The brand new, and heavily updated, edition of Jan and Bill Moeller's cockpit cruising handbook for the ICW is now available. (The Intracoastal Waterway: Norfolk to Miami. The Complete Cockpit Cruising Guide. $29.95. The McGraw-Hill Companies/International Marine.) I was fortunate enough to be able to take over the work on this book from Bill, with his blessing, and we've added a ton of new information. The descriptions of places, navigation, marinas, anchorages, and just about everything else, is expanded, improved, and updated. However, we retained the basic mile-by-mile format of the orginal book, which puts all the vital navigational information right at your fingertips. My wife and I first used this book when we headed south in 1985, and it has been on the market since 1979, proving its popularity.…
John Kettlewell has been voyaging and living aboard a variety of sailboats for about 27 years. In fact, he's owned eight very different voyaging sailboats and says, "I love trying out new boats." These boats have ranged from an Angus Primrose-designed, flush-decked cutter to a classic Aage Nielsen wooden double-ender, a 32-foot French catamaran to his current craft of choice, Minke, a 38-foot Finnsailer motorsailer. Kettlewell has lived aboard a series of boats for more than 12 years in a row, including several cold New England winters. Now in his second year of ownership of Minke, Kettlewell and his family have sailed the boat from Rhode Island down the East Coast to Florida and then across the Caribbean to Panama and now Colombia.Kettlewell and his wife Leslie first began voyaging…
There is nothing quite so discouraging as finding your outboard motor won’t start after a period of non-usage, or even worse, after arriving in a new port with our anticipation of dinghying ashore to do some exploring. We have all been there, cursing at our non-functioning motors as we slowly row off while our crew pretends they aren’t noticing. Don’t be Fuelish However, there are a few simple things you can do to avoid outboard despair. The basic requirements of any gasoline-powered internal combustion engine are clean fuel, clean air and a good spark at the right interval. Of course, there are more nuances for each requirement, but begin with the basics. A cardinal rule of purchasing gasoline is to do so at places that pump a lot of fuel.…
Voyage planning and prepping starts with choosing your schedule based on weather, desired route, and many other considerations that require both online and offline information resources. In addition, a critical planning component is deciding what spare parts and supplies you will need, based on your boat’s characteristics, the length of your voyage, and its destinations. Obviously, the first consideration that will determine all else is where you want to go. For most of us that is the easy part of the process. We have been dreaming about the big trip for years and imagining what it will be like. But you can’t just cast off the mooring lines and set sail when you feel like it. Major considerations, aside from any land commitments you may have, include the best season…
By John Kettlewell We all have a tendency to blame the hammer when we hit our thumb with it. It's the same with anchors. You sail into a beautiful but crowded harbor, drop the hook while looking forward to celebrating with an evening cocktail, only to find the darn thing isn't holding and instead of that Marguerita you have to pull on a mucky chain. Sometimes this process is repeated several times until something goes right and you have a solid bite, or you give up and look for a mooring. Since I've been anchoring cruising boats for close to half a century I've had many moments of reflection around this problem. Perusing several online cruising forums recently, I am not alone in pondering why an anchor works sometimes and…
Certain harbors are gathering places for sailors headed offshore. Back in the good old days I met a lot of fellow cruisers while arguing about the weather as we holed up waiting for a weather window to jump offshore. The sources of information were few — pretty much everyone shared the same data. Here in the USA the main sources were NOAA Coastal, Offshore, and High Seas text forecasts, gathered by weather fax, VHF and SSB radio. Sometimes we downloaded small-scale (large area) weather maps that gave us very general information on huge areas of ocean. And sometimes we just walked up to the weather station, as in Bermuda. Offshore, many of us didn’t get further updates, except possibly some scratchy voice forecasts via SSB radio. We usually sailed with…
Refrigeration trends for voyagers Whenever cruising boaters gather marine refrigeration is always a hot topic. Back in the day it was a lot more controversial due to the prevalence of competing system philosophies, but what was once the new kid on the block now dominates. And the winners, by a long shot, are the many different 12-volt powered systems, either in self-contained refrigerators that are semi-permanently installed or as the cooling equipment for a custom built-in fridge. In the past you used to see a lot of rugged, long-distance cruising boats with refrigeration compressors powered by belts from the main engine, or in some cases running on 12/24 volts or 120/240 volts from a generator. These compressors were used to bring down the temperature of big holding plates that maintained the cold…
Using every resource available to get a comprehensive weather picture When it comes to weather information, ocean voyagers can never have too much help, and with today’s connected world there are many ways to gather as much data as you want or need. However, some of the tried-and-true sources that have been in use for decades or longer still form the basis of every voyager’s toolkit. Long ago a friend who voyaged regularly across the Atlantic and back on tiny, simple homemade boats gave me a piece of weather advice I have never forgotten and that still remains true today. When I asked him what he used to get weather while at sea he said he used nothing! Instead, he noted that even the best forecasts tended to be…
[gtx_gallery] Now that many of us have learned the joys and perils of working from home (WFH) and the always-connected 24/7 life, you may have decided it is time to get away from it all and sail over the horizon. Sick and tired of receiving urgent text messages at midnight? Mad because there is no longer an excuse not to check in? Longing for the days when the phrase, “Sorry, I didn’t have a connection,” was a legitimate excuse? Thanks to the availability of satellite phones, being anchored in that fabled tropical lagoon in the middle of the Pacific is no longer an excuse for kicking back and relaxing. Look on the bright side. Today’s satellite phones, devices, software, and accessories mean you can now reach mom on her birthday,…
Now that many of us have learned the joys and perils of working from home (WFH) and the always-connected 24/7 life, you may have decided it is time to get away from it all and sail over the horizon. Sick and tired of receiving urgent text messages at midnight? Mad because there is no longer an excuse not to check in? Longing for the days when the phrase, “Sorry, I didn’t have a connection,” was a legitimate excuse? Thanks to the availability of satellite phones, being anchored in that fabled tropical lagoon in the middle of the Pacific is no longer an excuse for kicking back and relaxing. Look on the bright side. Today’s satellite phones, devices, software, and accessories mean you can now reach mom on her birthday, like…
