Ocean Navigator - Ocean Navigator

31 Oct

Fifty Years of Diesels

Ocean NavigatorEngines and Propulsion

My wife Terrie and I built our first boat, an Ingrid 39 called Nada, in Louisiana, funded by a job in the Gulf of Mexico oilfields. A few years earlier Terrie and I were aboard my brother Chris’ boat — which was equipped with a hard-to-start Thorneycroft engine — when the boat was nearly sunk by a freighter in the English Channel. The image of that freighter bearing down on us, which had given me nightmares for years afterwards, was implanted in my brain. I was determined to have an engine that could be depended upon to start both electrically and…

31 Oct

An unlikely rescue

Ocean NavigatorNav Problems

The following sounds like a fairy tale, but it isn’t. Peter Warner wasn’t happy. He’d cruised more than 2,000 nautical miles from Australia to ask the king of the nation of Tonga for permission and the necessary permits to fish for the highly prized spiny lobster that thrived in those waters. The king had refused his request, and now Warner and his crew, aboard the fishing trawler Just David, were returning home. Passing a small island in an archipelago of 169 islands that make up the nation of Tonga, they passed the small uninhabited island of Ata. Scanning the shore…

28 Oct

Voyaging Tips, October 2021

Ocean NavigatorVoyaging Tips

When you head off on passage you leave behind access to stores, chandleries, and parts delivery; if you didn't bring it with you you're not going to find it at the mythical half-way barge. What you can do is plan ahead and bring repair materials along, including glues, tapes, adhesives and the like. Armed with these you can keep a fair bit of equipment operational. Note that there's little value in having materials without also understanding where and how to use them. Know where systems are located/routed on your boat and know how to use the materials at hand to…

15 Oct

An unlikely rescue – Answers

Ocean NavigatorNav Problems

ANSWERS A. 23 hours, 25 minutes GMT B. Ho 84° 06.3’ C. Latitude 25° 20.7’ S

01 Oct

Furuno leads the pack in 2021 NMEA Awards

Ocean NavigatorHome Page Hero, Ocean Navigator, Ocean VoyagingFuruno, marine electronics, NMEA, NMEA 0183, NMEA 2000, NMEA Awards

Most voyagers are probably most familiar with the initial NMEA as part of a networking designation, either NMEA 0183 or NMEA 2000. Maybe not as many could tell you that NMEA stands for the National Marine Electronics Association. Or that NMEA includes all the top marine electronics manufacturers or that the NMEA has a yearly conference at which the organization gives out awards in a variety of categories. This year marine electronics manufacturer Furuno was the overall winner, taking home seven awards, including the Technology Award for its NavNet TZT16F TZtouch 3 v2. The 2021 NMEA conference was held…

28 Sep

NMEA NAMES 2021 AWARD WINNERS AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXPO

Ocean NavigatorIndustry & Company News, Press release

• NMEA Product of Excellence Awards presented in 18 categories • NMEA Best New Product Award goes to Shadow-Caster’s Light Commander • NMEA Technology Award goes to Furuno’s NavNet TZT16F • NMEA Manufacturer of the Year—Garmin Twenty products garnered top honors in three separate award competitions at the 2021 NMEA Marine Electronics Conference & Expo, held last week at the Orlando Doubletree Universal Hotel in Florida. NMEA members cast their votes online in 18 categories for the Product of Excellence Awards while a panel of independent judges named winners in both the NMEA Technology Award and Best New Product contests.…

20 Sep

Marine Electronics, September 2021

Ocean NavigatorMarine Technology

Under normal conditions, we can expect our starter and house battery banks to be topped off regularly by the engine alternator and solar panels, along with perhaps a wind generator and water generator system, depending on our charging array. But when we need to charge a nearly dead battery in short order, it pays to have a portable charger handy to get the boat’s electrical system back in shape as quickly as possible. If you are looking for a durable, inexpensive charger capable of starting your main engine and charging your cranking battery bank, the Stanley BC15BS is a highly…

16 Sep

Stolen sailboat sails into hurricane

Ocean NavigatorHome Page Hero, Ocean Voyaging, Uncategorized, Web Exclusive

In an unusual and apparently tragic case reported on Boatwatch.org , a boat was stolen from its mooring and was sailed into a hurricane where a distress signal was sent but the boat was never found. On Friday, Sept. 10, 2021 Graham Collins, the owner of a C&C 35 named Secret Plans, received a call at his work place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The U.S. Coast Guard had called to tell him that a personal locator beacon registered to Collins had been set off in the Atlantic 390 miles southeast of Halifax. The position of the PLB signal put it…

01 Sep

Cooking up a cyclone

Ocean NavigatorWeatherENSO, hurricanes, marine weather, tropical cyclone development, tropical cyclones, wind shear

As the June to November hurricane season evolves, attention will gradually focus on certain conditions of both atmosphere and ocean — six specific factors, or “ingredients.” Not only are these factors necessary, but their timing needs to be synchronized to cook up a cyclone. A number of those “ingredients” can be affected by the status of ENSO, a known, periodic, irregular (two to seven year cycle), tropical climactic seesaw of atmospheric pressure, sea surface temperature and winds. Finally, an unanticipated factor may appear that warps model predictions of a potential storm’s genesis, intensity and track – an effect sometimes dubbed…

01 Sep

Skipper Tips For Every Day

Ocean NavigatorNotable New Titlesnautical knowledge, practical tips, sailing tips, voyaging tips

Skipper Tips For Every Day By Fridtjof Gunkel 2021; 204 pp; Adlard Coles; Paperback $20 A friend of mine who served in the Marines used to say that the motto of his branch wasn’t Semper Fi so much as it was, “improvise, adapt, and overcome.” We sailors are a resourceful and thrifty lot, always searching for new ways to kludge a solution to the myriad problems that arise on our boats. A little PVC here, a boat pole there and a whole lot of bungee cord wherever it does the job; that’s how you turn a one-design boat into your…