Ocean Navigator - January/February 2022

Fall rallies recover from COVID slowdown

Boats in Gran Canaria preparing for the 2021 ARC crossing to the Caribbean. Rallies are a popular way for voyagers to cross oceans in the company of other boats. The transatlantic rally known as the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) (www.worldcruising.com) has been around for 35 years. In this year with the COVID pandemic still lingering, there seems to be pent-up demand and the ARC event has 150 entries and even spawned added interest in the ARC’s associated rally the ARC+. The ARC starts from Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands and proceeds 2,700 miles through the northeast trades to…

Victron BMS wins 2021 Husick award

The 2021 winner of the Ocean Navigator Chuck Husick Marine Technology Award is the Lynx Smart Battery Management System (BMS) (www.victronenergy.com/battery-management-systems/lynx-smart-bms). The Lynx unit is a full-featured BMSystem for managing lithium batteries, with capabilities like a battery monitor showing state of charge, a pre-alarm signal, Bluetooth connectivity, local and remote monitoring using a Victron GX device and more. Husick award judge and voyager Rebecca Childress wrote in an email, “Victron makes amazing products and this one sounds like another great way to stay on top of your electrical setup!” The runner-up finalist was the Groco E Valve series with a…

Boating media scholarship

The Boating Writers International (BWI) Active Interest Media Boating Journalist Scholarship was created to honor undergraduate college students who demonstrate a passion for the field of boating media. Applications for this year may be downloaded at www.bwi.org/scholarship-fund and will be accepted through January 15, 2022. If you know a deserving college student who would like to pursue a career in boating journalism, photography, video, broadcasting, film, or art, please encourage them to apply. Judges will look for applicants with talent, promise and firsthand knowledge of the boating life. To be considered for the $3,000 award, deliver applications to 4599 Deep River…

Notable New Titles

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton 368 pp; $15.76 If you’re a big fan of polar exploration and its pantheon of brave leaders –– Shackleton, Ross, Scott, Peary and Franklin –– you probably think you’ve read everything there is to know about these treacherous expeditions to unmapped regions. But you’d be wrong, because until now the story of the ill-fated Antarctic Belgica expedition has never been published in the English language. This extraordinary story of man versus nature was first inspired by a casual reference to the expedition in a 2015 magazine article that Julian Sancton…

What is a marinized engine?

In a recent issue that included a story on repowering, we wrote that Volvo marine marinizes Kubota engines for some of its engine offerings. This point brought a response from Stanley Feigenbaum, one of the founders and former owners of Beta Marine engines in the U.S., who informed us that Volvo uses a diesel engine manufactured by the Shibaura engine company as the basis for some of its marine engines. This was helpful, but it raised the question: what exactly does marinizing an engine mean and why is it important? It’s no surprise that the marine engine market is significantly…

Managing a power rally to Mexico

Christy Donnelly aboard Varnebank running the med-evac emergency, using three mics – the California Baja ham net frequency and two different VHF channels Christy Steinman-Crawford Donnelly herded a fleet of 30 recreational powerboats on a 1,000-nautical-mile voyage down to Mexico, as communications director for the 2019 Cruise Underway to Baja Rally (CUBAR), a bi-annual cruise from San Diego to La Paz, Baja for 30 to 50 powerboats. It was an odyssey that included one medical evacuation at sea. Of course, that was not her first rodeo. Donnelly has navigated and sailed with the “best of the best.” She navigated…

Sail Training in the Gulf of Maine

The schooner Harvey Gamage under sail. Admiral Robin Graf, left, oversees knot-tying practice on the first day of the voyage. Cadets man the jibs during a practice tack. Nothing, not even heavy weather, preempts a birthday cake at the appropriate time. With the foresail already reefed, the Cadets wait for the predicted wind. The training sail took the cadets out into the Atlantic, then back to the Isles of Shoals. Previous Next The sails themselves tell the story: A double-reefed main and single-reefed foresail announce that the ship expects wind, lots of it. The 131-foot schooner Harvey Gamage, operated by…

Balancing and Busses

Dave and Sherry McCampbell aboard their St. Francis 44 Mark II cat Soggy Paws in the Solomon Islands. Prismatic cell compression box. McCampbell’s gear for testing the new batteries. Fotek solid state relay. Voltage Curve Battery 1-5w/ 35A Load Previous Next Editor’s note: Below is Part 2 of an article providing information on choosing and installing a LiFePO4 lithium battery system aboard a cruising sailboat. Part 1 appeared in our 2021 Ocean Voyager annual issue on page 8. Recently we removed 390 pounds of GEL lead acid batteries from our catamaran and replaced them with 100 pounds of lithium (LiFePO4)…

Battery changes?

A boatowner discusses electrical storage products with a battery dealer. Twenty years ago my husband and I were inside a Florida Sam’s Club buying deep-cycle lead acid batteries for our Peterson 44. That same year the Maxi-cat Playstation set a transatlantic speed record with a lithium battery on board. It started a trend in boating. In the years since then, how have lithium batteries done in the boating marketplace? At the 2021 US Sailboat Show in Annapolis I asked vendors whether they sold more lithium than lead acid batteries. Custom Marine Products’ Tom Trimmer said at the last pre-pandemic boat…

Weather models and GRIB files

BY PETER ISLER Weather models and their digitized end product, the GRIB file, are key facets of weather forecasting. An understanding of these elements will help any voyaging sailor to better decipher the weather. When I was in college, I was primarily a dinghy sailor and was just getting started in offshore navigation and race tactics. I knew how to read a weather map and listen to the marine forecast on the VHF radio, but beyond that I just took what Mother Nature gave me. In college, I majored in meteorology since it was the closest subject I could find…