“This post was written by our friend and Isbjorn’s racing skipper Paul Exner, of moderngeographic.com. Paul writes from Chiapas, Mexico, where he’s onboard his Cape George Cutter ‘Solstice,’ that he built himself. He’s en route to Hawaii, relocating his family after Hurricane Irma destroyed their home and way of life on Tortola in the BVI. Family & heavy weather is on Paul’s mind as he readies ‘Solstice’ to cross the Pacific…
How Paul Exner Thinks About Heavy Weather Sailing
Heavy Weather Sailing is an unavoidable and necessary part of being a yachtsman. Either you embrace it and ...
In the following video, it’s March 17th. As the sun sets, Mo and I have fewer than 80 miles to Tasmania. It’s been a month since the knockdown that is requiring this stopover, and now we’re racing another large low-pressure system. I can see it coming. Will we beat it to South East Cape? …
(P.S. Go to the next day’s post, South East Cape, to see how the approach turned out.)
Though multifunction displays have been steadily gaining new functions, the Seakeeper and Lumishore buttons above represent a new era. Garmin calls it OneHelm, but the underlying HTML5 app technology is an important innovation that all the major MFD manufacturers are embracing. It significantly simplifies the process of creating MFD control for other manufacturer’s onboard systems, and so a lot of interesting integration options like these will soon be available.
South of McClellanville This long-standing shoal stretch has not dredged itself. It seem to be filling in at a slow rate, and in the past year has shoaled another 3-6 inches.
The chart below covers this shallow stretch. It starts at G47 Awendaw Creek and ends at G35A Jeremy Creek, McClellanville. From G47 to R42 just stay in visual center to have depths of 8 to 20 feet MLLW. Between R42 and G39 we saw several spots showing as little as 6.6 feet and we had +3.1 of help. This means that these areas would have 3.5 feet MLLW. In ...
Jeanneau Owners in 2016 on the beach at Pirate’s Bight on Norman Island
If ever there was a year not to go to the British Virgin Islands (BVI), this year is it. Or is it? Yes, the BVI got trounced by Hurricane Irma back in September. Yes, there was a huge number of boats lost. And yes, many of the areas best known resorts such as The Bitter End Yacht Club and Peter Island Resort and Spa, have been forced to close their doors and sit out the season until repairs are made. Despite all this, the British Virgin ...
Aqua Map’s Giorgio Ghiggini confirmed via email today that his company will modify their apps to support the new Garmin ActiveCaptain Community application program interface (API): “Yes, we are going to integrate the new ActiveCaptain APIs soon. At a first look it does not seem to be a huge rework.”
This certainly seems like good news for those who rely on Active Captain overlays for awareness while underway. Since Garmin pulled BlueCharts Mobile from the Apple App Store, many cruisers have been looking for a good alternative with some assurance that ActiveCaptain Community data would remain available.
The Dutch yacht Team Brunel has won an exciting and very tense Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race. They crossed the finish line off Itajaí, Brazil at 14:57 UTC
Dawho Creek STM 495 has been a growing area of concern. It has shoaled to less than 6 feet at MLLW and you do not have to be far of course to see less than 5 feet. There are USACE surveys through Dawho Creek from the fall of 2017. They show a deep-water route to the north of the marked USCG channel. Bob Sherer, more well known by his Active Captain handle of bob423, has plotted waypoints along this new route. Bob asked me to beta test the route March 27. Here is our track, waypoints and depth findings along ...
For the most part, the boating season here on the Chesapeake Bay is pretty much toast. Oh, there are still a few boats running around and of course the diehard racers are still out there but for all practical purposes the season is over. Last week however, we had a nice stretch of indian summer with unseasonably warm temps in the mid-seventies, clear blue skies, and plenty of sunshine. This, along with the fall foliage being just about at its peak, served up the perfect conditions to head out onto ...
It’s March 13. We’re a week from Hobart–if I can keep Mo moving. But at latitude 44S, we’re encountering light winds. I decide to motor, but five minutes after I start the engine, it dies.
Great, what now? …
(Spoiler: my sincerest thanks to Gerd Marggraff for helping me get the engine going again. I read all the pertinent parts of my Calder book, but Gerd’s experience and expertize turned out to be the more valuable.)
Winegard, a 64-year-old manufacturer of antenna products, has entered the marine market with three products. Two are broadcast television antennas, one the familiar indoor flexible, flat panel type, and the other an exterior omnidirectional antenna. Their third launch device is the Winegard Connect, a combination WiFi bridge, cellular modem and router. All three products are made in Burlington, IA.
The Winegard Connect is unusual because the company also handles the cellular data service. While actual connectivity is provided by AT&T with North American roaming, Winegard sells prepaid bandwidth in 1, 3, 10 and 20gb packs. When I sat down with ...
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South of McClellanville This long-standing shoal stretch has not dredged itself. It seem to be filling in at a slow rate, and in the past year has shoaled another 3-6 inches.
