Higher fuel prices and sailboats

Higher fuel prices and sailboats.

I saw a news spot on our local TV station talking to people at the local Ft Myers marinas. The news woman was asking will the increase in fuel prices affect your boating. Most of the people said it was fast approaching the point where they could not afford to use their boat, or they would have to cut spending on other things so they could still boat. One very well dressed older man said he had just put $300 of fuel on his boat and had a $6.00 sandwich and his complaint was about the sandwich.

I commented to my wife that it was too bad they had not talked to a sailboat owner. If they had interviewed me I think I would have said: The sun is high, the wind is free and I am headed for the bright blue sea on our sailboat and that’s with my wife, my dog and me.

The motor boat at the next dock over from ours has not moved from the dock in about 3 months. He and his brother tried to get it started last weekend but had no luck. He commented that if he had to pay someone come look at it, he would have no money to take it out once it was running. He said his brother had a friend that could check it out…

I have a sailboat I am selling for a friend for any of you motor boaters out there if you are ready to upgrade your watercraft.  8-) Keep in mind the wind is free!

 Motor boating on a budget. *-) Argg you land lubbers!

Toolbox Left Stain on the Wood Floor

We have a big old metal toolbox with tools we use to work on the boat motor in it. If the old box sits on the wood boat floor, it leaves a stain. To prevent this I made a wood tray that the tool box would set in. The tray has worked well and I use the tray to keep track of the tools I am using when I am working on something. It gives me a place to put tools, nuts and bolts, parts and such. I just have to remember to put the stuff in the tray. *-)

 The tray can keep track of tools and parts when you work on something.

This is an easy DIY project that can be made from scrap wood, and helps keep the tool box from staining things when just sitting and helps keep track of you tools when you use them.

The tool box just sits in tray. The tray keeps the old toolbox off the floor so it will not stain the floor. They are both together when you start to work on something. The little tray in the toolbox always has junk in it, but the tray the box sets in at least starts empty.

DIY Boat Plumbing With PEX

Most of the plumbing on our boat is PVC, some semi-rigid polybutylene tubing, some clear PVC, and some I am not sure what is. More or less it was what was available when we had to fix something.

When I re-did the galley and put new sinks in I decided to trash the old plumbing.

What is now available is semi-rigid tubing made from cross-linked polyethylene and it is known as PE or PEX. PEX tubing is being used in commercial and residential applications also, and it is great stuff.  It is available in 15mm or 5/8” OD, and it is color-coded in red for hot water and blue for cold. The tubing bends well and dose not kink or crush like PVC. You just cut it to length and press on quick-connect fittings. It looks great, very professional and there is no question on which line is hot and which is cold. There are fitting adapters to let you connect to hose barbs and many fixtures. The PEX tubing is rated for about 60psi. Most boat water systems are only about 40psi.  

A PEX plumbing system is great for DIY projects.  It is real easy to work with and the cost is about the same as PVC, maybe a little cheaper. It makes boat plumbing much easier, looks good, and it is almost fun to work with. I told my wife it was so easy a woman could do it. (That was a big mistake on my part.)

Gybe Preventer Rig

An accidental gybe can take your head off if you are not alert. You can rig a gybe preventer easily that will work right along with a boomvang to help tame those gibes.

By attaching a line to the mid-boom  and running the line to a turning block that is located forward of the mast  (and forward and out board of the shrouds if possible), then back to the cockpit where it can be cleated, you can have a line that prevents boom swing. A pair of gybe preventers, one for each side, is easily set up for the DIY ‘ ers.

Locating a position for the turning blocks so that lines do not tangle is the hardest part of the rig.
Gybe can be spelled "jibe" also.  My wife thought I had misspelled it...but it can be spelled both ways.

Leecloths and sea bunks

In rough weather, trying to stay in your bunks can be harder than one might think.  Leecloths are a cloth that is anchored under the mattress or on the outboard edge of a bunk, which can be raised so you will not roll off the bunk. The can be easily made.

