Wanderer Category: Hints and Tips

Having found that occasionally additional fendering is both useful and necessary while river cruising, especially when passing through a lock, or tying-up alongside a rough river-bank, the problem was how to attach conventional fenders to a Wanderer that is short of convenient attachment points. The solution was to run a line from the bow fitting along both sides of the deck, passing through the spinnaker reaching hooks and halyard leads then back to the swivel block and guy cleats. The line can be held taught and is suitable for attaching fenders at any point along the hull. Having established this as a practical solution to the problem, I then came across something even better! A chandler came up with suction-mounted fender attachments – basically they are PVC suckers with adjustable lengths of webbing -strap to which fenders can be attached. These stick well to any smooth surface of which there are

If you feel the need to attach fenders to your wanderer, here is how I have arranged mine:- I have a bow fender, a “V” shaped thing, about 14″ across. It has a strap at the apex of the “V” and two holes, one at each of the other extremities. To the aperture in the strap I have added an 1.5inch snap hook which attaches to a short, adjustable line* from the bow fitting. The other two holes in the bow fender are joined by another line which forms a larger “V” than the fender itself. This line is then joined to another line ,with a free-running loop, to the mooring cleat on the foredeck. The purpose of this arrangement is to allow the fender to be stowed, without detaching, under the boat cover when not in use; only the snap hook needs to be released. The short adjustable line from

If you mostly sail with a crew, like to row or use an outboard, want to rig a simple boat tent or have a picnic afloat while at anchor of secured to a mooring buoy then you will know all about the inconvenience of having to accommodate the boom and mainsail within the boat while undertaking any of the above. One way to increase the space available on board, and thereby everyone’s comfort, would be to leave the boom and sail rigged but with the sail lowered. If this could be achieved then the extra headroom and comfort would be most welcome. How is this to be done? – by borrowing an additional rigging system from the big yachts, namely the Topping Lift. This system essentially keeps the boom horizontal with the sail down by supporting the outward end of the boom with a line run through a block at

I had some problems with the centre board; It didn’t want to stay down after storage. It seemed that the “park” position compressed the friction pad so that it wouldn’t hold in the down or part-down position.In order to rectify this I added a 22mm wide strip of aluminium (B&Q) to the existing strip of keel band above the polythene tubing. I also inserted a 42mm Halfords rubber exhaust ring (79p) into the polythene tube and replaced the whole assembly. The theory behind this was that the rubber ring compressed as it was into the tube would add just enough resilience to enable the friction pad to expand into the centre board casing and provide some resistance. So far it has been successful, although I haven’t left it “parked” for more than a week yet; and I hope I wont have to! I was able to do this with the centre board