Sail Magazine

Here’s an unlikely tidbit from the Where Are They Now Department. The old maxi racing cat known variously since its 1983 launch as Formula TAG, Enza New Zealand, and Daedulus (among others) has more recently been transformed into a unique high-tech hydrogen-powered vessel that looks to push the envelope on carbon-free marine transport. Now called Energy Observer, the big cat has been lengthened from 24.4 meters to 30.5 meters and carries an amazing array of bleeding-edge energy technology.

We know how dangerous lightning can be to a boat and its crew, but to see it actually strike is something else. After a multi-year DIY refit, the 1978 Bristol 29.9 Perseverance lays at a Dorchester float completely ready for a challenging offshore race, but one second later she’s damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, the owner was not on board, and now he and the CCA have made the lightning damage details available to all of us who should be aware of how perverse and pervasive they can be.

I was lucky enough to do a circumnavigation back when people thought that the world was flat and we had to sail around the edges. Yes it was that long ago. GPS was in its infancy and we double checked our GPS position with a sextant because we didn’t trust the new technology. I say that I was lucky to have done it back then because back ...

The post How many is too many? Читать дальше...

AIS and VHF voice radios operate in the same frequency band, so it’s a natural step to combine the two functions into one device. But, combining a VHF radio and AIS transceiver has proved difficult. Although other manufacturers have tried, Simrad and B&G are the first to make it through approvals and ship radios to boaters. But how does the radio perform in the real world and is this a good choice for all your VHF communications needs?

For me, the Craftsman tool brand mainly harkens back to my dad’s garage workshop more than half a century ago, so now I’d love to see his reaction to this cordless electric screwdriver that knows what you want it to do. You too may amazed at what can be mass-marketed for $25 these days, and how useful it can be around a boat.

These days many coastwise cruisers rely on cellular for their internet needs, but there’s still a place for high power WiFi radios that can connect to harbor hotspots, at least on my boat. And Wave WiFi’s dual-band Rogue Reach model has been making me very happy in this department. The interface shown in part above makes it easy to find and stay locked onto even fairly distant access points, and often they’re in the 5GHz band that most marine WiFi systems can’t see.

Jan. 30/2020: Anyone who has ever tried to fix anything on a boat knows full well that the hardest part normally isn’t the actual fixing itself, but the gathering of the tools and parts and other bits and pieces required to perpetrate the fixing. Metaphorically, it’s something on the order of wanting the nail to shoe the horse for lack of which the king lost his kingdom. Logistically, of course, it’s nothing but a huge pain in the ass.

Garmin’s latest release of MFD software has added support for digital switching. With this update they’ve leapfrogged from the rear of the pack to class leading digital switching support. I was surprised to find the ease of configuring control on Garmin’s MFDs, so I’ve prepared a video that shows how to configure digital switching control.

Magenta Line

The magenta line was first added to charts in 1913. It was created to aid commercial navigation up and down the East Coast and around the Gulf Coast. To aid pilots running through the convoluted mix of waterways, a magenta colored line was drawn on the charts to indicate which rivers, creeks, sounds and canals were interconnected to provide an inshore route between the Chesapeake, FL and the Gulf Coast.  The magenta line was merely like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs.  It is drawn only as a means to find the path. Читать дальше...

I was reading an update on the Cape to Rio race today. It seems like a boat named JM Busha 54 is surging and may well take handicap honors. JM Busha 54? What the heck kind of name is that anyway? Boats, no let me rephrase that, yachts used to be so elegant with beautiful names. I am thinking of the Concordia yawl that was moored in Marblehead harbor for many years. The bright work always gleamed and the name, Cotton Blossom... Читать дальше...