 The leecloth will keep you on the bunk when the boat rolls.

There are many variations on how and what they are made of.  They can be a water proof cloth, a dark cloth that gives privacy, a mesh or open weave fabric that is breathable or a combination of all. The leecloth just has to be strong and easy to secure and keep you on the bunk.

 You can put the lee cloths up and put things on the bunk so the do not roll all over the boat.

They are usually anchored under the mattress or on the outboard edge of the bunk, but there are other creative ways of anchoring them.  They can also be used to secure things on the bunk so they do not bounce all over the boat.

The leecloth attached to the outboard edge stores under the mattress.

Leecloths are an easy way to make rough weather or rough sailing a little more comfortable.

A Tackle System Boomvang for small boats

A boomvang is a tool that helps you adjust the shape of your mainsail if you cannot control the shape of the sail with just the main-sheet tension. The wind pressure when sailing on your sail when sailing off the breeze causes your boom to rise up and this rise degrades the shape of the sail making it less efficient. A boom-vang is a mechanical means of holding the boom down to help maintain sail shape.

Sailboats that have mid-boom sheeting may need a boom-vang to help keep the boom from rising. Smaller boats can use the main-sheet tension to hold the boom down or a simple tackle can work well on the smaller boats. These soft vangs can prevent the boom from rising when the main-sheet is eased.

There are different types of vangs for the sailor. There is the tackle system that uses a line and blocks, rigid vangs, flexing vangs, and hydraulic vangs. Basically the size of the boat determines the vang used.

A simple tackle system that is used for the smaller boat usually has a 4:1 or a 6:1 ratio.  The boomvang goes from the base of the mast and to the boom to form one side of a triangle made by the mast, the boom, and the vang. You can tighten the boomvang to get downward pleasure on the boom.

The Vang is basically two blocks and a jam or cam cleat to keep the line in a set position This takes much of the upward pull pleasure off the main-sheet and it makes for easier sailing. 

A boomvang can make sailing off the breeze easier. It can also serve as a "preventer" to keep the boom from accidentally jibing.  Of course, enough force can also cause any of the components of the vang to fail (i.e. shackles, the line, block, etc.) so your usual care and caution needs to be used when sailing dead downwind and keep the watch for an accidental jib.

6 help Ideas for boaters

My Granddad was a Farmer in rural Indiana and there was no short trip into town to get something that you needed. He could think outside the box to get things done and as a little city kid I thought he was a great inventor. Boaters can use many of these tips in boat care.

He would use a few drops of olive oil to clean the worst of the motor grime and gunk off his hands before he would wash his hands with soap and water. It worked like waterless hand cleaner.

He would use old socks with a little oil on them to put many of his tools in, or socks on his hands for a quick polishing cloth or even as a quick cheap glove. He would have Mom bring him our old socks from us kids that were ready to be thrown out.

He was not a boater, but he did use ropes, and he would prevent rope ends from unraveling by putting tape around the end of the rope and then dipping the end in shellac, paint or varnish and let it harden up. He liked shellac the best but I do not know why. He did whip the ends of big ropes because he said shellac won’t hold up on them.

When he stored canvas and things that would mildew he would sprinkle talcum powder on them. The talc would absorb most of the mildew and make the cleanup easier. He would also kill the mildew with vinegar. He said bleach would kill it but bleach would eat holes in stuff.

After they got an indoor toilet, he would save old flat cola and dump it in the toilet bowl. He said it was great toilet bowl cleaner. Even after they got an indoor toilet, Granddad like outhouse better and had one near the barn. He did not have to walk as far to go. He said it was a good way to use up the old newspapers and then he would say the worst thing Sears ever did was go to slicky pages. It was kyears before I figured out what that meant. 8-)

A few things I have found that work to lubricate the big zippers and snaps on boat covers and bimini covers and such are lip balm, petroleum jelly, spray on silicon lubricant, and candle wax. Some are more of a mess than others but they do work.

