Every year our team of judges looks at what’s new and innovative in the always-changing field of marine technology for determine what product show win the Chuck Husick Marine Technology Award. We cast a wide net because that fits with the interests of Chuck Husick, who had a universal interest in marine technology — in fact, in all kinds technology! Chuck was involved in everything from helping to develop marine communications standards like AIS via his work with the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime (RTCM) to inventing a new type of raw water strainer fitting that is manufactured by Groco Marine and many things in between.
After the judges considered all the nominees, they chose a final winner for the 2015 Husick Award: PredictWind, a web-based weather forecasting and weather routing service with tracking, departure planning, alerts, etc. Husick award judge and sailing voyager John Lewis, who recently circumnavigated on board Active Transport, his Tayana 37 pilothouse cutter, said: "My vote goes to the PredictWind software tools, which we found very useful, even at high latitudes like Alaska and Tasmania."
Below is a complete list of the nominated products.
Furuno TZ Touch2 MFD series — Multifunction displays with a refined graphical user interface using new “Edge Swipe” motion, built-in RezBoost Fish Finder and an internal GPS antenna.
www.furunousa.com
Standard Horizon HX870 — A floating 6-watt hand-held VHF radio with an internal GPS receiver.
standardhorizon.com
Garmin BlueChart Mobile 2.0 — An iPhone and iPad app that allows users to plan and view routes and then wirelessly transfer those routes to a compatible Garmin-networked chartplotter.
www.garmin.com
Simrad HALO radar — A solid state radar that combines traditional pulse and broadband radar and uses pulse compression technology.
www.simrad-yachting.com
Ocean Signal MOB1 — A personal locating AIS man-overboard device with integrated digital selective calling (DSC).
oceansignal.com
Mantus Anchor Mate — A stainless steel and polyurethane bracket that holds your anchor securely on its bow roller.
mantusanchors.com
PredictWind — A web-based weather forecasting and weather routing service with tracking, departure planning, alerts, etc.
www.predictwind.com
FLIR Ocean Scout — A compact marine thermal hand-held night vision camera.
flir.com
Motorola Moto G 2015 edition — An IPX7-rated water-resistant Android smartphone.
www.motorola.com
Marinco/Mastervolt ProInstaller Series Clustering System — Modular assemblies for making the installation of electronic components easier.
www.marinco.com
Winboat folding RIB — A dinghy that folds into a compact package for easier storage.
www.winboat.net
Crestomer 1152PA — A new structural adhesive for demanding marine applications.
www.scottbader.com
Maretron TSM1330C — A vessel monitoring and control touchscreen.
www.maretron.com
Swell Advantage — A mobile marine app for navigation and social media.
swelladvantage.com
Our 2015 Chuck Husick Award judges:
Ben Ellison — Marine electronics writer, editor and owner of Panbo.com
Roger Hellyar-Brooke — Marine systems expert installer
John Kettlewell — Marine author and editor
Wayne Canning — Marine surveyor, writer and electronics installer
Lawrence Husick — Marine writer and boatowner
Paul Exner — Marine writer, offshore voyaging instructor at Modern Geographic
John Lewis — Marine writer and voyaging circumnavigator
Alex Agnew — Sailor and Ocean Navigator publisher
Tim Queeney — Sailor and Ocean Navigator editor
