Wind went light overnight, but that wasn’t so much the issue as the SE setting current we had to plow through. Speeds over the ground were four knots and less, though we were much faster through the water.
Rain by sunrise with a twenty knot northwesterly and a deck of very serious cloud, low and ragged and a reminder that this is not the tropics and our blessedly steady wind is not blowing trade ...
Many times I’ve wished I could step away from Have Another Day‘s helm but still control the engines from a better vantage point, or from where I want to handle a line. So it was great when Dockmate U.S. representatives came to Gulfport, FL to install their wireless remote system for me to review. In this entry, I’ll describe the system and my experiences with using it so far, which have been positive.
The System
The Dockmate receiver installed under Have Another Day’s upper helm
I just can’t get enough of this boat, the new Ultime trimaran built for the French sailing star Thomas Coville. It was splashed for the first time a couple of weeks ago and this past week they took it out on the first of a series of sea trials. The thing is a beast but is it going to be a game changer? Their technical ...
There is no official source (NOAA, USCG, USACE) which suggests that the magenta line should be treated as a chartplotter route.
The ICW was laid out in 1913. Chartplotters were not very accurate 100 years ago! To aid pilots running down the coast, a magenta colored line was drawn on the charts to indicate which rivers, creeks, sounds and canals were all interconnected to provide an inshore route between the Chesapeake and FL. The Magenta line was merely like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs. It is merely a means to find the path. The captains in those days monitored their
We have traversed this section 4 times in the past 2 years. We use NOAA charts updated daily in Coastal Explorer and we use Navionics Sonar Charts. For some reason the NOAA charts in this intersection are all dated 2015. I am not sure why the charts on the NOAA site have not been updated. But Navionics Sonar charts have steered us through here every time with no issue. And while Aqua Map base maps are NOAA (and show the NOAA 2015 charts), they have recently added the USACE surveys as part of their Aqua Map Master app. The USACE ...
If you need a small NMEA 2000 network, Actisense’s all-in-one 4 Way at upper left is an especially simple and rugged way to go. In fact, it includes all the components seen in their starter kit at right and the resulting network is a bit better as it will offer four female N2K connectors for drop cables to devices like plotters and sensors while one of the starter kit’s four connectors will be occupied by the power drop.
On the other hand, the Actisense RIB Starter Kit is a better choice if the N2K network backbone ever needs to ...
I had been in my bunk an hour when Mo began to pound. Winds were the better part of 30 knots on the beam and the sea had been bouldery all day, so I knew we had rounded up. But why? I got up and suited up.
In the pilot house, the chart plotter showed Mo doing a handy seven knots (good) but due north (not good). Once in the cockpit, I saw that Monte’s tiller ...
#260. Mark Jablow is a sailor and former Air Force B1 Bomber ‘RIO’ – that’s Radar Intercept Officer (think Goose from Top Gun, the guy who sits in the back seat). Mark sailed with us on ISBJORN last summer from Ireland down to Portugal and we immediately made a connection. Put it this way – Mark is still active duty Air Force, and if I had met someone of his caliber when I was young, I may just have joined the forces. Mark & I discussed his Air Force and sailing career, and dove into some technical stuff about radar ...
It’s fun when you’ve been cruising for a bunch of years and can find delight in a few new pieces of kit on board. Here are a few new additions to Totem that earn their keep very nicely. What does that have to do with whales? read on!
Laser rangefinder. OK, this has been on Jamie’s wish list for years: in fact, I cited it in a blog post SEVEN years ago as lingering on Jamie’s wish list. It always seemed like the ~$150 we didn’t need to spend, and hey, we’re frugal cruisers. A generous friend gifted us ...
We have traversed this section 4 times in the past 2 years. We use NOAA charts updated daily in Coastal Explorer and we use Navionics Sonar Charts. For some reason the NOAA charts in this intersection are all dated 2015. I am not sure why the charts on the NOAA site have not been updated. But Navionics Sonar charts have steered us through here every time with no issue. And while Aqua Map base maps are NOAA (and show the NOAA 2015 charts), they have recently added the USACE surveys as part of their Aqua Map Master app. The USACE ...