I know I got some of my pack rat tendencies from my Mom and Granddad. I look at things and think, “I can use this for something”. I often know I have saved something…I just do not know where I stored it. Age is not helping me keep track of these things, though. But the neat thing is I find all sorts of things looking for what I wanted.  8-)

Idiots in the Fog

We get heavy fog in our area only 10 or 12 times a year and when it sweeps in it just sits on the river. It seldom lasts past 9:00 AM and the last area that burns off is above the water. 

Our little waterfront becomes ghostly when the fog settles in. The other morning we had one of those mornings. Wendy headed off to work early because of a patchy fog warning on the news, and I told her to be extra careful on her drive in to work. I took my coffee, my coffee cake, some dog biscuits and the dog down to the dock to enjoy the fog. The fog was in a layer about 4 to 6 feet thick on the surface of the water in the canal, and I could not see the far end of the canal to the river. All I could see well of the boats were the masts sticking out of the fog. I went down to our big boat and flipped on the running lights and went back on the dock to see what they looked like. I could just make out faint glows in the fog from only a few feet way. This was not very impressive. I got down in our dinghy and when I sat down I was not able to see the front of the dinghy and I could just see the side of the boat, but I knew where to look. When I stood up, my head was just above the densest part of the fog. I would have loved to take a photo of just my head sticking out of the fog.

The dog was not bothered by the fog, his nose was to the ground and enjoying the extra smells the fog carried. When he got on the boat he looked like he was walking on the fog. I enjoyed my coffee sitting dock side watching the fog burn off and the dog enjoying the smells.

I would not want to be out on the river in this fog. I remembered trying to get back to our dock when my brother and I had been fishing on an Indiana lake. We thought it would be great fun to fish in the fog and we took the row boat out. It took only a few minutes of fishing in the fog to find it was no fun. Then we were not sure where the dock was. We knew it was not too far away, but we had no idea which direction it was. We turned the boat around and started rowing in the direction we thought we had come. We ended up on the beach area about 40 feet to the side of where the dock was.­­­­ 

My older brother said he had aimed for the beach so we would not slam in to the dock. I just was glad we had found the beach.

Dealing with fog when on a boat is mostly common sense. First slow to a safe speed. The speed you go should be no greater than it would take time to stop. Post a lookout at the bow of the boat and have them look and listen. If you think you are near another vessel sound a signal. A danger signal is 5 short blasts. You need to watch your depth finder. Expect other boaters to be idiots in the fog. If possible, anchor and wait till the fog lifts. If using a GPS tracker or plotter, go very slow and have your VHF radio on. Periodically shut your engine down and listen

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All boats are required to carry a sound signaling devise. You can check inland and international rules to find out what meets these requirements or check in Chapman’s. For example, a power driven vessel, underway in fog, would sound one prolonged blast every 2 minutes. We carry both a bell and horn you can blow. We have an air horn but I find the air can is almost always empty and I do not count on it. When it works it would wake the dead.

  

Running aground, hitting another boat, or ramming a dock is not all that uncommon when fog comes in to visit. Just use your head and try to watch out for the idiots.  

Like a Flea on a Big Hairy Dog…Not Easily Seen!

In a small low dinghy on open water, you can be like a flea on a big hairy dog. It is there, but it is not easily seen. A mirror and big signal flag are wonderful to have at those times, just in case you need them.

My wife is obsessive about taking what she calls the dinghybox with us when we go out in the small sailboats or the dinghy. That is a good thing. It is one of those bright orange plastic boxes that have a waterproof seal around the top. She has filled it with important things that you should have with you if you have a problem.

Even filled, the box will float, and the bright color makes it easy to see. She has  some neat goodies in it and when I look in the box I almost always find something new. She goes through the box about once every two months to check the stuff (or when we plan to go gunk-holing) and keeps it up to date.  I just grab the box.

