On the second leg of the trip, I was sailing south towards Fort Lauderdale when the wind picked up into the 17 to 20 knots range, directly on the beam. The w...