Have Another Day’s cruising season began in earnest about a month and with it came the need for a new planning and underway app.  As you may know from my ActiveCaptain Community app guide, I’ve been paying close attention to what apps support ACC data.  Aqua Map was among the first to integrate with the new API and in the process collected quite a few accolades for the app overall.  I’d looked at Aqua Map quite awhile ago and hadn’t been that impressed.  This year I took another look and either the app has made a lot of progress, ...

While engaged in some heavy-duty procrastination one afternoon, surfing Google in quiet desperation in order to avoid writing an overdue article, I came across a mention of the once-famous foiler L’Hydroptère. It’s not just multihull aficionados who will remember the big trimaran—ten years ago, through the summer and fall of 2008 and into 2009, she made headlines not just in sailing magazines but in the mainstream press. She was, for quite some time, the fastest sailing craft in the world.

Her creator, Alain Thébault, was a friend of legendary ocean racer Eric Tabarly, who eagerly embraced the concept ...

Here we are a shade more than a month into Don McIntyre’s Golden Globe retro tribute race and already the pot is stirring nicely. There are three distinct leaders, Jean-Luc van den Heede (an older but highly experienced solo ocean racer), Philippe Peche, and Mark Slats, all sailing Rustler 36s, with the main peloton not too too far behind. Meanwhile, three sailors have already quit the race altogether, two of them complaining of windvane problems. Another competitor, Antoine Cousot, stopped to regroup in the Canaries, complaining of his windvane and mental stress, then continued sailing in the non-competitive Chichester Class. ...

Aha! The tar-smeared GPS mushroom antenna stuck incongruously in the bow of the mighty 115-foot replica Viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre was not a surprise. That’s because live maritime historical research requires modern aids both by regulation and common sense. And, holy Leif Erikson, what a dim and dangerous history this vessel tested.

I didn’t get a peek into that cabinet as I took the Draken tour with a steady stream of interested Mainers, but I’ll bet there’s a networked Simrad MFD giving the lookouts access to the 4G radar and maybe a forward depth sounder. Which seems pretty prudent ...

A few of the devices lined up on a rail on Have Another Day

There are a lot of WiFi bridges that can connect your boat to the Internet, though as I mentioned in my article on marine internet, depending on WiFi for connectivity while travelling can be hit and miss.  But, without a WiFi bridge the chances of a usable connection decline dramatically because your laptop’s or tablet’s low-power WiFi radio and small internal antenna have limited range, and especially so lower in the boat.  Once you’ve decided to add a WiFi bridge the variety of prices, features, ...

A US versus EU trade war cartoon courtesy of the China Daily seems like a fit illustration of the Navico “2018 Price adjustment warning” recently sent out to dealers (one of whom shared it with Panbo). As you can read below, the company is trying to answer questions about what all the changing tariff changes may do to their costs and hence our costs as well as the business situation for everyone in between.

Navico doesn’t really know yet, but while presently “unaffected by these new tariffs” they warn that “if in future we do see an impact, then we ...

Swing a cat in an anchorage and you’ll hit a boat with an active online presence. When we were in the planning phase of our cruising adventures (the early 2000s), blogging was nascent; only a few recorded their travels. Hungry for information and inspiration, I hung on every word and saved posts for reference; it helped keep the dream alive for years. Now there aren’t just blogs, but a range of social media outlets. What to do? How to decide? I chatted with a couple of our coaching clients about what they do for a broader perspective. Erin is boat ...