The box contains a few basic tools. A multi-tool pliers, heavy pliers with a wire cutter, screw drivers and an ice pick like tool. There is a plastic bag  with a hand line fishing setup, a mini first aid kit in a bag,  a bag with sunscreen and accent meat tenderizer (for Jelly fish and coral stings), a mixed bag of if screws,  bolts, electric connectors, a peace of sand paper and the like, and a signal mirror. There is also a cheap plastic distress flag, a bar of soap, and a bottle of fresh water and these round out what is always in the box. The hand held VHF and cell phone go in the box and a zip lock bag with the boat registration for the boat we are taking and personal ID, is put in just before we go out.

The neat goodies change with what we plan to do. They range from dog biscuits, soda biscuits, granola bars, Vienna Sausages, raisins, celery sticks and snacks, a little mad money. The wife can be creative.

When my wife read this she said that she has an ammo box she uses at work that has basically the same stuff in it but without the fishing stuff. She is a Florida Forest Ranger and gets out in areas on a ATV that are way off the beaten path. She said she might add a fishing kit to her box.

In a small low dinghy you can be like a flea a on a big hairy dog. It is there, but it is not easily seen. The mirror and the big signal flag shine with importance here. These and the other things in the box can make your outing much safer.

I Forgot to Send the Letter.

We were eating breakfast and my wife looked over at a shelf that still had Christmas cards on it and said I think it is way past time to take them down. I told her I was going to do it about two weeks ago, but I did not know what to do with them and I did not want to just stack them on HER DESK. 8-)

 She said she needed to go through them and make a list of who sent cards to us last year. Then she said she had not sent cards out to a few people she should have.

I smiled and said NO PROBLEM…just send one now. Make out the card, stuff it in an envelope and then put it on the floor and walk over it to leave boot prints on the paper. When the people get the card they will figure that the letter had gotten lost in the mail for a few months. 8-)  I got the “LOOK”.

Then I said if you want to really confuse them, hand write the envelope and put your name and address where it is to be sent, and their name and address in the return address spot and drop it in the mailbox without a stamp. The post office will return it to them, they will be confused and open it, and find your card. They will just think that in the Christmas confusion you addressed it backward.  *-) *-) *-)

Last, I added that when the postal police came for you, I would disavow any knowledge of the whole thing, so she could have the Government provided vacation all to herself.  8-(  8-( 

I got two “looks“ and a “Glare” for that one.

Hay, I was just trying to help!

Boat Head Holding Tank

When our boat was built EPA was not invented yet and the head went right into the water. As times changed we either had to stop using the head or put in a holding tank. I put off installing a holding tank as long as I could because I had no idea where I could put the tank in the boat. There was just no place a tank of any size could go.

             The tank and most of the plumbing went in the cabinet under the sink.No room to work. 

Putting in a valve to redirect the head’s water to the tank was not a hard plumbing job. There just was no room to work and my small, limber, nimble wife helped with that. The only place we could put a tank was in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom. The largest tank the space would allow was only about 12 gallons. The tank was almost the size of the door it needed to go through. That is almost not worth putting in. It was a legal (“small”) holding tank if anyone asks or needed to see. It just had to be pumped out almost every day. We always used the shore bathrooms when possible. At the one marina we were at, there was a pump out unit right by the boat, so it was not too bad when we were there. 

 

The plumbing to the tank from the head was not much of a problem, but the plumbing from the tank to pump out hole and those connections was a nightmare. The job was nasty with the big clunky hose that needed to be used, with no room to work, with little ventilation in the bathroom, and it was hot, and sort of smelly. I sure was glad my wife was small, limber, nimble and a good plumber. I did as much to help with the job as I could, but she really was the one that did the hard part of the plumbing job.

