Raritan Engineering Company

Your  Marine Toilet Systems  Professionals Know the Frustration of Removing Layers of Bottom Paint   Raritan Engineering  your marine toilet systems experts would like to share with you this week these tips on how to remove many layers of bottom paint. So, a couple of years back, you acquired a good old boat at a pretty good price—thanks to the market—but now you’re wondering how many coats of bottom paint it has. And what kind? You’ve put on a few coats of ablative antifouling since you’ve owned the boat. It has adhered well and has done its job. But each year, the bottom looks rougher and rougher—with big recesses where paint has flaked off. You sweated out some extra prep-work this season, and thought you had a nice, durable subsurface for painting, but each pass of the roller pulls up more paint. What’s going on here? More than likely, you probably have too much paint built up on your hull, and this is affecting adhesion. How much is too much? Well, tha...

Cheap and Easy Boat Cleaners You Can Make At Home   Raritan Engineering  would like to share with you this week some great information about how to make your own boat cleaners. Your marine toilet systems experts talk about how if you’ve got a locker full of nearly empty black-streak cleaners, waterline-stain cleaners, mildew preventers, bilge cleaners, and boat soaps, now is your chance to retire them all and reduce your cleaning arsenal to just four or five products that can fit in a small bucket. This is not our first foray into the topic homemade maintenance supplies.  A few years back we dug into the topic of homemade bronze polishes and found a couple of concoctions that proved their mettle—so to speak.  Home brew No. 1: Salt and vinegar paste Recipe: Dissolve 3 teaspoons of salt into 1 cup of white vinegar. Add enough flour to make a paste, then scoop the paste onto a clean sponge and polish. Rinse with hot water and buff dry with a...

Raritan Marine Toilet Systems Manufacturers Discuss Safety With Jackline Installation   Raritan Engineering  would like to share with you this week some great information regarding jackline installation tips. The “to-do” list begins to swell in October, a month when many northern hemisphere sailors start preparing their boats for offshore passages to warmer climates. High on many lists is the job of installing jacklines—the lines running along the deck to which we attach our safety tethers.  One of the most startling conclusions of our current test was that despite the International Sailing Federation’s (ISAF) generalized approach to jackline standards, the best material for a jackline varies as boat length increases. Importance of Good Boat Maintenance Your  marine toilet systems  professionals talk about how material selection is just one of many details regarding jacklines that deserves careful thought. If you are re-installing your jackli...

Your Marine Toilet Systems Distributors Discuss How Securing Your Boat Saves You Hassles In the Future Raritan Engineering  your marine toilet systems manufacturers would like to share with you this week some information regarding why you need to secure your boat. Two different harbors suffered almost the same fate as Hurricane Irma raked South Florida with hurricane force winds. In both places, tens of thousands of dollars in damage might have been prevented had the owners of large vessels better secured their boats. In Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, a fifty-foot houseboat broke lose from its anchor and went careening through the mooring field where dozens of boats where moored. According to the salvage crews I spoke with, the houseboat was one of the key contributors to the pile-up in the harbor that caused several boats to break loose and go ashore.  The boxy houseboat has a colorful history. It had been moored at Boot Key for years, and its hulking mass made it on...

Your Marine Toilet Distributors at Raritan Discuss Some of the Best Way to Maintain Safety While Using Propane Raritan Engineering  your marine toilet systems manufacturers would like to share with you this week some great information regarding great tips for preventing propane leaks. Simply stated: We are not fans of portable LPG systems on boats. Even fixed propane heating (and cooking) systems that employ all the safety precautions recommended by the American Boat and Yacht Council or comparable advisory bodies can be dangerous, if they are neglected. In the first part of our upcoming series of tests of propane system equipment, marine surveyor Capt. Frank Lanier outlines the basics of marine propane systems. Because propane is heavier than air, it can slip into the bilge undetected, where a spark can set the boat ablaze. Propane locker explosions have also occurred. Here are some of his observations on propane safety: Every LPG system in the United States is ...

Raritan Marine Toilet Systems Experts Discuss the Importance of Keeping Your Hull Clean Raritan Engineering  your marine toilet systems specialists would like to share with you this week some ideas for how to sodablast your boat's hull. Quick. What’s your least favorite boat maintenance project? Cleaning the bilge? Changing the engine oil?  ... How about stripping off several years worth of bottom paint? After that experience, Ralph decided to look into sodablasting, featured in the October 2011 issue of  Practical Sailor . One of the chief complaints you hear about any for-hire boat work is the exorbitant price charged, but once you start to do the math—and start thinking about your health—a $1,500 fore-hire sodablasting job doesn’t seem so indulgent.   One of the biggest mistakes an owner makes when estimating how much time it takes to strip a hull is to peck away at one of the easy spots where the paint is peeling and then assume the rest of...

Your  Marine Toilet Systems  Professionals Know the Frustration of Removing Layers of Bottom Paint   Raritan Engineering  your marine toilet systems experts would like to share with you this week these tips on how to remove many layers of bottom paint. So, a couple of years back, you acquired a good old boat at a pretty good price—thanks to the market—but now you’re wondering how many coats of bottom paint it has. And what kind? You’ve put on a few coats of ablative antifouling since you’ve owned the boat. It has adhered well and has done its job. But each year, the bottom looks rougher and rougher—with big recesses where paint has flaked off. You sweated out some extra prep-work this season, and thought you had a nice, durable subsurface for painting, but each pass of the roller pulls up more paint. What’s going on here? More than likely, you probably have too much paint built up on your hull, and this is affecting adhesion. How much is too much? Well, tha...