Garage, Galley & Hangar
Free tools

Tools for people about to spend real money

No sign-up, no email wall. These run the published formulas and the government databases on your numbers, and they say plainly where a number stops being trustworthy.

At sea

Boat HIN decoder

Free HIN decoder. Paste a 12-character Hull Identification Number to read the builder code, hull serial, build date and model year, plus the three HIN

On land

Car VIN decoder

Free VIN decoder: reads the factory record from the government vPIC database and validates the check digit, which is how you catch a re-stamped or fab

At sea

Sailboat ratios

Free sailboat calculator for hull speed, displacement/length, sail area/displacement, ballast ratio, capsize screening and Brewer motion comfort, with

On land

Power to weight

Free calculator for pounds per horsepower, hp per ton, kW per tonne, and road speed per 1000 rpm from your gear ratio, final drive and tire size, with

In the air

Weight and balance

Free weight and balance calculator: enter each station's weight and arm and check total weight and CG against your aircraft's own envelope. Arithmetic

At sea

Maintenance intervals

Free service schedule generator for Yanmar, Ford Lehman, Atomic 4, Perkins, Volvo Penta MD, Westerbeke and classic car engines, with the reason behind

At sea

What should I pay

Free offer calculator. Enter the asking price and what your inspection found, and it works out an offer plus the first-year costs of survey, insurance

Everything here is free and stays free. We publish reference volumes and pre-purchase inspection kits, and some of our gear pages carry affiliate links. That is how the tools get paid for.

The pre-purchase inspection kits What to bring