After it was all done we felt it was quite an accomplishment, but she said that if the system was to be worked on down the road it would be well worth paying someone to do it. I love my small, limber, nimble, good plumber wife and I agree with her about paying some else to work on that tank setup if it needs it.

Polishing the Metals on boats

Cleaning up the metal parts on your boat is a pain in the backside but is a part of boat care that needs to be done regularly. Keeping them clean from the start is the best thing to do, and the least amount of work over all, but when you have to clean them, here are a few recipes you can try.

First start by washing everything down with good old soap and water; this gets rid of any salt residue, dirt and grime and old cleaners on the metal.

Stainless steel is the most common metal found on the boat. There are different grades of stainless steel, and all stainless steel gets pitting. This appears as black or discolored spots on the metal surface. Keeping the steel clean with soap and water is the best preventative for pitting.

DO NOT USE STEEL WOOL TO REMOVE THE PITTING OR RUST SPOTS. Steel wool on any metal on the boat will cause more rust stains and work then it will clean. It creates stains.

Vinegar is effective in cleaning stainless steel. Follow this with baking soda and water. Mineral oil or wax can be used as a protective coating. Star Britte has a good chrome and stainless polish. An old cotton sock over your hand makes a great polishing rag.

Chrome parts can be cleaned with cider vinegar. The vinegar cleans the dull oxidation haze off and then use baby oil to polish and protect the chrome.

Bronze fittings and cleats and hardware if left untreated will turn green.  Equal amounts of table salt, flour, and vinegar to form a paste make a good bronze cleaner. Apply it to the bronze, let it set, and then rub it off. You may need to do it two or three times.  Once the bronze is clean and bright use a product like Flitz to seal the metal. Worcestershire Sauce will do a nice job cleaning bronze Cleaning bronze is big work. Green bronze can add character to the boat. After polishing the 22 bronze cleats on my schooner one year, I decided the green started to give the schooner more character. *-)

Aluminum can be cleaned with a mix of two tablespoons of creme of tartar in a quart of hot water and then applied to the aluminum.  3M has a good restorer and polish. Many cleaning and polishing products will DAMAGE ALUMINUM. Check the labels of anything you use on aluminum.

Zamac is OK for fresh water but not salt water, and  deteriorates quickly. It looks great when it is new but does not stand up well. Most metal cleaners work fine on zamac and they have to be used on the product often.

A good washing down of the metal parts with a biodegradable soap (we want to be clean and green) will do more for keeping the metal parts looking good than anything else. A few little kids with socks on their hands and the proper polish for the metal also can help. Tell them it is fun. 8-)

Two free Boat bumpers

Two free Boat bumpers

I went down to our boat dock this morning and was wishing that there was just a little more breeze to make it a nice sailing day when I saw a boat bumper floating in the canal across from our boat. I like finding free stuff like that. From the size of it, the bumper was not a cheap one, and in fact we had two just like it. I got the kayak off the dock and paddled over to it a pulled claimed my prize. When I got back to the dock I found it was not just like the ones we had, it was one of the ones we had. The line that had held it on the boat had just rubbed through and the bumper had just taken a swim.

I checked the lines on all our bumpers and replaced the lines on two of them. I still think I was lucky to have found a free bumper even if it was my own. I was still dollars ahead not having to buy a replacement for it.

The other free bumper was one we had found when we were sailing in Key West. We found this big bumper drifting in open water. It was very big, about 2 ½ ‘in diameter and 4’ long.  We hooked a line to it and towed it back to the Marina we were at. It took 3 of us to get it on to the dock. The bumper was damaged on one side and one of the big rings that a line would have been tied to was broken.  With the good side up, it made a nice dock fixture. This big brown bumper got nicknamed “The Turd” by the others on the dock. The name fit, and it was functional and we put it to use when a storm came up. The rest of the time it was dock art. It was too large for us to take with us when we left Key West so we do not know what became of “The Turd”. The best that could be said about it was it was free.

