Watch this video to see our top 10 boat life tips that will help to make your surroundings cleaner, life aboard the boat safer, and a few things that we do to simply make cruising life more enjoyable and easier.
10 Top Boat Life Tips Video
Top 10 Boat Life Tips List – First 5
- Make cleaning your heads shower tap easy – tie a bag around the head after filling it half full with vinegar. Secure with a zip tie, fill up with water so the head is covered in the water and vinegar mixture. Leave overnight. Save bag to reuse for the next cleaning.
- Clean your topside fiberglass with quick results – Get the magic white sponge. It doesn’t have to be the Mr. Clean brand, it can be any white sponge. They all do the trick.
- The trick to having a constant ‘reliable’ Internet connection on the boat is to have more than one data package. We have 100g with Digicel from a French provider for $55 USD/month and we have 25g from a UK provider for around $80 USD/month. At times we’ll get a local SIM card too. By having multiple providers, when goes down you just turn on the other. Your best bet is to buy from different carriers.
- An easy trick for ice-cold water – fill a water bottle halfway and put it in your freezer. The water will freeze and there’s still space to fill up the rest of the water bottle with water.
- Have a ready-packed go-to-shore bag always available. Before leaving our boat we just grab our go-to-shore bag knowing that it has everything we need. This is one of our favorite top 10 boat life tips! Fill your waterproof bag with your boat/dinghy keys, dinghy light, kill cord, sun cream, bug spray, and masks.
Top 10 Boat Life Tips List – Second 5
- A back of boat support line for sugar scoop disembarkation – tie a line with spaced-out knots and a loop at the end to the back of your boat. When you get out of the dinghy, you can grab the line and hoist yourself safely to the back of the boat.
- Flip-flop blowouts are a common occurrence with cruisers. By carrying one of those plastic tabs that close bread you’ll be able to buy some time. Use the tab to stick around the toe piece under the shoe and you’ll be good to go.
- Dinghy security. Thieves want your outboard and/or fuel but they’ll steal your whole dinghy to get both. The trick is to make your dinghy look harder to steal and than others around you. We lock our outboard to our boat back panel bolts, our fuel tanks to the boat floor and when we’re on shore we lock a huge chain to a secure area on the dinghy dock.
- Attach a carabiner clip to the dinghy painter – by doing so you can easily jump onto the boat and fix the dinghy in seconds rather than fiddling with the line around the cleat.
- If you haven’t purchased a boat yet, make sure to try before you buy. Come join us on Britican for a week to determine if all the money, time, and emotion spent will be worth it for you to pursue. More about our Britican Experience here.
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Recent reviews for Checklists For Sailors:
Rated 5 out of 5
Laura Read (verified owner) – January 18, 2021
I am a new boat owner and this is exactly what I needed. Very thorough yet clear. Thanks for all the time and anxiety you have spared me, Kim
Rated 5 out of 5
Martijn Maas (verified owner) – January 22, 2021
Excellent book! Practical tips. It saves me a lot of time generating my own checklist. And to be honest, there is a lot of stuff that I hadn’t thought of. It’s a bargain to get all of the lessons learned in one doc. Thanks a lot!
Rated 5 out of 5
Lisa Pedone – January 23, 2021
This book is an absolute must for cruisers! All of the hard work has been done for you. I just bought my first boat and the information in this book is invaluable!
Rated 5 out of 5
Roberto Sandoval – January 27, 2021
Great book. Looking forward to putting the list into action.
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