Welcome aboard, I am Capt. Wayne Canning, Master Boat Builder and Marine Surveyor. I started this site to fill in where others left off. After 35 years building and repairing boats, and helping many others with project boats I started to realize there was something missing from all of the repair books, articles and web sites. Not that most of this information was not good, far from it much of it is very good. It just seemed there was always something missing. Most repair projects require many skills and methods, not all are always as cut and dry as presented in print and onliine.
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New ArticleMaintaining your Propane system.
As Published in Cruising World, July 2011
By Capt. Wayne Canning, AMS
Most modern cruisers are equipped with propane as their primary cooking fuel. Northern sailors often use it for heating as well. It is perhaps one of the best cooking and heating fuels as it is readily available and clean burning. Despite its convenience propane does carry some
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Better Boating with Less (Winter Issue Carolina Currents)
By Capt. Wayne Canning
As we start the New Year many of us are making resolutions to lose weight. This is a good goal to set and while we’re at it, it might not be a bad idea to help our boats lose some extra weight as well. We all feel and perform better when we are not carrying around extra pounds; this applies to your boat as well.
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Shore Cord Maintenance
By Capt. Wayne Canning, AMS
Today’s boats are more comfortable and filled with shore side amenities than ever before. We like our Air conditioning TVs and microwave ovens. Nothing wrong with that. But as we place more electrical demands on our boats we also place a greater demand on our shore cords. Most of us just plug in and forget about it till something goes wrong. Tak
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Understanding and Using Marine Sealants
By Capt. Wayne Canning
Back when I started building and repairing boats things were fairly simple when it came to sealants. A couple of cans of Dolphinite seam and bedding compound, some cotton, a funny looking hammer and you were good to go. Then along came Silicone and Polysulfide. This was the beginning of new ways to keep water out of our boats. T
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Dockside Safety,
By Capt. Wayne Canning
Most of the time when we get back to the dock we feel pretty safe, we are safely tied up and shore is within just a few feet so how could there be any danger? The sad truth is the danger is more present than most of us would think. I personally know of several cases of people who have fallen in at the dock and never made it back out. Ask around any marina
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This is my first Video. In it I am replacing wire nuts with a terminal strip on the refrigeration compressor in a... ...
This is a series of videos By Capt. Wayne Canning, master boat builder and marine surveyor. Each Video is a basic how too for commen and some not so commen repair tasks. Comments are welcome and If you have an idea for a video let me know and I will try to do one for you.
Thanks
Capt. Wayne
Power Winch Safety
By Capt. Wayne Canning
Last spring on a peaceful sunny afternoon in Jolly Harbour Antigua the lives of 2 people were forever changed in an instant. As a middle aged couple from Venezuela were preparing their Amel 54 for more sailing adventures tragedy cut short their plans. Safely secured in the marina they had no clue just how close the danger was, and how the next few minutes would forever change their lives.
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Every now and then we all need to take a break from the boat work. To help with that I will add some interesting and fun links to take your mind off the hard work.
To start out a friend sent me a link to these great little music videos. This is what the cruising life is all about. Grab a beer and enjoy the show!
Dinghy Concert #1
Dinghy Concert #2
Dinghy Concert #3
Dinghy Concert #4
Dinghy Concert #5
Entropy
By Capt. Wayne Canning
I think if I ever get another boat I think I am going to name her Entropy. (Is it still politically correct to call a boat “her or “she”?)
From Wikipiedia “Entropy is a macroscopic property of a system that is a measure of the microscopic disorder within the system” “Entropy is as such a function of a system's tendency towards spontaneous change”.………………Say What? What the bleep does this have to do with my boat?
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Lost loves and other shiny things
By Capt. Wayne Canning
The other day I was working on the boat as usual, after all that is how I spend most of my time onboard. For every 100 hours of repairs I get to go sailing for an hour or two. That is how it’s supposed to work isn’t it? The definition of a work boat; “a boat used for work purposes (as commercial fishing and ferrying supplies) rather than for sport” Can’t say I agree with this, my experience has been that a work boat is any boat that I own because I am always working on them. And lord knows I never make any money from them!
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