Wife's Valintines Boat

Old Boats

My favored boat is a sail boat because there is something about needing nothing more than the wind to make it go, just seems to make it better. They fit well in to the GREEN movement of today. I can go out on my boat and spend all day on the water, have fun and spend nothing for fuel. It is quiet, relaxing, requires a little skill to get where you are going and back home so it is a little mentally challenging, is fun and very stylish.  A disadvantage to sailing is it is slow and you cannot keep a tight schedule.

There are other types of boats I would like to have. The first motor boat I saw and fell in love with was a Chris Craft Wood Runabout. My family had a Alumina Craft 17’ foot with a 25 horse Evinrude outboard. I thought it was a slug, a clunker, a hulk, and any other bad adjective I could describe it. Looking back on it now, 45 + years… 8-)… later it was actually a very nice family boat.  A “Old man” in his late”50’s” had this Wood runabout. It purred like a cat, roared like a lion when it took off and was beautiful on the water.   

  

 I wanted my Dad to get one, but his logical reason for declining to consider a “boat like that”, was the out of the water upkeep each year was like buying a new boat each year. A few years late when I had a little money set aside for a boat I checked in to the cost of a “boat like that” and the cost of yearly upkeep and I found my Dad was a lot smarter than I thought. I bought an aluminum boat. 8-)

We know a boat crazy couple, like us, that live up river from us. They have even more boats at their dock than we have at ours. He spent years restoring a classic wood boat. It is a prize winner. It is stored on land and protected. I think it is worth as much as a house these days. This is one boat my wife and I would look good in.

What my wife and I would like to have in a motor boat would be an 1800 style motor launch to chug around in. Something in the long, skinny, wood cabin on the front, with an elegant classy design, type of boat.

I would want it electric drive and with solar panels built in and hidden on the cabin roof. It would need a wood ships wheel at the stern, seating for 6 to 8 and lots of brass and big instruments. Where we would dock it I have no idea. I would want is to go at least 20 mph on the water. If it cannot do that I could take a sailboat.

This is basically the style I would like to build. We would look classy in it. It would be my Wife's Valentine boat!

My wife likes the same type boat and some day we will find a design we both like and I will build it for her. This “Old Couple” would look good in it I am sure.

Schooners are Unique Sailing Vessels

Schooner are unique and have an interesting vocabulary that goes with them. There are a lot of sea terms that go with sailboats but some are specific to schooners.  A schooner is a vessel of two or more masts and the sailing setup is called a Fore-and-aft rig. The plane of the sails is basically on the center line and it is usually a Gaff rigged design. The origin of the design is not certain, but some say the origin of the rig was British. The American schooner rig is different from the British rig in that it usually has no top sails.

The American schooner rig without topsails and no topmasts is called a Bald-headed rig. A Knockabout fishing schooner and pleasure boat rig is a schooner that has no bowsprit or only a very short one. The Grand Banks Schooners were of this type, and the typical Knockabout was characterized as being a husky boat.  A Tern Schooner is a three-masted schooner that was built in New England or Nova Scotia.

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This illustration of a Philip Bolger design light schooner shows the basic schooner design: The big gaff  mainsail extends over the stern; a gaff foresail in the middle of the boat; and a jib head-sail that extends over the bowsprit.

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The Schooner is a good, fast down-wind sailing boat. The advantage of a Gaff rig over a Marconi try-sail rig is the Gaff rig lets you put more sail up on a shorter mast. The Gaff rig is also more maneuverable than a square rigger. A disadvantage is that it doubles the handling lines for the sails.

A schooner does not sail in to the wind as well as a Marconi rigged sloop. Because the two masts each have their own center of effort on the boat, the boat does not want to turn through the eye of the wind as a sloop will.  When we first started sailing our schooner, we found that when we tried to tack she would get to the eye of the wind and stop, the bow would not cross the eye of the wind. Then, the boat would start moving backwards.  We had to swing the tiller the opposite way so the stern would come around and then the jib and foresail would catch the wind and we would again start to sail forward. All headway and forward motion would be lost. Until we found a method of tacking that worked, we had some exciting turns and looked like fools on the water.

