Ask Steve

Text and photos © 2020 Steve D'Antonio Marine Consulting, Inc. Photo Essay: Means of Escape The recent fire and resulting fatalities aboard the dive boat Conception,...

Hello Steve, I'm a long time reader, the first time was with PassageMaker about 14 years ago.  I have a question, can I put...

Photo Essay: Closed Cooling System Hose Failure While both must be reliable and robust, hoses used for conveying coolant (often incorrectly referred to as anti-freeze)...

Photo Essay: Avoiding Heat Shrink Butt Splice Woes Butt splices are ubiquitous, the average 50-foot vessel contains scores, perhaps even a hundred or more of...

Photo Essay: Core Exposure Virtually every fiberglass vessel afloat today, even those that boast of solid fiberglass hulls rely on core material to add stiffness...

Hi Steve, You often see shore cords in the water for a few feet between the pedestal and the boat.  Sometimes it is difficult...

From the Masthead Let me begin by apologizing to Marine Systems Excellence readers for our hiatus.  As most boat owners, and virtually anyone who is...

Photo Essay: There’s Bronze and there’s Bronze Bronze, an alloy made from copper and tin, has long been used for raw water components aboard recreational,...

Text and photos by Steve D’Antonio Copyright © 2017 Photo Essay: Battery Lugs Reliably connecting batteries to their associated cables sounds easy.  In practice, however, it can be fraught...

Photo Essay: Lifeline Corrosion While plastic coated wire lifelines are a ubiquitous aspect of small boat safety, they aren’t without their shortcomings.  Long ago, while...