Laminating made cheap and easy

This great tip comes from PacificSailors

It's always nice to keep things dry on a boat, so if you don't want to buy a bulky (and expensive) laminating machine and the pricey pouches that go with it, go get some clear contact paper. Then simply put the paper you want to protect between two sheets of the sticky stuff. Trim it to leave a quarter to half an inch of contact paper around the edges.

I use it for our marina emergency card that used to always stick to the window and make the ink run. Also great for those pre-departure checklists. You can even write on it with a dry-erase marker! 

Best of all it takes up a lot less space and doesn't use any electricity!

Cooking with the Sun

Save money on fuel and be kind to the environment by cooking with the sun. They are also great for keeping the heat on the outside of the boat on hot days.

Cooking with a solar oven can be a lot of fun but they cost anywhere from $20 to over $300! Build your own solar oven with these simple plans available in many languages. Many of these solar cookers fold flat to save space and all you need is some cardboard, aluminum foil, and glue.

For more information about solar cooking take a look at these books.

Solar Cooking

Cooking with Sunshine

Make your own soda and save space and money

Not enough room on board to carry a large variety of sodas? Don't feel like carrying hundreds of cans of soda to your boat during provisioning? Save money, space and your back, and get huge variety by making it yourself with this handy gadget!

Just fill the included reusable carbonating bottle with water, add the flavoring of your choice, screw it into the machine and press the large button on top to add fizz. When the bottle is empty simply rinse it and use it again - no trash to store. Oh, and if that wasn't enough... it doesn't use any electricity! 
Via galleyswap.com

What your broker probably didn't tell you

We've been shopping for a larger cruising/live-aboard boat for a couple of years now and just last weekend we were told about soldboats.com. This website is a part of yachtworld.com that is only accessible to brokers and contains the prices of all boats listed on yachtworld and what they SOLD for! A broker can also look at the ads of the sold boats and get some idea of the condition of the boat and the options that it sold with.

So, the next time you are looking at a boat for sale ask your broker to print you out the sales history of that particular model. It will help you a lot when making an offer. Below you can see the Pacific Seacraft 34's that sold between January 2008 and now.

Listed Price Sold Price 34' Pacific Seacraft 1996 139,000 (10/06) 125,000 (02/08) CA, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1996 139,000 (02/08) 129,000 (03/08) CA, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1995 129,000 (09/07) 119,000 (05/09) MD, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 119,500 (09/08) 95,000 (10/09) MA, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 99,000 (06/10) 90,000 (12/10) MD, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 139,900 (07/07) 128,000 (12/09) ME, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 149,000 (11/08) 140,000 (03/09) MD, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 109,500 (06/05) 99,000 (09/10) ME, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1994 142,000 (06/08) 133,500 (04/10) WI, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1993 129,900 (08/07) 107,000 (04/08) NC, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1993 99,000 (10/08) 90,000 (12/08) WI, USA 34' Pacific Seacraft 1993 151,879 (09/07) 134,756 (03/08) BC, Can 34' Pacific Seacraft  1993 129,900 (08/07) 125,000 (03/08) CT, USA

Via pacificsailors.com