We found that if we let the foresail luff as we started the tack, and back winded the jib when we got to the eye of the wind, the jib would pull the bow through the eye of the wind. At the same time, if the main is pulled in and the tiller is turned hard this causes the stern to come around. If done right, she will come around smartly. We are still perfecting the technique. 8-) Our schooner can be a real cranky.

A schooner is an easy boat to get a lot of sail area on. The foresail and the main sail are gaff rigged sails. A Gaff rig sail is a sail that has 4 sides and has a boom on the bottom and a gaff or upper spar on the top side of the sail to keep it out. The front or leading edge of the sail is along the mast. This lets you have more sail area on a short mast. The main sail or rear sail on a schooner often has a sail that extends past the stern of the boat on a very long boom. This also gives more sail aria for the boat.

Most schooners have a bowsprit on the front of the boat that extends the front of the boat out. This bowsprit lets a larger head-sail (a sail carried forward) like a jib to be put on the boat to get more sail on the boat. A jib boom can be added to the bottom of the jib sail and the boom can be tethered on the front end of the bowsprit thus letting you have an even larger jib sail. 

A staysail (a sail, usually triangular and set on a centerline stay) can be added to the rear mast or if there are three masts, the back two masts can each have a staysail. These are like having jib sails between the masts. A Golliwobbler is sail that is an extra-large staysail used by the Dutch to take advantage of very light winds and name comes from the Dutch word for “grotesque”. 

Top sails can also be added to the top of the foresail and main sail, and these are 3 sided sails with a spar on two sides to hold them open. They can extend a sail higher than the mast of the vessel and they fill the space above the main sails and the mast and add even more sail aria to the boat. 

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This illustration from John Leather's The Gaff Rig shows how a top-sail can be added to the space above the gaff-sail. Some schooners put a top mast on the regular mast to let more sail be lofted. Each time you add a sail you add one or more lines to deal with.

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Because a schooner is a light breeze boat it is said that they can sail in an Irish Hurricane or Paddy’s Gale (flat calm). When the wind picked up a gaff rigged sail can be Irish Reefed (the peak or outside corner of the gaff rigged sail can be lowered to dump air from the sails quickly.  Lazy jacks (lines on each side of a sail that keeps the sail somewhat bundled when the sail is scandalized or dropped quickly) are often used on the foresail and mainsail to help control all the sail when they are lowered. A topping lift line is often needed to help hold the boom up off the deck and make it easier to hoist the sail. A Mich board (a boom crutch) is also used to keep the boom in place when the sail is down. The lazy jacks, topping lift and Mich board helps keep the boom and sails under control. 

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 Lazzyjacks are lines that are one each side of the sail that hold the sail more or less on the boom when the sail is dropped. Illustration from J. Leather's The Gaff Rig. 

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Schooners have lines all over and they need be kept track of. You need numerous cleats, belaying pins, jam cleats and whatever to tie lines off and coil and hang lines up to keep them out of the way. The more sails you have the more lines you have and the more cleats you need. Chandlery’s love schooner owners just for the line and cleat sales the get from us. *-)

Our schooner is a schooner rigged day-sailor we built. We wanted a schooner that we could sail on the river where we live and we needed a small boat.  This little 18 footer flies in a 3 to 5 knot wind and it is a real head turner. Few sail on the river and a schooner under sail on the river gets every ones attention when they see her. The boat has has 22 cleats and 4 jam-cleats and we could use more.

  Just add water...A 18' schooner rigged day sailor that we sail on the Caloosahatchee River.

There are a lot of sea terms that are related to schooners and sailboats. Schooners seem to have more than most other boats. Schooners and the vocabulary you can use with them make them as colorful as they are attractive under sail.